North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who each represent their respective countries at the six party talks, met in Beijing for the first time in approximately two months. Expectations are growing that the six party talks will get started again, as their meeting comes immediately after North Korean National Defence Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il's visit to China.
Ever since the controversies over counterfeiting allegations and financial sanctions surfaced at the last round of six party talks in November of last year, North Korea has demanded high level talks with U.S. officials while the U.S. has insisted on working-level dialogue. On the surface the meeting in Beijing makes it look like the U.S. has accommodated the North's demands. You get the sense those in the U.S. who want to negotiate are pushing to have the talks continue. Now that the two countries have begun high-level contact, one hopes to see them put the counterfeiting and financial sanctions issue to rest. A realistic way to go about that would be for the North to admit anything that it is proved to have done wrong and pledge to prevent it from happening again, and for the U.S. to remove the sanctions.
By visiting China, Chairman Kim Jong Il has increased expectations about economic reform and openness in North Korea. He spent all his time in China's economic showcase cities, and he had a long itinerary. The North's leadership needs to develop and act on a real action plan based on what it saw in China. Successful economic reform in North Korea is something all the nations participating in the six party talks would like to see as well.
The task at hand is of course restarting the six party process. North Korea will find reform difficult if it the nuclear issue is not resolved and there is not some specific framework in place for things like diplomatic relations with the U.S. Hopefully there will be no obstacles to the talks created by hard-liners within the U.S. government by deliberately bringing up issues that upset things. The six party talks have a lot of participants. That makes what actually gets agreed on more reliable, but the disadvantage is that it is not easy to move the process forward in a smooth manner. All parties need to keep that in mind and work constructively together to get the talks going again.
The Hankyoreh, 19 January 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] All Nations in 6 Party Talks Must Cooperate |
