U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the six-country talks aimed at ending the North Korean nuclear crisis will likely resume early December. The remarks were made in line with an agreement between the leaders of South Korea, Japan and the United States, who attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, on November 22. During a three-way summit on the sidelines of the APEC meeting, they agreed to reconvene the six-way talks early next month to search for a breakthrough in North Korea’s nuclear verification, which has stalled the multilateral negotiations for five months. But the prospects for the resumption of the talks are still murky, since it is uncertain whether North Korea will participate in the talks and how China views the new round of talks. Here’s Kim Yeon-cheol, the head of the Hangyeore Peace Research Institute, to explain.

With President Bush nearing the end of his term, the U.S. government hopes to make some progress in the nuclear issue very soon. Throughout the U.S. presidential race, President Bush’s North Korea policy drew criticism that inactive negotiations with North Korea ultimately helped the communist nation strengthen its nuclear capability. The current U.S. administration is desperate to at least wrap up the North’s nuclear disablement stage and initiate the third phase of nuclear dismantlement before President Bush’s term ends. On the other hand, China and North Korea are taking a wait-and-see attitude until the inauguration of the Obama administration, in an attempt to deal with the nuclear issue in a more favorable environment. Behind-the-door contacts regarding Pyongyang’s nuclear verification are underway between involved countries. The resumption of the six-party talks depends on how successfully they handle this issue.

The next round of six-party talks will be the last under the Bush administration and will focus on the completion of the second phase of North Korea’s denuclearization. The most significant issue still pending is the adoption of a protocol to verify the North’s nuclear declaration, and ‘nuclear sampling’ comprises the key element in the negotiations. Sampling is the clearest way to confirm the degree of North Korea’s nuclear development. Officials will collect nuclear materials from the Yongbyon reactor, reprocessing facilities, or soil, and examine them to find out the operation history of the nuclear reactor and the total amount of plutonium the North has produced for the last 2-to-3 decades. But North Korea has strongly rejected nuclear sampling, signaling a difficult situation for the future six-party talks.

North Korea has a negative approach to nuclear sampling, the second denuclearization measure and also the beginning of the third phase of nuclear dismantlement. The U.S. has already removed the North from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and it thinks verification without nuclear sampling will never win public approval. As a compromise, the two countries have reportedly found common ground on some practical measures to settle the dispute, without expressly stipulating ‘nuclear sampling’ in the text. If they manage to reach a compromise on this issue, they will be able to eliminate a big stumbling block in the way of finalizing the nuclear verification protocol.

The biggest sticking point in the process of completing the second denuclearization stage is how to verify North Korea’s nuclear declaration. The U.S. claimed it had agreed with North Korea on nuclear sampling, while the North said it had never agreed on it, and their different statements only cause confusion. The contention originated from the six-party talks last July. At the time, the negotiators agreed on several actions to verify the North’s nuclear declaration, such as on-site visits, a review of documents and interviews with North Korean technicians. But North Korea rejected a sampling examination and giving inspectors access to undeclared nuclear facilities. As a result, the six-party agreement included a rather vague expression, like ‘other measures will be decided under the agreement of the participants’, so North Korea and the U.S. developed different interpretations. Washington announced on October 12 that the nuclear verification would include the use of scientific procedures, such as taking samples and forensic activities. A month later, on November 12, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry denied the ‘sampling’ stipulation, saying that the verification would be limited to inspectors’ on-site visits, document confirmation and interviews with technicians. The North also reiterated its intention to discuss nuclear sampling in the third nuclear dismantlement step, not in the second disablement step. Will the negotiators be able to find a solution at the six-way talks?

The Bush administration will seek to adopt the nuclear verification protocol by all means, since it signals the start of the third denuclearization stage. North Korea, on the other hand, will likely consider various other options. Since 2007, the six-party talks have maintained a dual dialogue structure in which negotiations between North Korea and the U.S. take center stage and the other participants approve their bilateral agreements. The dual structure will likely continue under the Obama government. But the level of bilateral talks between Pyongyang and Washington will be different from that of the Bush administration. Obama seems to be determined to hold active and aggressive dialogue with North Korea in order to resolve the nuclear issue as early as possible. The North and the U.S. will therefore focus on more sensitive and complicated matters to accelerate the six-party negotiations and manage them more effectively.

President-elect Obama, who will lead the next U.S. government, said that he would deal with the nuclear issue through bilateral talks with North Korea as well as through the multilateral, six-way negotiations. Obama also clarified his intention to dispatch a special envoy to North Korea during his first 100 days in office. Both South and North Korea show special interest in the plan, which is the first specific example of Obama’s direct diplomacy involving North Korea. Meanwhile, Pyongyang announced its decision to halt all inter-Korean exchange programs, except the Gaeseong industrial park business. Concerns are rising that North Korea is strengthening its old tactic of improving relations solely with the U.S. while sidelining South Korea.

North Korea is getting increasingly aggressive toward Seoul, but I think all the problems will be settled if inter-Korean relations are restored. And South Korea will also able to coordinate its North Korea policy in cooperation with the U.S. Inter-Korean ties have been worsening, especially since the suspension of the Mt. Geumgang tour program last July. We have to ponder how the protracted deadlock in bilateral relations will influence South Korea in this volatile diplomatic environment. It will certainly limit Seoul’s diplomatic ability and affect the local economy negatively. I don’t mean South Korea should accept the North’s hard-line measures. But I think it’s time for Seoul to disentangle inter-Korean ties in consideration of progress in the six-party talks and the Obama administration’s willingness to hold dialogue with North Korea.

At present, North Korea isn’t negative about the resumption of the six-party talks, and is taking a flexible attitude toward the nuclear issue. But the North is getting tougher on South Korea. If inter-Korean relations continue to deteriorate, both sides will inevitably suffer in economic and security areas, and bilateral humanitarian issues, including the reunions of separated families, will remain unsettled. It’s hoped that North Korea will be as flexible in handling the setback in inter-Korean ties as in dealing with the nuclear issue. 　 [Interview] Exhibition Displays N. Korean Agricultural, Proceed Food Products
‘Food Week 2008,’ the nation’s largest exhibition of food and cooking equipment, kicked off at COEX in Samsung-dong in Seoul on November 20. About 800 related businesses participated in the four-day event, which arranged six existing exhibitions in one place. One of the most eye-catching programs was a special exhibition of North Korean agricultural and fisheries products. Here’s Bae Myung-ryeol, the head of the Inter-Korean Trade Support Team of the Korea International Trade Association, to tell us more about the exhibition.

The exhibition was designed to help South Korean consumers better understand North Korean products, promote marketing of small local firms importing North Korean goods and eventually facilitate economic cooperation between the two Koreas. We’ve visited Pyongyang to prepare for the exhibition. The preparation work started long ago.

The Korea International Trade Association is a coalition of local trading firms and exporters. The group coordinates opinions of its member companies and spearheads various projects aimed at boosting trade. To organize the recent exhibition, the association brought in various North Korean products directly from Pyongyang. A similar event was also held last year, with the purpose of increasing public interest in North Korean goods and supporting South Korean firms engaging in inter-Korean trade. The exhibition displayed agricultural and fisheries products grown by North Korean farmers, such as health foods, the traditional liquor soju from Pyongyang, corn noodles and bracken roots. Many visitors were curious about food from the reclusive country. Their intrigue even inspired them to loosen their purse strings despite the worldwide economic crisis. The exhibition provided a win-win venue for both consumers and trading firms. Shoppers were given the opportunity to purchase good-quality products at reasonable prices and the companies earned a large profit. Both the sellers and the shoppers were visibly delighted. Mr. Bae says the association will continue to conduct exchanges with a North Korean firm that is in charge of exporting North Korean goods to the South.

Just like the Korea International Trade Association, North Korea’s National Economic Cooperation Association is devoted to supporting trading companies in the North. I met with the chief of the North Korean association in August to explain joint projects to him, and we agreed to promote inter-Korean economic cooperation. South-North relations aren’t very good now, but through this event, South Koreans can show that they still want exchanges with the North. We’ll continue to carry out various other programs to revitalize bilateral economic cooperation.

Mr. Bae cites the biggest difficulty as the lack of mutual confidence between the South and the North. Hopefully, his efforts to connect the two sides as one will bear fruit.