Ri Gun, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, arrives at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York on Friday.
(Steve Chernin/Reuters)Photos (1 of 1)
North Korea warns US: negotiate or else
North Korea is ratcheting up pressure for its longtime goal of bilateral talks with the US.
By Donald Kirk | Correspondent 11.02.09
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – North Korea issued a demand Monday for dialogue with the United States with a message that carried an implicit threat: talk or else.
Unless the US agreed to bilateral dialogue, said the comment by a spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry, as reported by Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency, North Korea would “go its own way.”
The message represents a clear attempt to ratchet up pressure on the US as North Korea pursues its longtime goal of negotiating with the US while isolating South Korea. North Korea has long sought dialogue with the US, never more so than in recent weeks. The question is whether the North, if talks are not held soon, will precipitate another “crisis.”
The spokesman, not identified by name, did not elaborate, but the clear implication was that North Korea would not otherwise consider a return to six-party talks on its nuclear program – and might carry out more tests of long-range missiles, as well as nuclear devices, despite strong sanctions imposed after the last nuclear test on May 25.
The North Korean spokesman embellished on the theme by harking back to the statement of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il early last month after meetings in Pyongyang with China’s Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in which Mr. Kim said the six-party process depended on “the outcome” of talks with the US.
North Korea had been “magnanimous enough to clarify the stand that it is possible to hold multilateral talks including the six-party talks,” said the spokesman, and “now is the US turn.”
North Korea’s strongly worded remarks appeared as a follow-up to an uncertain meeting in New York on Oct. 24 between Ri Gun, the second-ranking North Korean nuclear negotiator, and Sung Kim, the US nuclear negotiator who ranks second to Stephen Bosworth, US special envoy on Korea.
Reports have been circulating for weeks that Mr. Bosworth is likely to go to Pyongyang late this month or next for talks that he has said would focus only on getting North Korea to return to six-party talks.
The State Department has confirmed no plans, however, amid strong concerns in South Korea that talks between the US and North Korea could lead to negotiations on the nuclear issue, which North Korea refuses to discuss with the South.
North Korea’s statement Monday implied that North Korea hoped for a deal with the US before returning to six-party talks, last held in Beijing in December 2008. The “direct parties,” North Korea and the US, said the foreign ministry spokesman, must “find a rational solution.”
US and South Korean officials, however, still believe North Korea will back down if only because of economic desperation. Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, quoted a “ranking” South Korean official as saying the US and South Korea were developing “contingency plans” in case of the “collapse” of the North Korean regime.
South Korea has dangled a bait in front of North Korea in the form of 10,000 tons of corn – the first offer of aid since the election of conservative Lee Myung-Bak as South Korea’s president nearly two years ago. North Korea, accustomed to receiving several hundred thousand tons of food a year from the South for nearly a decade before Mr. Lee took office, has not responded.
Lee has called for a “grand bargain” in which the North dismantles its entire nuclear program in exchange for a vast infusion of aid. The US, meanwhile, is talking about a “comprehensive agreement.” Lee and US President Barack Obama are sure to discuss these terms when Mr. Obama visits here in two weeks.
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Kim Jong-il may be using lookalikes to hide his poor health.
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2. AWBilinski | 11.02.09
My first reaction to the article was “Again?”. North Korea forever seems to sidle up to the table only to become coy or belligerent at the last moment. Certainly, the risk of a nuclear armed country in close proximity to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan is cause for concern, not to mention the thousands of US troops stationed in the Korean DMZ and not to forget that Kim Jong Il does come off as eccentric to the point of instability. But,I am trying to recollect a recent article concerning Bill Clinton’s foray into the “spy dust up which failed to bundle in some Korean fishermen and arguably served to split US and S.K. interests. The article also mentioned China (and Russia’s?) fear of a unified Korea as an economic dragon that would be a threat to them. That having been said, if true, then N.K. may simply be a cat’s paw for China to keep an otherwise important trading partner (S.K.) off balance and we will never see a bona fide sit down and treaty between North and South.
3. Robert | 11.02.09
By two South Korean leaders have visited to North Korea from 2000 through 2007 and that North Korean leader said he will visit to South Korea, but he hasn’t did it . Now suddenly He inviting the South Korean president to North Korea . if they agree direct to talk that place should be in South Korea . Don’t believe that dictator words, neither he deserve talk with South Korea or Unite State . Don’t listen their threat, only way can resolve that regime after Kim Jong il or preemptive attack and destroy their arsenals . It’s only wast time to go talk with that monster guy Kim jong il . The Unite State government and South Korean Government please don’t listen the North Korean proposal that whole things is worthless.
4. TS | 11.02.09
The terrible dictator, Kim Jong-il, is much smarter than expected. Many people said, “North Korea will be collapsed sooner or later.”, but it has never happened. As long as China, who is a guardian of North Korea, has power and stability, we cannot let him down. But he always has fears of assassination and revolution. Those fears will continue until he dies in compensation for poor starving children in his country.
5. Jeosutin | 11.02.09
While a unified Korea may eventually cause problems for China and Russia, the cost of reunification would be very high for the South, and for this reason many South Koreans (youth in particular) are not interested in reunification. It would mean for a generation or two to go without much of the glitz and affluence that their speedy economic growth has granted them. As the Chinese economy continues to expand, there is more competition with South Korea and Japan, and a unified/weakened Korea would benefit them.
6. wen Rixin | 11.02.09
Whatever North Korea promises and says to the outside world, don’t get fooled or bewildered. The regime has very clear objective: let others help us with various troubles and headaches, otherwise someone would be under the threat of our nuke weapons which to considerable degree is the maker of governance crisis North Korea is facing now. While we don’t refuse to listen to its words, we must see what North korea really does after words. In term of denuclearization on Korean Peninsular, the North feels it has been under-offered whereas the outside thinks they have been over-charged. So, please be patient on this.
7. Gauge Fee | 11.03.09
China’s leverage over North Korea could yet have been oversold. A buffer state of today could overnight become a source of swarming refugees or worse crisis escalation of the fissioning kind.
For the moment with US remaining engaged, it would seem China are not unduly constrained in possible options but China needs to rethink its priorities and the sustainability of the ploy of using the North Koreans as proxy. Things will not remain static. The speculation is certainly interesting, in the unlikely but conceivable scenario of a US pullback, over the possible strategic restructuring in the East Asian region involving not least Japanese and/or ROK nuclear arm buildup, quite within both’s competence, in countering threats from China as well as the DPRK.
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1. Robert | 11.02.09
North Korea try to get a recognition as like nuclear state from Unite State and maintain their old system dictatorships .
No reason have why Unite State direct talk with North Korea that regime is already faked. Unite State must pressure to that regime surrender their nuclear program and eliminate all of of arsenal . If world wide really strongly pressure to North Korea to give up their nuclear program they don’t have any more choice they will find way, but meantime Chinese government support to them still they are a living . Chinese government has two faces, one side with U S and another side with that regime and acting they own interest.