Now what?

North Korea

Aug 11th 2005 BEIJING
From The Economist print edition

Six parties, 13 days, but no deal

FOR the fourth time since 2003, negotiators from six countries have been meeting in Beijing, seeking a deal that would end North Korea's nuclear-weapons programme. Now, for the fourth time, they have broken off with little to show in the way of results. While this round, which ended on August 7th after 13 hard-slogging days, produced some faint indication that small steps forward may be possible, the core issues seem as intractable as ever.

A draft statement circulated by China, the host, inspired the most substantial discussions to date. The parties—China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, Japan and America—failed to endorse it, but they did end on a somewhat encouraging note. Rather than breaking off entirely as in the past, they called a three-week “recess”, and agreed to resume talks during the week of August 29th. Instead of being a sign of failure, this may mark a sincere effort calmly to take stock, and relieve the immediate pressure over the next set of moves.

More encouraging still, the main contenders, America and North Korea, did two things that have eluded them in the past. Despite George Bush's often stated refusal to deal bilaterally with North Korea, numerous bilateral sessions did indeed take place during the latest round, including a Korean supper. Just as important, both sides maintained a civil and business-like tone throughout, in sharp contrast with some of the name-calling that has gone before. Mr Bush once famously called North Korea's president a “pygmy”, and more recently a tyrant. North Korea has branded Mr Bush a philistine and a world dictator. Indeed, it was only after Mr Bush finally uttered a more polite public reference to “Mr Kim Jong Il” that North Korea agreed to revive the talks at all, after having stayed away for more than a year.

Given the issues at hand, politeness will only carry things so far. Big obstacles remain, and diplomats privately acknowledge the long odds against surmounting them. One is North Korea's insistence that it must retain a civilian nuclear capability, and America's refusal to allow that. “If the US really wants to make substantial progress in the Korean peninsula's nuclear issue, it had better make up its mind to change its policy,” North Korea's chief negotiator, vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan, said after the talks broke off.

Despite the improved tone, little trust exists between Washington and Pyongyang. Neither side thinks the other lived up to its commitments under an agreement reached to resolve an earlier crisis in 1994, itself the product of gruelling and protracted negotiations. America did not extend diplomatic recognition to North Korea as called for, and the promised light-water nuclear reactors were not built. More egregiously, say the Americans, North Korea initiated a covert uranium-enrichment programme.

North Korea has moved maddeningly between acknowledging and denying that programme's existence, but it is widely assumed that it does exist, and this poses another impediment to success in the six-party process. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a think-tank, says that America has no idea about the size or location of this uranium programme, and is unlikely to win the intrusive, unfettered access to people and places that it would need in order to verify any agreement to abandon it.

For the moment North Korea appears willing to entertain offers from America (and South Korea) of food assistance, energy aid and security guarantees in exchange for denuclearising. However, it may well conclude that a credible nuclear threat provides its only real means of deterring a potential American attack—which, no matter how often America promises it has no plans for one, it evidently fears. That calculation might survive any number of talks.

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