North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il said in a meeting with Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in Pyongyang yesterday that North Korea was ready to return to the six-party talks on nuclear disarmament, but that this would be conditional on the successful holding of direct bilateral talks with the United States beforehand. The North Korean state-run news agency, KCNA, reported Kim as stating that, "We expressed our readiness to hold multilateral talks, depending on the outcome of the DPRK-U.S. talks. The six-party talks are also included in the multilateral talks". The announcement comes at the same time as North Korea seems about to resume operations of plutonium-producing plants that it had shut down before walking out of the six-nation talks in April this year, following a stand-off between the country and the United Nations over its test-firing of long-range missiles that month. Tensions with the international community deteriorated further when North Korea conducted a second nuclear test in May, when the UN, with the unprecedented consent of China, enacted sanctions against the country. A number of overtures made by North Korea over the past weeks, that have included a thawing of relations between North and South Korea, have spurred speculation as to the country's willingness to return to the six-party talks.

Outlook and Implications

Six-Party Talks Not the Primary Objective

The six-party talks were initiated in 2003 to facilitate a peaceful resolution to the problems posed by North Korea's nuclear programme, following the country's withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that year. Participating in the talks, apart from China and North Korea, are the United States, Russia, Japan, and South Korea. So far, there have been six rounds of talks, during which a variety of agreements were reached. However, in April 2009, North Korea abruptly left the six-party talks after a Security Council Resolution condemned the launch of a long-range missile. This UN condemnation was met with a forceful response by North Korea, which said that the country would "never again" participate in the six-nation negotiations nor be subject to any agreement reached at such talks. The strength of North Korea's reaction at that time is in-line with the regime's typically bellicose bluster, and did not necessarily represent the definitive end of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks. It has often been argued that North Korea's real objective behind walking out of the talks may have been to attract the attention of the new U.S. president Barack Obama's administration by playing the nuclear card in order to pressure the United States to resume direct bilateral talks with North Korea. North Korea's conditions on resuming the six-party talks confirm this.

Thus, while the Chinese news agency Xinhua hailed these latest developments as having brought about a "vital consensus" between China and North Korea, it remains to be seen to what extent these statements translate into concrete action rather than mere lip service, as has so often been the case in the past. In fact, it is probable that North Korea's concessions serve the dual purpose of pleasing China, the country's single most important trading partner and prime diplomatic supporter in the past, as well as pressurising the United States into direct talks. China, which has been pressing North Korea to resume the six-party talks, will be somewhat disappointed by North Korea's move, however, given that the Pyongyang regime did not offer an unconditional return to the talks.

Regarding the United States, this is not the first time that North Korea has requested direct bilateral dialogue. On 20 August this year, New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson met with a number of senior officials in the U.S. state's capital of Santa Fe, signalling a renewed round of rapprochement after tensions had mounted following North Korea's two missile launches in April and May. However, while official statements from the U.S. Department of State have made it clear in the past that the United States is generally open to direct bilateral talks with North Korea, it has time and again stressed that these would have to be directly aimed at bringing North Korea to the negotiating table in the context of the six-party talks. The language that North Korea uses is significant: saying that North Korea is ready for the talks "depending on the outcome of the DPRK-U.S. talks", Kim remains extremely vague as to the content and purpose of the bilateral talks. In this sense, it is highly unlikely that North Korea truly intends the bilateral dialogue as a route back into six-party talks; rather, the regime would probably reiterate statements it has made frequently this year, namely that the country's disarmament measures would have to be tied to global developments in this respect, referring to the disarmament of its arch-enemy, the United States. Thus, by placing this condition on the successful holding of direct bilateral talks with the United States, and by remaining extremely vague in this respect, North Korea has the trump card of an "easy way-out option" from the talks. Underscoring this is North Korea's apparently strengthened resolve to retain its nuclear programme, having made statements as to the absolute necessity of this in recent weeks. It therefore remains unlikely that there will be any meaningful advances in nuclear disarmament in North Korea in the short to medium term.

President Barack Obama's administration once more faces the dilemma of how to proceed in response to the North Korean overtures. The current administration has labelled North Korea "a grave threat" and pledged to "vigorously enforce sanctions". Indeed, Obama may be concerned that he could face greater polarisation at home should he take too soft an approach on the issue, with many viewing it as weak and unethical to succumb to conditions imposed by North Korea. In this light, the U.S. administration may also be attempting to cater to the primarily conservative view of its public, with more than two thirds of the U.S. populace believing that Obama should be even tougher on North Korea. That said, North Korea's offer could also provide the U.S. regime the opportunity it needs to adopt the softer approach promised during the Democratic presidential campaign last year, when the election of Obama to office was widely believed to signal more comprehensive engagement with U.S. antagonists.

Global Insight (Reino Unido)