This months talks are running into the same roadblocks that halted negotiations in September 2005 – the timing of CVID and LWR – but with the added bonus of North Korea petulantly demanding a) to be recognized as a nuclear power and, b) that Banco Delta sanctions be dropped. North Korea is once again insisting on pre-conditions that have already been excluded by the U.S. The result? Status quo, which is exactly what North Korea wants.

Washington is talking tougher sanctions, and an implied ‘or else’ stance;

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill warned that Washington’s patience had “reached its limits.”

[. . .]

Hill said that North Korea was at a fork in the road and needed to give ground. “We don’t have the option of walking away from the problem,” Hill said. “Their future is very much at stake.”

While I wholeheartedly agree there must be tangible consequences, I have to ask, ‘or else what,’ and am reminded, once again, of Team America:

Hans Blix: I’m sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace, or else.

Kim Jong Il: Or else what?

Hans Blix: Or else we will be very, very angry with you… and we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.

Don Kirk has an excellent summary of the talks:

Far from considering a deal that would obligate North Korea to give up its nuclear program, Kim is there to demand that the US Treasury Department lift its ruling of September 15 last year, just four days before delegates from all six countries agreed on a “statement of principles” under which North Korea would give up its nuclear program.

[…]

The Japanese team appears as adamant about including this topic on the agenda as does North Korea in its demands for lifting of the ban on BDA, and no one seems more interested in pursuing the case than Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While North Korea has said Japan should not have a place at the table at all, Japan’s chief negotiator, Kenichiro Sasae, is making the abduction issue a central point in his remarks.

[…]

Forecasts of another breakdown in the six-party talks, however likely, would be premature. If North Korea and the US somehow manage to go beyond the fuss over BDA, they may get down to serious discussion of a detailed package that Hill presented to Kim during talks-before-talks in Beijing last month.

The crux of the package is an elaborate quid pro quo - the process of bringing energy to North Korea, through shipments of heavy oil and construction of power plants and the electrical grid to go with it, will rev up in tandem with evidence that North Korea is turning back the clock on its nuclear program.

The US could make the package pretty appealing by offering a clear declaration, signed by President George W Bush, forswearing any notion of attacking North Korea and otherwise respecting its sovereignty. The US has repeatedly denied plans for a “preemptive strike”, as charged in North Korean rhetoric, while refusing to consider a “non-aggression pact”, but Pyongyang clearly wants something solid in writing.

But what could North Korea offer in return? For starters, it might again suspend, if not “freeze”, activity at its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, shut down under the 1994 Geneva Framework Agreement and then reopened after the US in October 2002 accused Pyongyang of an entirely separate program for developing warheads with highly enriched uranium.

‘Little’ but not ‘no’ hope of an agreement.

Not that an agreement would solve anything, since, as I’ve written before, I don’t believe the Kim Jong-il regime is capable of engagement on the level required to truthfully implement any realistic deal.