Bilateral North-U.S. Talks Unlikely

Representatives of the stalled six-party talks on the North Korea nuclear issue began a three-day set of talks on April 10 at the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD), a security and cooperation meeting for Northeast Asia in Tokyo, Japan.

The likelihood of the chief negotiators from North Korea and the U.S. meeting for separate bilateral talks at the meeting is not good, however.

“As of now, we don’t have any plans to have bilateral talks with the North,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and chief negotiator Christopher Hill said on April 10,

Hill arrived in Japan that afternoon and told reporters at the airport, “What is needed is not bilateral negotiation, but the North’s decision to return to the six-way talks,” He confirmed that the U.S would hold its ground on its original policy toward the North.

Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator and the nation’s vice foreign minister, seemed to be looking forward to the bilateral negotiations with the U.S on the morning of the day prior to Hill’s interview, saying, “This is a rare opportunity for the representatives from the two countries to have talks. I hope we hold the talks,”

He was questioned over whether there were any terms for the two countries to have talks, and he said, “What are the terms of the talks? We have unconditional terms.”

China’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for China Wu Dawei met with Kim that same day and said, “North Korea wants to have a meeting with the U.S.“

But as long as the U.S requires Pyongyang to come back to the six-party talks without condition and North Korea maintains its position that it will not return to the nuclear talks unless the U.S. sanctions are lifted, there could be no breakthrough for the resumption of the six-way talks through the seminar in Tokyo. What’s worse, the North and the U.S could end up with no bilateral talks, many observers say.

“I still maintain the difficulty of resuming the talks,” said South Korea’s representative, Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations Chun Yung-woo on the same day.

The well-informed diplomatic sources said that the U.S judgment of the bilateral contact between the North and the U.S depends on whether Pyongyang suggests bargaining chip as a concession through the contacts with South Korea and China.

There is a possibility that the dinner party yesterday afternoon held by three representatives from South Korea, the U.S and Japan and the U.S-China negotiations scheduled today could lead to a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, today, the second day of the NEACD, Deputy Foreign Minister Chun Yung-woo, Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill, and Kim Kye Gwan, the chief negotiator, each of them is scheduled to deliver the keynote addresses for one hour respectively on the subject of security guarantee in the Northeast Asian region. Under these circumstances, three representatives are likely to meet together.

Young-A Soh sya@donga.com