SIX-PARTY TALKS WORK ON ‘AGREED PRINCIPLES’
by Richardson ~ July 30th, 2005. Filed under: Six-Party Talks.The Six-Party Talks are slugging along, and participants are now working on a joint statement of ‘agreed principles.’ One with any knowledge of past agreements can be forgiven for being somewhat skeptical of North Korea’s ability to keep such agreements. Yet some agreement must be made, and of course Mr. Hill must put on a good face:
“Today I think we went into a new phase,” the United States’ chief negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, told reporters. “We began to look at actual texts, actual words on paper” … The Americans and North Koreans remain at loggerheads over the “sequence” of North Korean disarmament moves and corresponding rewards from the United States and its allies, Mr. Hill said. North Korea has insisted that the United States resume economic aid and give the government enhanced political recognition before it moves to disarm; but the United States has insisted that North Korea disarm first.
The same thing happened in 1994, with the North Korea-proposed ‘package deal,’ which could end up being the outcome to these talks.
Past agreements, besides the 1994 Agreed Framework [PDF], include the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) that North Korea signed in 1985, and the 1991 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, an agreement between North and South Korea. North Korea broke all of these agreements in one way or another.
If a deal is reached now will North Korea keep it? No way to know for certain, but the fact that all six nations will sign may help tie North Korea to the deal. Any deal (not the mere joint statement they are now working on) will take months and years to verify, as it must include North Korea’s complete nuclear disarmament.
While the talks may seem like progress, patting ourselves on the back for just getting North Korea to the table is a bit absurd. Yet, despite North Korea’s rhetoric, the military option is far, far away. The consensus of contributors to this site is that the situation will not fundamentally change until Kim Jong-il dies.
August 6th, 2005 at 2:03 pm
Selig Harrison is a recognized specialist on North Korea, as well as the Director of the Asian Program at the Center for International Studies. Regarding the Agreed Framework of October 1994, he has pointed out that in its Article III, the US agreed to “provide formal assurances [to North Korea]against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.” (Text of the Framework can be accessed at the State Dept’s web site.) One explanation for failure to provide such assurance may be the fact that only a month following execution of the Framework, Newt Gingrich and his party took control of the House and made substantial progress in the Senate. The Clinton administration probably considered it an exercise in futility to try to implement the Agreement in face of such strong opposition feelings about North Korea. In the Bush administration, Secy. of State Powell seems to have been interested in picking up where his predecessors left off. Of course, he couldn’t get to first base with his principal.
August 7th, 2005 at 3:11 am
Ah, a Clinton apologist. When considering the “threat of use of nuclear weapons by the U.S.,” in North Korea two things are very important in putting the situation in the proper context. First, the U.S. had already removed all nuclear weapons from the peninsula in 1992; there were no U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. Second, at that time “no first use” was a stated U.S. policy. So it was already U.S. policy not to attack any nation with nukes unless in a nuclear reprisal; so why didn’t Clinton even try? Don’t blame Republicans for Clinton’s failures.
Giving credit where it is due, the agreement was the best that could be managed at the time, but Clinton’s biggest failure in regard to North Korea came in 1998-9 when U.S. intelligence had the first clue of nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. That information was ignored by the Clinton administration, which did absolutely nothing, and even send Sherman, Albright, etc.
For some background on that failure, see the 2002 article by David Sanger, “In North Korea and Pakistan, Deep Roots of Nuclear Barter,” and search for the phrase “rumors of a Pakistan-North Korea link.” If that had been properly investigated, things would be very different now. Clinton left that mess for the next president, and thankfully that was not Gore.