The Six-Party Talks have provided a convenient platform for all parties, especially for the DPRK and the United States. The Six-Party Talks also have helped the DPRK and the United States build up the basic trust that is needed for communication and eventual consensus. After two weeks of intense negotiations, the fourth round of the Six-Party Talks has been put on hold. The negotiations have been fruitful and extraordinary because they have increased consensus and narrowed differences. We are happy to see that during the fourth round of Six-Party Talks, the DPRK and the United States have been more flexible and pragmatic than ever before, changing position little by little. But interactions are still hostile, and the
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parties concerned do not fully trust each other, which is why the multilateral mechanism is needed. Yet the countries were not to be able to resolve all of their differences over a few crucial points. They have not reached a consensus on the DPRK abandoning its nuclear program. The DPRK insists on retaining its right to nuclear energy while the United States has demanded that it give up all nuclear ambitions, including those for civilian nuclear use. The relations between the two sides have not yet been normalized. Historically, the current nuclear issue is derived from the military and political confrontation between the United States and the DPRK in the wake of the Korean War in the 1950s. No matter which came first, Washington’s accusations or Pyongyang’s nuclear endeavors, the nuclear issue speaks of the severe confrontation between the two countries.
For the DPRK, it is disappointed with the policies the Bush administration has adopted toward Pyongyang during its first and those it will adopt in its second term. The DPRK has accused the United States of aiming at a regime change in the country instead of living peacefully with the North. But the North will not be able to come up with a better way to resolve the nuclear issue other than the Six-Party Talks. Its withdrawal from the talks can do nothing but increase its isolation from the rest of the world, thus harming its social stability and economic development. For the United States, after the Cold War, the United States’ core strategy has been to maintain its supremacy and allow its ideology to prevail in the world. At present, the strategy focuses on combating terrorism. Preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, is an essential part of this strategy. It tries to prevent “hostile countries”from mastering nuclear technology and deny terrorists access to nuclear materials. As far as the DPRK is concerned, the United States considers the North as an enemy by labeling it an “outpost of tyranny.”Given that stance, the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula has gone far beyond an issue of nonproliferation.
In order to make a breakthrough on the nuclear issue, both the North
and the United States should do their best to make efforts. The two sides must be sincere in the talks and clearly express their positions and strategic bottom lines. The two sides also must accurately understand each other’s intentions and make concessions simultaneously.
Also the concerns of the North Korea must be taken into consideration.
As far as the United States is concerned, it should give up the view that only when the regime in the North is changed can the nuclear issue be settled fundamentally and completely. The United States also should take the North Korea’s concern for its security into serious consideration. Only when the two sides make progress in the nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Korean Peninsula and the improvement of the bilateral relations will it be possible for the multilateral talks to obtain concrete results.
Both sides should continue to refrain from using military threats in order to create a good atmosphere for the diplomatic solution. Although the two sides have held a number of bilateral talks in the framework of the Six-Party Talks, their exchanges were intense and discussions exhaustive.
In the negotiations the United States could not put aside its deep-seated political distrust of Pyongyang, which derives from the differences in social systems and ideology, as well as historical enmity. Outside the Six- Party Talks, both sides sometimes showed some inconsistence with its commitment to the talks, dampening the efforts to move forward. Some people in the United States challenged the North’s record on democracy and human rights. These allegations are considered as an interference in internal affairs by the North Korean side. After the fourth round of the Six- Party Talks has been put on hold, some senior Bush administration officials have suggested, however, that the negotiations have little chance of success and that the best course is to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions on North Korea.5)In the future, the political conflict
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5) Edward Cody, “Korea Nuclear Talks Adjourn Without Agreement,” Washington Post,August 7, 2005, p. A14.
seems impossible to suppress. Anyway, steps must be taken to lessen the hostility. One characteristic in the development of the security on the Korean Peninsula in recent years is that the better the chance is for improvement, the more frequent the provocations from both sides are in order to show their strong determination.6)There is a greater possibility of a conflict arising from an accident and misunderstanding, therefore reducing of mutual aggression is an important guarantee for the continuation of the multilateral talks.