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North Korea reverts to form
By Donald Kirk
SEOUL - The brief honeymoon of mysterious moves toward reconciliation between
North and South Korea appears to be nearing an end.
Although the level of vituperation remains relatively low, North Korea is
leaving one reality totally clear. There has been no change in the North's
resolve to cling to its nuclear program in the face of United Nations Security
Council sanctions and South Korea's latest offer of good things if only the
North would reverse its policy and come to terms on its nukes.
That much seemed clear as North Korea in recent days reverted
to form by denouncing as "ridiculous" South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's
proposal for a "grand bargain" calling for resolving all inter-Korean issues in
one great package deal. The idea would be no half-stepping, no interim
agreements, no protracted process but total abandonment of the nukes - and,
voila, a shower of goodies in return.
For good measure, North Korea also rejected the strengthened sanctions agreed
on by the Security Council after US President Barack Obama's speech and
demanded the US stop its policy of "confrontation" or face another, that is, a
third, nuclear test. The demand for the US to cease and desist is so familiar
as to be hardly worth noting except that it came in a speech at the United
Nations by a senior North Korean diplomat, several days after Obama in the same
forum said North Korea and Iran had to give up their nukes - or else.
The intensity of renewed confrontation, though, is not altogether certain.
North Korea has not yet resorted to calling Lee a "traitor" and "lackey" of the
Americans - though such language could resume any time.
One reason may be that the North seriously wants to resume the lucrative
business of tours to Mount Kumkang, closed to tourism after a North Korean
soldier shot and killed a middle-aged South Korean housewife after she strayed
outside the tourist zone to gaze at the sunrise. Then there's the need to try
and make more money from the Kaesong Industrial Complex, on the west side,
where the North has resolved to admit normal traffic after making life
difficult for months by limiting the number of South Korean vehicles and people
with access.
Against the background of the North's latest, and not unexpected, declarations
to carry on the mystique of nuclear-powerdom, it seems strange that the US
persists in the view that if the US and North Korea can just talk to each
other, that they may get somewhere.
American diplomats just can't seem to stop twisting the arms of reluctant South
Koreans to get them on board with the idea.
So it was that a deputy US secretary of state, James Steinberg, showed up in
Seoul this week grinning like a Cheshire cat for the local media. He said the
US would definitely go ahead with two-way dialogue with North Korea - all as a
prelude to the six-party talks that North Korea has said repeatedly it will
never again attend.
With diplomatic expertise, Steinberg went through an elaborate charade of
appearing entirely "in synch" with Lee's "grand design" for peace.
"l agree that we've lived through the history before of partial measures and
reversible measures," he said, picking up with alacrity on Lee's remarks,
atoning if not quite apologizing for the State Department's previous
expressions of total ignorance of what Lee had said or meant. "What we need is
a comprehensive and definitive resolution of the nuclear question."
South Korea's chief nuclear negotiator, Wi Sung-lac, competed with Steinberg
for who could smile the most broadly for the Korean photographers, but there
was still no telling how far the US would go in the two-way dialogue that the
US envoy on Korean problems, Stephen Bosworth, is expected to have with his
North Korean counterpart possibly late this month. Steinberg fell back only on
the prospect of "significant improvements in our relationships with North
Korea".
The extent of improvements that may be possible may become clearer this coming
week when China's second-highest leader, Premier Wen Jiabao, goes to Pyongyang
to mark the 60th anniversary of relations between North Korea and the People's
Republic of China.
It's not inconceivable that Wen, while rewarding North Korea with badly needed
commercial and economic deals, will persuade Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who
visited China in March, of the need to return to the six-party talks that China
had been hosting. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman signaled this much when
she said that the six-party format had been "an effective and practical
mechanism".
China, however, may not share the urgency of the United States in getting the
North to jettison its nuclear program - including the six to 10 nuclear
"devices" it has already manufactured. China's major concern, it's widely
believed, is for North Korea to remain a stable, viable unit, dependent on
Chinese largesse and not about to fall apart in a cataclysm that would send
millions of North Koreans fleeing across the Yalu and Tumen river borders into
China.
Thus, as the spokeswoman cryptically remarked, Wen and the North Koreans would
"map out the development plan for the future of bilateral relations".
Meanwhile, she added, China would assist the North "within its capacity", which
is huge considering the extent of cross-border trade, declared and not
declared, as well as handouts of food and fertilizer.
South Korea, meanwhile, is playing a waiting game.
While South Koreans were visiting North Korea this week for the first
North-South family reunions in nearly two years, officials at the Blue House,
the center in Seoul of presidential power, said no one was thinking about
renewing the South's shipments of food and fertilizer. President Lee stopped
them after his inauguration in February last year - a move that sent the North
into a paroxysm of rage from which it only seemed to have begun to recover when
the former US president, Bill Clinton, went there on his "unofficial" mission
in August.
For good measure, the Blue House also said the "grand bargain" that Lee was
talking about would definitely not include resumption of the construction of
twin light-water nuclear energy reactors to help fulfill the North's energy
needs. That project came to a halt in early 2003 after the breakdown of the
1994 Geneva framework agreement that committed the South to 80% of the US$5
billion cost of the reactors if only North Korea would stick to its promise to
shut down the nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
A real sign of where North and South Korea are going may be the family visits.
Until this week, there had been no visits since the final period of the
government of late president Roh Moo-hyun, who visited North Korea two years
ago. They have provided hope for hundreds of thousands of still living members
of millions of families divided by the Korean War as well as heartache and
frustration.
As of now, scarcely more than 16,000 South Koreans have seen relatives in the
North, and many of those have come back saddened by the realization that they
will never see their loved ones again after a few hours of monitored
conversations.
The betting, as one South Korean professor told me, is that such visits will
not be "institutionalized" - that is, that North Korea is not going to agree to
a regular schedule. Like diplomatic negotiations, they go on at the mercy of
the host, North Korea, depending on the need for aid and trade and the
likelihood of acceptance of North Korea as a nuclear power.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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