Atomic pressure

American diplomat will travel from Pyongyang to Beijing and Moscow

Today, an American delegation led by Special Representative for North Korean Affairs Stephen Bosworth will arrive in Pyongyang for a three-day visit. The delegation includes US representative to the six-party talks Sung Kim and a number of officials from the State Department and the National Security Council. Bosworth will meet with Deputy Head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry Kang Sok-ju. The negotiations will raise issues of resuming six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue with the participation of two Korean states and also Russia, the United States, China and Japan. It is unclear whether 68-year-old North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will receive Bosworth, 70, and whether the guest will be allowed to visit the Yongbyon nuclear research center.

This visit recalled the prospect of concluding a peace treaty between the United States and the DPRK with the establishment of diplomatic relations between them. Formally, this should have happened a long time ago: in 1994, the corresponding article appeared in the framework agreement between the DPRK and the United States on resolving the North Korean nuclear problem and normalizing bilateral relations. That document obligated the United States to take measures to build a nuclear power plant in North Korea using light water nuclear reactors. In 2002, the Americans violated the agreement, which led to the ongoing spiral of the Korean nuclear crisis.

The North Korean authorities are well aware that they can get rid of the “rogue” label only by improving relations with the United States, when Washington will be forced to consider the Pyongyang regime a partner - even if it is an unpleasant and odious one. But there are at least two obstacles on the way to concluding a peace treaty. The first is South Korea's openly obstructionist stance. Its Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Yu Myung-hwan, believes that the conclusion of such an agreement is unacceptable without the consent of South Korea and China. “The fact that the DPRK is trying to conclude a peace treaty with the United States without our country’s participation indicates the intention to use the treaty as a pretext for the withdrawal of American troops from the south of the Korean Peninsula,” said Yoo Myung-hwan, who met with Bosworth yesterday in Seoul. By the way, the American was formerly the US Ambassador to South Korea.

From the point of view of the South Korean minister, by calling for a peace treaty, Pyongyang wants to gain time to continue developing nuclear weapons. Thus, the conclusion of an agreement is possible only if the North Korean nuclear program is eliminated.

This is the second obstacle. Washington clearly states that all negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue should take place only in the six-party format. However, the six-party talks stalled after Pyongyang made an unsuccessful attempt to launch a North Korean communications satellite in April this year. The international community perceived this as a ballistic missile test, violating a UN Security Council resolution. North Korea responded to the new condemning Security Council resolution by slamming the door.

Why does the United States insist that the nuclear issue should continue to be discussed only in the six-party format? First of all, this is a concession and a gesture of respect towards China, the initiator of the six-party negotiations, which will perceive the bilateral format as an interference in its sphere of responsibility. Secondly, this is demonstrative support for South Korea and its idea of ​​​​exchanging the peace treaty for a nuclear program.

The main reason lies in the Americans’ desire to create a “coalition of pressure” on North Korea. After all, during bilateral contacts it is possible to reach an agreement much faster than in multilateral negotiations, but neither the United States nor the DPRK, which insists on direct negotiations with them, intend to make concessions. In such a situation, it is much more profitable to use third countries to organize pressure on a recalcitrant partner, presenting one’s opinion as the opinion of all participants.

Since the beginning of the six-party talks in 2003, the United States has had a second voice in Japan, which in some cases has been ahead of the curve. Nevertheless, thanks to the position of Moscow, Beijing and Seoul (as long as the left was in power there), a majority was formed among the participants in the six-party negotiations, aimed at achieving consensus and capable of pushing both North Korea and the United States towards it. After Lee Myung-bak became president of South Korea in February 2008, Seoul's policy changed and it moved to the pro-American camp. This complicated the situation.

The North Korean leadership's approaches to the nuclear issue have remained the same. This was announced by Jack Pritchard, director of the American Institute of Economics of Korea, who visited North Korea this fall. So Bosworth's negotiations will be difficult. And it is no coincidence that he will go from Pyongyang to Beijing, and on December 14 to Moscow.

Konstantin ASMOLOV, leading researcher at the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences