Pyongyang bargains with the US

Nuclear problems come up against financial sanctions

Today in Beijing a statement is expected from the chairman of the six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. After this, the delegations of the two Koreas, Russia, the United States and Japan, in all likelihood, will go home for the New Year holidays. Work will continue in January at best.

The current meeting, officially called the “second round of the fifth round of negotiations,” began on Monday. The final statement agreed upon by all parties confirms the readiness to resolve the DPRK nuclear issue through peaceful dialogue and commitment to the joint declaration of September 19, 2005, in which the DPRK renounced its nuclear programs in exchange for economic assistance and security guarantees from the United States. Perhaps today the creation of working groups to implement specific provisions of the declaration will be announced.

The negotiations stumbled due to financial sanctions imposed last fall by the United States against North Korea for its allegedly illegal actions in the international market. The Chinese Foreign Ministry clearly pointed this out yesterday, calling for a “speedy resolution of the issue.” Pyongyang at the end of October announced its readiness to resume negotiations if the United States agrees to discuss the financial problem. However, contacts these days in Beijing between the head of the DPRK Foreign Trade Bank, Oh Gwan Chol, and US Deputy Treasury Secretary David Glazer led nowhere.

The head of the North Korean delegation, Kim Kye-gwan, at a meeting yesterday with his American counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, again called on the United States to abandon sanctions and fully normalize relations with the DPRK, which implies the signing of a peace treaty and the establishment of diplomatic relations. In this case, Pyongyang will suspend the production of weapons-grade plutonium at the nuclear center in Yongbyon and allow IAEA inspectors there, as well as other secret facilities. This is exactly what Mr. Hill demanded, promising in return written guarantees of non-aggression against the DPRK.

After his conversation with Mr. Kim, the American complained that “the North Koreans are difficult to deal with.” Christopher Hill explained that "it is not easy to return to the basic and urgent issue of nuclear disarmament when they are making tough statements on financial issues." Pro-Pyongyang publications in Japan reported that the North Koreans told Hill that written guarantees “would not be real evidence of the US abandoning its hostile policy aimed at changing the DPRK regime.” Therefore, further nuclear development in the DPRK may be suspended on conditions known to the United States, but “nuclear weapons already manufactured will be retained as a means of deterrence.”

This position contradicts both the 2005 declaration and the unified line of the UN Security Council, which adopted resolution 1718 on October 14 with sanctions against North Korean nuclear missile programs. The DPRK also calls the lifting of these sanctions a condition for its further participation in the negotiation process. At the same time, Pyongyang’s five interlocutors are still not completely sure that the DPRK has already become a nuclear power. Even if the October 9 underground nuclear explosion was real, the number of usable nuclear devices in North Korea's arsenal is unknown. There is a joke about this among experts close to the negotiations: “Does Pyongyang have an atomic bomb? “No longer, it was blown up during testing.”

“The DPRK has clearly outlined its approaches. According to financial sanctions, it turned out that at least two-thirds of the 24 million North Korean dollars frozen by the Americans are “clean,” and the criminality of the rest still needs to be proven,” Konstantin Asmolov, a senior researcher at the Center for Korean Studies at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Vremya Novostey. According to the expert, “the first phase of the negotiations took place in shooting mode.” Now the main work will begin, and China has become “an active participant, putting pressure on both the DPRK and the United States.” According to VN’s interlocutor, Pyongyang “demands a return to the 1994 framework agreement thwarted by Bush,” based on the exchange of North Korean renunciation of nuclear programs for diplomatic recognition, supplies of a light water reactor, fuel for thermal power plants and other economic assistance.

Alexander SAMOKHOTKIN