The Flying Yangban writes today:
I have a confession to make. I’m bored with the Norks. They’ve been stoking the “sea of fire” rhetoric for so long it doesn’t really phase me any more. Of course, since we are going to be talking with them again in the next round of the six-party talks, I guess I should say something about it.
I guess I should also comment on the progress of the six-party talks, currently in their second day. Anyway, first things first. North Korea has apparently offered to comprehensively stop its nuclear activities. I have no idea what that means, although it probably doesn’t matter:
“As for the details and specific arrangements for stopping the nuclear activities, it is still being discussed among the various parties,” [Chinese spokesman Liu Jianchao] said.
Sounds like a whole lot of nothing to me. And it may be even less:
His comments came just after the official Xinhua News Agency cited Alexander Losyukov, head of the Russian delegation and his country’s deputy foreign minister, as saying North Korea showed “readiness” to abolish its nuclear weapons program.
According to Losyukov, the North would retain its nuclear program related to “peaceful purpose,” Xinhua said. That’s a major step but one somewhat less than what China described.
The version I got (originally from AP, translated into Korean by Yonhap, and run by the Chosun Ilbo) was that North Korea offered to dismantle (Korean: p’yegi) its “military purpose” nuclear facilities, but continue to maintain its peaceful nuclear programs. Nobody’s quite sure, however, what the term “military purpose” (Korean: gunsa-jeok mokjeok) means, according to the AP/Yonhap/Chosun report. It doesn’t really matter, because if Mr. Losyukov thinks the Americans are going to buy any deal that allows North Korea to keep anything remotely nuclear — be it a 5 MW reactor at Yongbyon or one of those glow-in-the-dark watches like I had when I was a kid — then the good ambassador had better start laying off the vodka.
On a more positive note, North Korea is still denying it has a highly enriched uranium program (HEU), but interestingly enough, the Hanguk Ilbo reports that the North Koreans are apparently willing to talk about it. According to the report, the Americans used their keynote address during the yesterday morning’s plenary session to demand that the North admit to its HEU program, to which the North replied, “Show us the proof.” However, the South Korean delegation said that the atmosphere changed when the North Koreans and Americans got together for bilateral discussions later, with the North saying “we can discuss the program.” Mind you, they still say they don’t have an HEU program, but if the Americans want to “discuss” it, that’s alright with P’yongyang.
Apparently, the Americans have made it known that they “understand and support” the South Korean proposal to provide the North energy aid to the North once it freezes its nuclear facilities, or so says South Korean delegation head Lee Su-hyeok. The odd thing is, now there’s a discussion because while the Bush Administration is apparently going to sign off on other countries providing oil to North Korea (provided the North freezes its facilities as a first step to eventual dismantlement AND agrees to inspections), it will not pay for it. Commenting on this, one high South Korean government official said that if Seoul has to take a leading role with providing the oil to the North, the government stands to face serious criticism at home. Apparently Jeong Se-hyeon, the Marmot’s all-time favorite Minister of Unification, didn’t like the idea, either, saying that it would be “difficult” for South Korea to assume the burden of the costs of sending oil up North. Personally, I was a little taken back, because Jeong is usually the first to bend the Korean tax payer over when it comes to making “investments in unification.”
Oh, and couldn’t help but notice Uri Party chairman Jeong Dong-yeong going to Japan and telling Tokyo to stop creating tensions with North Korea because of the kidnapping issue and play a constructive role in the 6 party talks. In an interview with the Nihon Geizai, he also said :
In order to improve relations with North Korea, it needs to keep the principle of separating economic issues from political issues, just like it did when it established diplomatic relations with China. It’s desirable that Japan deal with the nuclear issue and the kidnapping issue separately.
Great. So Japan should just ignore all those problematic political issues (nukes, ballistic missiles, kidnappings, human rights) in order to focus on the major economic issues, like sending tons of aid to Pyongyang in return for North Korean drugs. I should also point out that by continuously “separating” issues that the Noh Mu-hyeon Administration doesn’t deem important (like the HEU program, kidnappings of Japanese citizens), it kinda renders the whole idea of a “comprehensive agreement” rather meaningless. But then again, I never had much faith in the whole comprehensive approach, anyway.
4 Comments
Interesting how the South Koreans are so eager to help their “brothers” in the North…when America pays for it.
‘..deem important (kidnappings)…’
excuse me? you’re saying the abduction of SIX japanese citizens should be important to the korean people? maybe the pm of japan should go and pray at yasukuni. perhaps you should too, mr marmot. pray for the hundreds of thousands of koreans abducted by your good friends there in nippon.
the nerve.
The real travesty is that the “progressive” leaders of the ROK don’t “deem important” the at least 500 SOUTH KOREANS who have been abducted by the North Koreans.
I think you’re missing the point here, Shin. If Jeong wants to fund his party’s own foreign policy perogatives with Japanese money, he’d best be sensitive to issues considered important by Tokyo. It’s not like Japan doesn’t have other options here, and most of those options are much less conducive to Seoul’s interests than the one currently being employed by Japan (i.e., sitting down at the six-party talks and possibly being asked to pay a king’s ransom). Given the way the North Korea dropped the diplomatic ball with the abduction issue, I think Japan has behaved remarkably well, although I admit, it’s been much more “provocative” than Seoul, which (as Slim points out), prefers to pretend that the South Korean abductee and POW issue doesn’t exist.
Besides, Jeong’s telling Japan to separate the political from the economic (????짼쩍 ?쨋????) was pure horseshit — like South Korea, if Japan is going to throw good money down the drain that is otherwise known as the DPRK, it’s not going to do so because it thinks it’s a good business decision. Just ask Hyundai. Aid to North Korea, as well as “private” investment in North Korea (if the South Korean case is anything to go by), is a decidedly political affair.