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One fruit of Monday¡¯s agreement at six-party talks on North Korea¡¯s nuclear program is a decision to set up a forum to discuss a peace framework for the Korean Peninsula, which technically remains under the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.
Four-nation talks are the likely format for discussions on moving from that hoary provisional suspension of hostilities to a proper peace treaty capable of guaranteeing permanent peace on the peninsula.
The South Korean government in 1996 proposed four-party talks bringing together the two Koreas and the two outside powers that signed the armistice -- the United States and China. Following countless preparatory talks, one high-level session between the four took place in Geneva in 1997. But North Korea insisted that any peace treaty should be between not the two Koreas but the North and the U.S., because Seoul was no party to the armistice. North Korea¡¯s dogged insistence on regarding the four-party talks as negotiations between it and the U.S., with South Korea and China sitting in as observers, were the main reason the 1997 talks fizzled out.
But now that it has agreed to a forum for the discussion of a peace treaty, some believe Pyongyang¡¯s position on the matter has changed. That the last round of the six-party talks was effectively decided in a three-way gathering with the two Koreas and the U.S. lends support to this view.
A four-party framework for the negotiations is again under discussion, since both North and South Korea see no point in Russia or Japan participating as they have in the nuclear talks.
Kim Seong-han of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security said if four-party talks started up again, either the two Koreas and the United States would do most of the talking, with China acting as an observer, or the two Koreas lead the discussions with the U.S. and China acting as guarantors.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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