The U.S. and North Korea started talks on normalizing their diplomatic relations in New York on Monday, in a new climate of sincerity that amazed some seasoned diplomats. "It makes you feel dizzy when a giant ship like the United States changes courses,¡± was how a South Korean government official described it. Many in Seoul are cautiously optimistic that the situation could progress to a point it reached in 2000 ? when senior officials from the U.S. and North Korea exchanged visits and a trip to the North by president Bill Clinton was flagged ? and beyond.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and visiting U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright touch glasses during a banquet in Pyongyang in Oct. 2000 (top). North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan speaks to reporters on Sunday as he leaves the North's UN mission in New York, where envoys from Pyongyang and Washington began talks on normalizing diplomatic ties.
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¡ß North Korea willing to discuss uranium
North Korea has expressed willingness to discuss a uranium enrichment program the U.S. alleges it has alongside the admitted plutonium program, according to a Pyongyang mouthpiece in Tokyo. The report came from the Chosun Shinbo, the paper of the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon. The issue is not mentioned directly in the Feb. 13 six-party agreement that made way for the normalization talks. The agreement merely stipulates that the parties concerned should discuss North Korea's nuclear development program by April 13. A seemingly unprompted North Korean signal that it is willing to negotiate on the uranium program offers hope that the Stalinist country is really going to shut down its nuclear facilities, as the six-party agreement envisages. The U.S. claims that North Korea in 2002 admitted to having a secret uranium enrichment program, but Pyongyang has adamantly denied this.
So what are the similarities with the situation in October 2000? Then, Vice Marshal Cho Myong Rok visited Washington and secretary of state Madeleine Albright went to Pyongyang. Cho met Clinton as a special envoy of Kim Jong-il. As a result, they even issued a joint statement saying that the U.S. bore North Korea no hostility. Clinton was on the verge of visiting Pyongyang at the time. Now, North Korea¡¯s vice foreign minister and chief nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan, says a researcher at a state-run research institute in Seoul, seems to be following in Cho¡¯s footsteps. And a government official in Seoul said the fact that Kim publicly attended a show on Broadway in New York ¡°sends a message to the U.S. that the North can accept American culture.¡±
¡ß It all depends on North Korea
But Kim Kye-gwan's visit to the U.S. is only a beginning. The real touchstone lies beyond April 14, a day after the deadline for switching off the Yongbyon nuclear facilities. The crux is whether Pyongyang then moves on to ¡°disabling¡± them under the agreement. The 2000 detente fell apart when North Korea failed to suggest any concrete ways to resolve the missile issue.
Then or now, it is not easy for a senior U.S. government official to visit Pyongyang, an official in South Korea said. A visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a sensitive political issue. Unless Pyongyang looks serious about disabling its nuclear facilities, a visit will not happen. Many predict there will be plenty of problems on the way to agreeing on initial steps to normal ties like setting up liaison offices, removing North Korea from the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism and lifting U.S. economic sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Hong Kwan-hee, director of the Institute for Security and Strategy in Seoul, said, "The key to success is how sincerely North Korea will keep its promise, and that it doesn¡¯t repeat past negotiating practices."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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