A North Korean Reversal?

The announcement, coincidentally enough, came shortly after the visit of a senior official from China, the nation that supplies between 40 and 60% of North Korea’s fuel, depending on which report you believe. The sheer vagueness of it, however, suggests a thin reed of hope for those who see anything coming from these talks other than a demonstration that we’re willing to take part in them:

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Il, has told a Chinese envoy that he would be willing to resume diplomatic negotiations over his country’s nuclear program, but only when “conditions are ripe,” according to state media reports in China and North Korea. Mr. Kim also said North Korea would return to the talks only if the United States showed “sincerity.”
. . . .

In a meeting on Monday with a senior Chinese official dispatched to Pyongyang, Mr. Kim reportedly said North Korea remained committed to the continuing six-nation negotiations organized by China to defuse the nuclear crisis. “The D.P.R.K. has never opposed the six-party talks, nor will it withdraw from the talks,” Mr. Kim said, referring to the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Can you spot the most interesting thing about this report, dear reader? Yes, it would be Kim Jong-Il’s meeting with a foreign emissary, which, if confirmed, would indicate that he continues to be the man behind the curtain, or at least, one of them.

The “commitment,” if you can call it that, is certainly well described by the New York Times as “vague and open ended.” It’s uniquely unlikely to satisfy a Bush administration newly energized in the wake of reports that North Korean enriched uranium somehow ended up in Libyan hands, in addition to growing suspicions that North Korea and Iran are jointly testing missiles.

The Washington Post campaigns for President Bush to declare that he has “no hostile intent” toward Pyongyang as an inducement to get Pyongyang to simply talk. It’s actually an interesting read in the history of the administration’s careful calibration of its message, until you realize that Pyongyang never explicitly demanded that Bush say the words (quote, please?), and that it’s mostly an effort by Glen Kessler (one that appears to be mostly detached from today’s events and therefore from relevancy) to pin a “hostile policy” on President Bush. Given the tendency of words from the North Koreans to mean other than what they seem, Kessler is reaching if he believes that this concession–or any other–will lead to a solution to our problems with North Korea.

If President Bush is half the man I hope he is, his policy is deeply hostile. Although I don’t see any harm in Bush saying he has no plans to invade North Korea, when it comes to the talks, his mantra ought to be “North Korea must return immediately and without preconditions.”