N Korea Charm Offensive Not Working
By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) – North Korea is waxing conciliatory after months of military provocations — but experts say now is no time for the United States to relent on sanctions aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.
North Korea has lowered tensions with several gestures from releasing two jailed U.S. journalists and freeing a detained South Korean businessman to offering to reopen frozen North-South business and tourism ventures.
A high ranking North Korean delegation on Sunday attended the funeral of a former South Korean president and delivered a message from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to Seoul’s President Lee Myung-bak, the first formal communication since Lee took office about 18 months ago.
And on Monday South Korean media said Pyongyang had invited the U.S. official charged with managing relations with North Korea, Steven Bosworth, to visit the North next month for talks on its nuclear program.
But long-time observers of wily North Korean leader Kim Jong-il see only a tactical shift aimed at weakening international sanctions imposed after North Korea’s nuclear weapons test in May. They say Kim’s moves are in fact evidence that U.N. curbs on Pyongyang’s finances are starting to bite.
North Korea had not even begun to address the nuclear proliferation dispute that has isolated it from the international community, said Abraham Kim of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy.
“Instead they are trying to focus on atmospherics, to give the sense that things are getting better, but in reality nothing is getting better,” he said.
“Clearly we have seen some toning down of rhetoric … some actions and language that seem conciliatory,” said a senior U.S. official, cautioning that Washington had made only initial assessments of the North’s new diplomatic outreach.
“What we haven’t seen, and what we are still looking for, is any kind of indication that the North Koreans are willing to return to multilateral talks on denuclearization.”
TARGETING WASHINGTON, SEOUL, BEIJING
North Korea faces sanctions aimed at curtailing its lucrative missile trade under U.N. resolutions adopted following the North’s long-range rocket launch in April and nuclear test in May.
Washington wants the North to rejoin the United States in disarmament-for-aid talks that also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. Pyongyang considers these dead and wants only direct talks with the United States, which Washington refuses to conduct outside the six-party framework.
North Korea also appears to want to be recognized as a nuclear power — a nonstarter for its negotiating partners.
Korea expert Bruce Klingner at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington says Pyongyang is trying to “get the U.S. and South Korean governments to water down their approach towards North Korea, generate differences between the allies and to undermine the effectiveness of international sanctions.”
North Korea’s neighbor and chief benefactor China, which appears to have shaken Pyongyang by endorsing the latest U.N. sanctions to an unprecedented degree, is also a target of the North’s latest outreach, he added.
Kim says a Pyongyang’s aim, demonstrated by the emotional outpouring at the late Kim Dae-jung’s funeral, is “playing on the South Korean public to pressure the Lee Myung-bak administration to have a less tough stance on the North.”
South Korean President Lee in 2008 put the brakes on policies of open-ended aid that funneled billions to North Korea in a policy that Kim Dae-jung began a decade earlier.
Lee demanded reciprocity from Pyongyang for Seoul’s largess and North Korea angrily shut down inter-Korean business and tourism projects. The North now needs the money so is willing to discuss reopening them, say analysts.
“BUZZSAW” OF SOLIDARITY
Jack Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea, said Pyongyang has “run into a buzzsaw” of an Obama administration that is more firm than it had expected, a Lee administration in Seoul that has shrugged off war threats and U.N. sanctions that are starting to hurt.
“They’ve run into a problem they did not anticipate,” he said of a North Korea that has historically been able to exploit gaps between Washington and Seoul.
“They’re not collapsing now, they’re not going to fold now, but they’ve taken a look and said ‘This path is not sustainable. We’ve got to fix it and how can we do this?'” said Pritchard, head of the Korea Economic Institute.
So far, the United States is holding firm to its stance that North Korea’s only route to talking with Washington is through the six-party talks. To keep up pressure, Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the U.N. sanctions, visited Seoul just after North Korea’s funeral overture.
Klingner and other experts say Washington should stick to its tough position. “We have the U.S. and its allies remaining firm, and here we have North Korea making the first gesture, so I think the policies are working,” he said. (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by David Storey)