If the ultimate goal of the six-party talks is to persuade North Korea to give up all its nuclear arsenal and programs, what did the official mean? Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea specialist at Korea University, said it means that the five countries will not make an issue of the nuclear weapons the North already has for a while. He said they have “put the most important but difficult matter on the back burner.” Analysts say the five countries accept North Korea’s position that the nuclear weapons are not at issue in the six-party talks.

Questions about the nuclear weapons have been raised since the Feb. 13 agreement because the accord doesn’t mention them. A government official at the time said there was “no change” in the goal to persuade the North to scrap all nuclear materials including nuclear weapons, calling the Beijing agreement “a pact on initial stages in the process of ultimate nuclear abandonment.” But Prof. Kang Sung-yoon of Dongguk University says that interpretation is questionable, and South Korea “needs to grasp what the U.S.’ intention is.”

The U.S., he said, “may have changed its goal to preventing the North from transferring nuclear materials abroad,” rather than making an issue of nuclear weapons North Korea already has. “This is what Pyongyang wants, but it’s unacceptable to Seoul,” Kang added. A fellow with a state-run think tank predicted that North Korea will pursue a “Pakistan model,” whereby it can have nuclear weapons while normalizing relations with the U.S. at the same time.

Prof. Kim Hak-sung of Chungnam National University said the six nations focused on making progress in the talks by signing the Feb. 13 agreement instead of tackling the basic problems. “Now it’s easier for them to reach the disablement stage. But it’s uncertain if they can move on to the issue of making the Korean Peninsula nuclear-free,” Kim added.

(englishnews@chosun.com )