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North Korea nuclear talks to resume
Representatives to talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program will try again to resolve the standoff at six-nation talks, but the main U.S. envoy insisted Monday that the key to a solution lies with Pyongyang, the Associated Press reported. "We know we are ready to sit down and negotiate and try to finish this thing. But the question is what (North Korea) has done during that one month," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said in the South Korean capital on his way to the Beijing talks. The latest round of nuclear talks broke off for a recess early last month after a record 13 days of negotiations where envoys failed to agree on a statement of principles laying a groundwork for dismantling the North's nuclear weapons programs. The talks were to resume the last week of August, but the North demanded a two-week postponement _ taking issue with annual joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea, and Washington's appointment of a special envoy on human rights in North Korea. Hill met Monday evening in Seoul with South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who is headed to Pyongyang this week for Cabinet-level talks between the two Koreas separate from the nuclear forum. The U.S. diplomat said afterward that he would be able to gauge where this week's arms talks were headed after a meeting Tuesday night with the North Koreans. "It's hard to be optimistic or pessimistic at this point. It hasn't started," Hill said. One key dispute has emerged over Pyongyang's demands for a civilian nuclear program _ something Washington has strongly resisted, saying North Korea's past record prove it can't be trusted with any nuclear program. On Friday, Hill reiterated a set of measures _ including energy aid offered by South Korea _ that he said would make it unnecessary for North Korea "to go and develop additional capacity, especially through such very difficult and extremely expensive projects as nuclear energy." The North "has had trouble keeping peaceful programs peaceful," Hill said in Washington. But Hill emphasized Monday that the main issue remained getting a broad agreement on a joint statement of eliminating nuclear weapons from the peninsula. "I really do hope we can move rapidly and move toward an agreement on these goals and principles," he said. The head Russian delegate, Alexander Alexeyev, echoed the call Monday for all sides to seek an agreement. "The main aim, as agreed by everyone, is the Korean peninsula without nuclear arms," he said after arriving in Beijing. Analysts say the North's insistence on a peaceful nuclear program at the negotiations isn't a tactic aimed at stalling the disarmament talks, but a real concern of the regime as it tries to revive its economy. Last week, the North reiterated that it was "unimaginable" to dismantle its nuclear power industry "without getting any proposal for compensating for the loss of nuclear energy." The regime "will as ever make ceaseless peaceful nuclear activity for the economic construction and the improvement of the standard of people's living," the state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. North Korea suffers from chronic energy shortages and blackouts are common even in its capital. As of 2003, the North was able to generate less than 30 percent of its total capacity of 7.8 million kilowatts of electricity, according to South Korean government statistics. "Economic development has been the regime's top priority since the mid-1990s," said Paik Hak-soon at the Sejong Institute in Seoul. "It's in a situation where it has to secure nuclear energy for economic recovery and development." The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, allows countries following its provisions to get assistance with peaceful nuclear programs, and the North has said it could rejoin the treaty if the current standoff is resolved. But with Washington against the North having a civilian nuclear program, Paik warned the communist regime would "not have any incentive whatsoever to return to the NPT" _ a crucial step toward bringing the North under international monitoring of its nuclear activities. While Washington tries to portray a united front with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia at the six-nation talks, several of those nations seem inclined to compromise. South Korean officials, including President Roh Moo-hyun, have said North Korea would be able to pursue peaceful nuclear activities when it dismantles all its nuclear weapons programs, returns to the NPT and complies fully with safeguards from the United Nation's nuclear watchdog. Despite the differences, agreement on a joint statement at the resumed talks is "possible," North Korean expert Selig Harrison said, noting the statement "would not be important in itself." Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Washington-based Center for International Policy, said the United States and North Korea "might agree to acknowledge ... the NPT gives NPT signatories the right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes."
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