Return to Nuclear Talks, US Urges North Korea

CNSNews.com | February 03, 2005
By Patrick Goodenough

Three years after labeling North Korea part of an "axis of evil," the Bush administration on Wednesday reached out to the reclusive Stalinist state, urging it to return to multiparty talks aimed at resolving the dispute over its nuclear programs.

In his State of the Union address, President Bush made a brief mention of North Korea by name, saying the U.S. was "working closely with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions."

The reference was to South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, which have joined the U.S. and North Korea in three rounds of talks in Beijing -- talks aimed at finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis triggered by Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The six-way talks stalled in mid-2004, with North Korea refusing to attend a scheduled fourth round in September. Pyongyang has through its media mouthpiece said its return to the table would depend on Bush's second term policies.

Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan also urged North Korea to return quickly to the six-party talks, saying that was "the best way for North Korea to address the concerns of the international community and to end its international isolation."

And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a wire service interview, also sent a conciliatory message, saying the notion that the U.S. may attack North Korea "couldn't be more far-fetched."

Rice said an earlier U.S. proposal, put forward at the last round of six-party talks, was still "on the table for the taking."

The proposal held out the possibility of concessions for North Korea in the form of "provisional" security guarantees from the U.S. and energy aid from other countries. In return, Pyongyang would have to make a commitment to freeze its nuclear programs.

Those provisional measures would become permanent only once the programs were actually taken apart, and North Korea would have to allow full verification of the process.

The proposal offers the regime the opportunity to establish ties with the U.S. and move from its current isolation towards full integration into the international community.

In recent days a number of Asian analysts have predicted that North Korea's return to negotiations will depend on how Bush addresses the issue in his State of the Union address.

U.S. lawmakers who paid a visit to Pyongyang last month said afterwards that North Korea would be closely listening to the administration's statements.

Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon predicted the North Koreans would be ready to return to talks in early February, "if there is no inflammatory rhetoric" from Washington.

Three years ago, when he delivered the keynote speech, the president said that countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq, along with their terrorist allies, formed an "axis of evil" which threatened world peace.

"North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens," he said, and warned that terrorist nations could not be left "unchecked."

North Korea responded at the time by saying the statements were an attempt to justify a policy of aggression. Over the months since it has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. drop its "hostile" policy.

Proliferation

Washington accuses North Korea of running plutonium- and uranium-based nuclear programs in violation of earlier international agreements, and wants them completely and verifiably dismantled.

North Korea admits having reprocessed spent plutonium rods into weapons-grade material and claims to have a nuclear "deterrent." It denies U.S. claims about a separate uranium-based program.

But U.S. officials say the administration is concerned not only about North Korea building up its own arsenal of nuclear weapons, but also that it may be selling nuclear technology to other hostile states.

That concern was one of the main motivations behind the launch in May 2003 of Bush's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a plan which aims to prevent rogue states like North Korea from transferring weapons of mass destruction or WMD-related material.

The PSI has since held maritime stop-and-search exercises in various parts of the world, drawing complaints from Pyongyang about "undisguised hostile acts."

The proliferation concerns emerged again Wednesday in media reports saying U.S. intelligence officials suspect that North Korea sold uranium hexafluoride - which can be converted into a weapons-grade state - to Libya.

Muammar Gadaffi has since voluntarily shut down Tripoli's non-conventional weapons programs and made them available to expert scrutiny. Sampling uranium from Libya led experts to the conclusion that the source was North Korea, the New York Times said in its report.

It said the U.S. was now also investigating whether North Korea had also sold the material to other buyers, including Iran and Syria.

"North Korea's ... nuclear weapons programs and its past and continuing proliferation activities are a threat to global peace and security," said McClellan Wednesday.

During a recent visit to Libya by South Korean foreign minister Ban Ki-moon, Gadaffi urged North Korea to give up its ambitions to be a nuclear-armed state.