[Column] Not before pigs fly

By Ryu Jae-Hun, Washington correspondent

That’s what U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs Robert Joseph is rumored to have said about the idea of providing North Korea with a light water reactor, as agreed in the joint statement of September 19, 2005. "Not until pigs fly" is a U.S. idiom for something that’s impossible. It began as a Scottish proverb but became a regular expression after it appeared in "Alice in Wonderland." What Joseph meant was that there would be no light water reactor until Pyongyang does what the U.S. wants.

The six-party talks resumed last December after much difficulty and a 13-month wait. North Korea made it a precondition that it would take the first steps demanded by the U.S. if Washington withdrew its sanctions on North Korea’s accounts at Banco Delta Asia, and it refused to even talk about moving forward on its pledge to denuclearize, made in the September 19 statement. The North also came up with a whole new idea: to separate its nuclear weapons program from the rest of its nuclear plans. It talked about how Kim Il-sung’s dying wish was for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula, but at the same time it wanted to clearly establish to the world that it possesses nuclear weapons.

The U.S. and South Korean governments are trying to package the entire situation in an optimistic way, but there does not seem to have been any points of contact between the U.S. and North Korea so far this year. North Korea calls its nuclear experiment a "checkmate move in its nuclear confrontation with the U.S.," but no pigs are going to fly as long as Pyongyang thinks the international situation is turning to its advantage since its nuclear test.

Pyongyang’s attitude completely disregards its agreement with South Korea on non-nuclearization. It contradicts its own line about "cooperation among Koreans," and is actually strengthening the U.S. position by making the South dependent on the U.S. and hurting that cooperation. Pigs will not be flying in such a situation. It is committing a sin against the Korean people if Pyongyang’s idea is to let things deteriorate in order to stay viable as a government.

South Korea has a presidential election coming in December 2007. The Beijing Olympics will be held in 2008, and then the U.S. has a presidential election in November of that year. All things considered, there is not much time to negotiate about the North Korean nuclear issue. Pyongyang’s attitude appears to be that if the Bush administration, currently in a bind over the war in Iraq, is unwilling to yield, then it might as well negotiate with the next U.S. administration.

It is making a big mistake if it is putting any special hopes in a Democratic Party victory in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. The election is still about two years from now, and the leader of the pack in opinion polls is John McCain, a Republican Party senator. This is someone who called Robert Gallucci, the top U.S. negotiator in the talks that led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, a "traitor." Gallucci is now dean of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and recommends that North Korea not postpone a deal with the U.S. He says there’s no guarantee Democrats will win and that it should negotiate with the Bush administration immediately.

There is no basis to the idea that U.S. Democrats will be more likely to take a stance of appeasement than Republicans when it comes to North Korean nukes. In fact, the Democrats have been far more principled about the issue, and when sitting at the negotiation table, they demand that Pyongyang make a clear choice between a carrot and a stick. A nuclear expert connected with the Democratic Party expressed deep distrust of the North after observing the latest six-party talks, saying Pyongyang is trying to get both economic assistance and recognition as a member of the "bomb club." Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says in the book "Hard Power" that the next Democratic president will naturally choose force if negotiations fail, and that "military options" must not be taken off the table. He’s essentially saying that it’s only a matter of course that Democrats are going to go along with the things you’ve heard so much from the Bush administration.

If the six-party talks continue to be "talks about talks" while stalling for time, the suggestion among some in Washington that the six-party process is useless is only going to gain popularity. That would make the nuclear situation worse than it already is, given that it is currently at a stalemate. This is the feeling I’ve been getting here in Washington at the start of the new year.

Searching around the Internet for "flying pig," I discovered a flying pig toy, bought it, and sent it to a nephew as a New Year’s present. He says it’s "neat that a pig would fly." I can’t help but hope to see in 2007 - the year of the golden pig - an attempt of the impossible this year on the Korean peninsula.

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