Reported promises that the North will not conduct another test not relayed to Tokyo, Washington
Washington has made it clear that it does not consider meaningful the exclusive meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Chinese envoy Tang Jiaxuan. On an airplane bound for Moscow on October 21 - after her own meeting with Tang the day before, and a day after he had met with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters that Tang had not told her that Kim Jong-il either apologized for the test or said that he would not test again. These were remarks reportedly said in the meeting between Tang and Kim Jong-il on October 19; Secretary Rice’s words seem to challenge these reports. In an interview with the CNN on the same day, Secretary Rice also played down the remarks of the Chinese envoy that his visit to Pyongyang "had not been in vain." She said the words were meant to convey that China partly understands North Korea’s situation. Then she stressed that there had been no proposal from North Korea that they would return to the six-party talks, but that Pyongyang could come back to the talks any time, unconditionally. These comments suggest that, with the talks stalled for nearly a year now, North Korea is the one that has established the conditions. A South Korean official, asking to remain anonymous, said, "There was some progress gained from Kim Jong-il’s meeting with Tang, but there were some conditions set forth, as well. The U.S. seems to ignore these conditions."Washington has ignored Pyongyang’s message from the start because the U.S. does not think this a time for negotiation. Hard-liners of the U.S. administration still are maintaining the position that North Korea should totally surrender its nuclear program rather than be accepted as a de facto nuclear state. South Korea and China are opposed to this kind of increased pressure. In addition, while the U.S. and South Korea share the goal of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, the U.S. intends the international community to pressure North Korea through strong sanctions. On the contrary, the South Korean government thinks that North Korea’s position is to open up the possibility of negotiation while at the same time strengthening its status as a nuclear power. The U.S. position is that it could not trust North Korea from the start. Regarding reports that North Korea pledged it would not conduct a second nuclear test, White House spokesman Tony Snow said that the reclusive nation only wants the U.S. to lift its sanctions. The Japanese government is doubtful about North Korea’s intentions, as well. The Asahi Shimbun reported, "According to the officials of those nations, the North Korean leader mentioned the suspension of a second nuclear test, a return to the six-nation talks, and the removal of financial sanctions." The Asahi said that North Korea intended to come back to the negotiation table, but with conditions. The Japanese Foreign Ministry, too, sees the North Korean pledge of not conducting a second nuclear test as a card it is playing in order to move toward the resumption of the six-party talks with conditions intact, said the Asahi. Such an attitude is no different from the North’s official view after the nuclear test, added the newspaper. The Nihon Geizai Shimbun reported that when Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei met Japanese ambassador to China Yuji Miyamoto on October 20, he did not mention anything about an additional nuclear test by the North. Rather than taking the Chinese envoy at face value, the Japanese government sees two possible scenarios: Kim Jong-il really did not mention an additional nuclear test in his October 19 meeting with Chinese officials in Pyongyang, or that there were discussions over a second test but China chose not to inform Japan about this, the newspaper said.
