Kim Jong-il’s recent trip to China, where he reportedly agreed with Chinese President Hu Jintao to continue with the Six-Party Talks, has one again raised hopes in South Korea for a fairy tail ending. The collective amnesia of the majority of South Koreans is mind-boggling considering how many times they’ve been on this rollercoaster, and I’m sure the ride is far from over. However, from what I’ve seen of official DPRK statements, there is no promise to specifically return to the talks, but to ‘resolve’ the issue:

“He (Kim) pointed out that the DPRK (North Korea) would join Chinese comrades in the efforts to seek a way of overcoming the difficulties lying in the way of the six-party talks and steadily advance the talks,” KCNA said.

One would logically assume that means returning to the talks, since that’s the method that’s been put in place for this issue. But it’s not spelled out, at least in the media, and North Korea is known for carefully wording statements so that intent or understood meanings can be ejected at will. For example (scroll up 2 paragraphs), a North-South agreement in 1994 regarding an exchange of envoys between the two countries hit a roadblock because it required discussing the exchange of envoys, but didn’t stipulate that there ever had to be any actual envoys.

Yet the current situation is undeniably different. China is putting the pressure on for North Korea to return to the Six-Party Talks, so North Korea will eventually, even though they had vowed not to do so until U.S. sanctions were lifted, which isn’t going to happen.

The Lost Nomad brought up the question of why sanctions now when it has clearly given North Korea an excuse to abandon talks? A few reasons, I think. First, much of the evidence is new (although much goes back years) and it has taken the past several months to put together the case. If they don’t move sometime close to when the evidence is fresh, it would seem like selective enforcement later. Second is the Six-Party Talks. If this issue isn’t dealt with now, it will have to be done later. Assuming that some sort of deal is made in the future, sanctions for counterfeiting would be the ideal excuse for the North Korean regime to give for dumping the deal and blaming it all on the U.S., especially since any prospective deal will likely involve some higher level of diplomatic/economic ties that currently exist. And they would have plenty of Western academics to be their useful idiot apologists (Cumings, et al). Better to get the issue out in the open before/during talks. Same with the abduction issue for the Japanese and human rights. These things need to be dealt with before and potential nuclear deal.

The talks will eventually have the next round, and sooner rather than later, I think. But these talks are also closely patterned after those leading to the 1994 Agreed Framework (scroll down to Table 1), where North Korea effectively steered talks by creating one crisis after another. This current situation appears to be no exception, and the rollercoaster ride will continue.