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The U.S. is considering a new policy for approaching North Korea that would simultaneously seek to deal with bringing the North back to six-party talks on their nuclear ambitions, as well as discuss changing the armistice put in place after the Korean War, to a peace treaty, reported the New York Times on Thursday. "The idea seems to have been borne of a recognition in the U.S. of criticism that they have painted North Korea into a corner,¡± said Prof. Kim Sung-han of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security. Washington has so far been hoping to box the North in from all sides with pressure over its human rights record and alleged financial crimes - an approach South Korea has been unhappy about.
But U.S. President George W. Bush is reportedly adamant that the overriding requirement is that the North come back to the six-nation negotiating table and give up its nuclear ambitions. If this happens, negotiations on a peace treaty could happen separately from the six-party talks. That is already outlined in a joint statement agreed in the six-party talks in September last year, which says any peace treaty will be discussed ¡°in another forum.¡± The South Korean Foreign Ministry¡¯s North America bureau head Cho Tae-yong said, ¡°This is not a new idea. It¡¯s similar to what our government has been insisting on all along.¡±
Thus if Pyongyang returns to the six-party talks, there are likely to be two forums, one addressing the nuclear problem and one a peace framework. The New York Times says the U.S. is considering a four-party framework for peace negotiations bringing together South and North Korea, the U.S. and China. Song Min-soon, Seoul¡¯s chief presidential secretary for security policy and foreign affairs, said last year the six-party talks are the wrong place to discuss a peace framework. He added four-party talks that already got underway at one stage were a more likely setup. These had been proposed by former president Kim Young-sam and former U.S. president Bill Clinton at a summit in Jeju in April 1996, and three rounds took place through 1998.
One carrot for North Korea¡¯s return to the six-party talks is the eventual normalization of ties with the U.S. But no plans have been finalized, and it is especially unclear if the hawkish U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will countenance the plan. There is little chance that the Bush administration will drop the matter of North Korea¡¯s human rights abuses and alleged counterfeiting, thus making the North¡¯s swift return to the talks improbable.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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