It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

Last October, it appears, Kim had concluded that US President George W Bush would sooner or later attack Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussein - and that he might well be next in line. He also probably saw no great upside to denying US uranium-enrichment charges, as US intelligence had probably learned about it from its new friends, the Pakistanis, who had had a hand in supplying North Korea with enrichment-centrifuge technology. After the admission of guilt (sort of), Kim threw a fit and embarked on a relentless series of crisis-escalation steps, culminating in the announcement of resumption of spent-fuel-rod plutonium reprocessing. This got the world's attention, the US's and China's in particular. China, its essential regional strategic interests at risk, went all out to arrange for negotiations. The US agreed to talk. North Korea was in a position to make demands rather than facing sanctions or possible military attack. It had also gained time - if needs be to produce more weapons and weapons materials. By late April, Kim had won Round 1.


Round 2, the six-way talks, it now emerges, went even better for the Dear Leader. While the US stonewalled with its "comprehensive, verifiable, and irreversible" nuclear disarmament formula, the North Korean negotiator presented a comprehensive package deal, in essence proposing nuclear disarmament in return for a non-aggression pact with the US. The proposed deal would insist on the "principle of simultaneity", any step by North Korea being matched by a US move, beginning with a North Korean declaration of intent to scrap nuclear programs and US assurances of non-aggression. This would be followed by more formal and tangible steps, eg, US resumption of heavy-oil shipments in return for readmission of United Nations inspectors, and so on.


The US rejects this approach and insists on verifiable disarmament prior to any concessions; it also has refused the signing of a formal non-aggression treaty - ever. The US stance was labeled "gangster-like" by North Korea after the six-way talks and described as follows by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA): "The United States insists that we take off our clothes until we get stark naked, while it refuses to move even one step."


Who knows about "gangster-like", but otherwise the characterization was pretty much accurate and implicitly deplored as well by China and South Korea when they said that "simultaneous steps" were necessary when going forward. In effect, through its negotiating tactics, spiced up by threatening a nuclear test, North Korea has driven at least a bit of a wedge between members of the initially solid front of five demanding its disarmament.

// posted by Kirk @ 5:42 PM