First, it is still unclear whether North Korea has any real intention of giving up its nuclear program. Is Pyongyang willing to give up all of it? Unfortunately, there is no evidence that it is. North Korea has talked about Kim Il-sung's “death-bed teachings", meaning his commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. Then why has the North continued its attempt to arm itself with nuclear weapons and even conducted a nuclear test?

As far as the six-party talks are concerned, North Korea seems to be attempting to get the United States to lift financial sanctions. The U.S. is using them as a means to resolve the nuclear crisis, while North Korea is using the nuclear crisis as a means to end the financial sanctions. It remains to be seen which approach will work better. But it is certain that all negotiations will be futile if North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear program.

What kind of agreement should we pursue? In a U.S. Senate hearing, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who will become deputy secretary of state, said the six-party talks are aimed at "freezing nuclear facilities in North Korea." As everyone knows, the U.S. position on the issue was consistently the "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement of all nuclear programs." But it has been some time since it used that phrase.

Instead, the Bush administration is simply trying to return to the 1994 Geneva Accords, which it has so harshly criticized. The accords envisioned freezing North Korea's nuclear facilities in return for the construction of a light-water reactor, giving North Korea 12 long years to pursue its nuclear development. Yet without offering any logical explanation, the U.S. is now going to repeat the same mistake.

It would be ridiculous to believe that if we only “freeze” North Korea’s nuclear facilities, the North will no longer have stockpiles of nuclear weapons. None other than the U.S. has claimed that North Korea has a uranium enrichment program. Thus no matter how well we succeed in getting North Korea to shut down the plutonium producing reactor in Yonbyon, there still exists the possibility that North Korea could stockpile nuclear weapons by stealthily enriching uranium. That is the gaping loophole in any agreement that only envisages freezing nuclear facilities.

More important from our point of view is the peace agreement the U.S. and North Korea may sign as a result of the nuclear talks. A peace agreement does not simply mean replacing the armistice that halted the Korean War but making fundamental changes to our national security structure, including U.S.-North Korea relations, the presence of the U.S. forces in South Korea, the status of UN Command as manager of the armistice, disarmament on the Korean Peninsula, and national unification. But a matter of such seriousness has become such a light topic that a not-so-senior State Department official -- the deputy assistant secretary of state, which is lower than the director-general of a ministry bureau in the South Korean government -- comes to discuss it in Seoul.

At the moment, the Bush administration is making haste to achieve short-term results in the North nuclear crisis because it has its hands full with Iran’s nuclear development and its president is a lame duck. This haste in the U.S. happens to coincide with a particularly difficult time for North Korea. In all probability, the upcoming six-party talks will produce something. But there is cause to fear that a U.S.-North Korea agreement concluded in haste could spell calamity for South Korea.

The column was contributed by Heo Yong-bom, The Chosun Ilbo's correspondent in Washington, D.C.