The Hindu : North Korea presses for a new deal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 04, 2003

International

International

North Korea presses for a new deal

By P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE Jan. 3. North Korea today outlined its diplomatic case for a virtual new deal with the United States to sort out the row over its `sovereign' right to possess nuclear weapons. Aware of the need to influence international opinion as the first step in any such game plan, the North Korean Ambassador to China, Choe Jin-su, told journalists in Beijing today that the nuclear-arms controversy should be resolved by Pyongyang and Washington themselves.

However, even as he underlined the bilateral nature of this dispute, he left the diplomatic door ajar for possible "outside mediation'' that might help bring the two antagonists together for renewed talks.

Any such externally-facilitated bilateral parleys should, nonetheless, remain essentially unconditional in scope, the envoy indicated.

The Pyongyang thinking is an answer to the indication by the U.S. President, George W. Bush, that he might still give diplomacy a big chance to help him de-nuclearise the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). It is in this context that the South Korean President-elect, Roh Moo-huyn, today offered to intervene in the U.S.-DPRK dispute.

Mr. Roh indicated in Seoul that he might "fashion a compromise draft'' that could be discussed and suitably agreed upon by the U.S. and North Korea.

The idea was to encourage both the U.S. President and the Chairman of North Korea's National Defence Commission, Kim Jong-il, to "make concessions''.

In any case, diplomatic observers in the region tend to believe that Mr. Roh himself may not have yet given a definitive shape to the `concessions' he is thinking about.

However, a strand of `informed' speculation that did the rounds in Seoul today is that the present South Korean Government, in conjunction with Mr. Roh who will assume presidency next month, has now begun to consider suggesting that Washington spell out a firm commitment to guarantee the DPRK's sovereign status.

The stated objective is to put North Korea at ease without the U.S, itself having to downplay or discard its insistence that Pyongyang de-nuclearise its "atomic energy programme'' as regards the scope for weaponisation.

Even if the U.S. were to enshrine the proposed commitment in the form of a "written assurance'', it will not qualify for the status of a treaty of any kind, it is pointed out.

Apparently aware of the South Korean initiative, the North Korean envoy in Beijing laid down his country's maximal position. Mr. Choe insisted that any unconditional talks between Washington and Pyongyang, if facilitated by other power(s), should still be linked to the existing ground realities.

The North Korean view, in this regard, is that the U.S., with its "Cold War style thinking'', is `threatening' Pyongyang with the possible use of nuclear weapons against it. According to Mr. Choe, America's "hostile stance'' towards the DPRK is "clear as daylight''.

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