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The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Tuesday morning the international community should not even dream of the Stalinist country giving up its nuclear ¡°deterrent¡± unless the U.S. builds it a light-water reactor. It added if Washington persists in wanting the nuclear weapons gone before it discusses the reactor, nothing will change. At a press conference the same day, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, ¡°If you read the accompanying statements of several of the participants, you will see that there is a clarity about the need for North Korea to dismantle, get back into the Non-Proliferation Treaty, get IAEA safeguards, and then discuss a light-water reactor.¡± It had been all of a day since marathon six-party talks ended with a statement of principles agreed by all parties, and already there was disagreement over the fundamentals.
The positions of North Korea and the U.S. over the sequence of events, it has become clear, remain diametrically opposed, and that difference was not brought to an end but simply covered up. The South Korean government exerted all its efforts on mediation so the crack could be papered over with the term ¡°at an appropriate time,¡± and Seoul lost no time in boasting of the achievement. Now it is dismissing the conflicting claims from Washington and Pyongyang by saying both sides are trying to maximize their positions ahead of working-level talks on the details of the process, and promised they would be resolved through South Korea¡¯s diplomatic leadership. The people could be forgiven for thinking that our government is taking the matter a little too lightly.
About the connection between South Korea¡¯s provision of 2 million kilowatts of free electricity to the North and the light-water reactor issue, the government says this and that, but it's hard to get the drift. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young explicitly stated on July 12 the provision of electricity was premised on the light-water reactor project being scrapped; now he is changing his tune, saying the free electricity could be a stopgap until the reactors are up and running. When you add Chung¡¯s statement that the provision of electricity or light-water reactors need to be seen as forming a national community, one could even come away with the impression that Seoul is looking to take responsibility for both.
One thing is clear: the government cannot afford to boast about a ¡°victory for South Korean diplomacy¡± at the six-party talks. It must first make painstaking plans so the statement of principles can ultimately lead to a resolution of the North Korean nuclear dispute, and be armed and ready for temporary flare-ups between the United States and North Korea in the process. Nor can it stop there. It must also strive to prepare the domestic and international environment for the massive changes on the Korean Peninsula that any eventual establishment of diplomatic ties by North Korea with the U.S. and Japan is bound to bring.
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