A top South Korean envoy said that continued patience is needed in the diplomatic effort to shutter North Korea's nuclear operations, the Yonhap News Agency reported today (see GSN, Dec. 22).
(Dec. 24) -
Envoys to six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear future pose for photos earlier this month in Beijing (Getty Images).
"What is important is not to lose hope," nuclear negotiator Kim Sook said amid the latest deadlock in the denuclearization process.
Twelve months of progress and setbacks were typical for any year of negotiations with Pyongyang, according to Yonhap.
North Korea agreed last year to give up its nuclear sector in exchange for economic, diplomatic and security concessions from China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
The Stalinist state began disabling key nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon complex and in late June issued a declaration of its nuclear operations and holdings. However, the document had been expected at the end of 2007.
North Korea followed up on the release of the declaration by demolishing its reactor cooling tower. Later that summer, though, it temporarily reversed disablement activities at Yongbyon in apparent frustration over the pace at which it was receiving energy aid promised in the 2007 deal.
Most recently, Pyongyang denied that it had agreed to collection of nuclear material samples as part of an October deal with Washington on verifying the regime's nuclear work. Six-nation talks earlier this month failed to resolve the matter.
"North Korea's rejection of the verification agreement that the Bush administration claimed Pyongyang had previously accepted made clear that Washington prematurely removed North Korea" from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Bruce Klingner.
"It also showed the fallacy of the U.S. strategy of relying on vague language and partial North Korean compliance to maintain a perception of progress in the six-party talks," he added.
However, South Korean analyst Cho Sung-ryul argued that "even though the Oct. 3 agreement was not implemented completely, this year was not futile in terms of the overall denuclearization process.
"North Korea showed its will to implement it," he said.
"North Korea is apparently waiting for the (incoming) Obama administration," Cho added. "I think the six-way talks could resume by June next year at the latest if working-level dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. is maintained" (Yonhap News Agency, Dec. 24).
Meanwhile North Korea today threatened massive retaliation against any military incursion by South Korea or the United States, Agence France-Presse reported.
Pyongyang would fire back at South Korea with something "unimaginably more powerful than nuclear weapons," according to armed forces minister Kim Il Chol, echoing a military threat issued in late October.
The nation would "not merely turn everything into a sea of fire but reduce everything treacherous and antireunification to debris and build an independent reunified country on it," Kim said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 23).