Asian leaders call for quick restart of North Korea nuclear talks
Updated
The leaders of China, South Korea and Japan are calling for an early resumption of talks on North Korea's nuclear program, after the countries' three leaders met in Beijing.
Presenter: Sen Lam.
Speaker: North Asia analyst Scott Bruce, Director of US operations at the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco.
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BRUCE: Well, what we're seeing is China attempting to push the United States and North Korea closer together, to get negotiations back on track. The results, we have seen some tentative progress here, but there is still a great deal of uncertainty going forward. China very much wants to see a resumption of the North Korean nuclear talks, because the North Korean nuclear programme of course is raising tension in China's backyard. Now that said, China sees this as a problem between North Korea and Washington and is looking for those countries to work out a deal and it's not clear how much either one of those countries is willing to compromise and meet halfway between each other.
LAM: Indeed, even though North Korea last week indicated that it might return to the table, it's still put a lot of preconditions, including direct talks with the United States first, direct bilateral talks. Now is that likely to be the stumbling block?
BRUCE: It is. The North Koreans basically said that we are willing to come back to the 6 party talks, pending progress in bilateral talks between North Korea and the United States. Now they define progress in those bilateral talks to mean overcoming in part the hostile policy of the United States towards North Korea, which they then defined as things such as ending the security relationship between the United States and South Korea, making progress on global nuclear disarmament first, retracting the nuclear umbrella for northeast Asia, recognising North Korea as a nuclear power etc. These are diplomatic non-starters. Some of them might be conceivable as an endgame, in exchange for a complete verified denuclearised North Korea, but certainly, they are not conceivable as starting points in negotiations. Others that they reference are simply not conceivable at all. The United States has said that it will not recognise North Korea as a nuclear power and that is unlikely to change.
LAM: As you indicated, the US has said that it would only hold bilateral talks if the ultimate goal is the total end to North Korea's nuclear weapons drive. Yet, how likely though do you think is the United States likely to follow up on the Beijing talks?
BRUCE: Well, I think what North Korea is trying to do here, is it's trying to shift the onus to compromise away from itself and onto the United States. It's thus playing 'Divide and Conquer' between the parties at the 6 party talks. What it is saying is that the pressure should not be on North Korea to conform to the demands of the international community. It should be on the United States to offer North Korea something that it can work with. So, if the United States is smart, what it will do is it will shift that onus back onto North Korea by developing a very clear policy of what it can offer North Korea and engage it. They may find in those talks that North Korea is much more willing to compromise than they have initially been possible. However, if North Korea is not, then North Korea will have responded very publicly that it is the party that is not willing to make these efforts and the pressure will resume to be on North Korea to conform to international standards.
LAM: And Scott, you mentioned North Korea being prone to dividing and conquering - how useful do you think this united front by China, Japan and South Korea on the weekend, in putting pressure on Pyongyang, to move somewhat to abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions?
BRUCE: Well, at the top-most level, the statement was very clear between all three countries. They all said we want to end up in a denuclearised North Korea. However, if you look at the individual statement, China left the statement saying now is the time for the United States to engage North Korea. Whereas Japan and South Korea left the summit saying, it is time for us to maintain very firm sanctions on North Korea until it makes movement towards denuclearisation. So while everyone agrees where we want to end up, the specific task of how we get there and who needs to make the first moves are very much at odds with one another.
LAM: The US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, spoke earlier this year of North Korea's brinkmanship and indeed, called for a more solid show of commitment by Pyongyang to denuclearisation. Is that the prevailing mood in Washington, that it is not prepared to grant anymore concessions?
BRUCE: Yes, what Washington is looking for now is movement by North Korea to come back to the table, rather than as one US official said, the United States having to buy the same horse twice. Now this is a good point. We do want to put firm pressure on the North. However, a failure to engage the North is going to result in more nuclear tests, more missile tests and the possible transfer of nuclear materials from North Korea to third parties. So, the United States, while it does want to see real movement from North Korea, does have a very strong incentive to engage the North, to try and move it towards actually either denuclearising or being very clear about what it is and is not willing to do in front of the international community.
