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  Little Progress in US-NK in Direct Talks
  The United States and North Korea (NK) made no progress in their first direct meeting after a long time on the sidelines of the six-nation nuclear arms talks in Beijing to discuss US financial restrictions on Pyongyang, a key stumbling block in the arms negotiations.
 

 

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The United States and North Korea (NK) made no progress in their first direct meeting after a long time on the sidelines of the six-nation nuclear arms talks in Beijing to discuss US financial restrictions on Pyongyang, a key stumbling block in the arms negotiations. Pyongyang started the renewed dialogue process in an aggressive fashion and in the belief that they were a nuclear weapons state but the US and the world hopes that they will abandon their program in exchange for economic and financial aid.

US Chief Negotiator and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said while his “exchange of information” with the NK was “healthy,” he does not “have any breakthroughs to report.” Thought he declined to propose a timeline on the nuclear talks, he asserted that the US “cannot accept anything less than the goal of denuclearization” and hoped “to see something get done” in a week. Pyongyang has stayed away from any contact since November 2005 claiming to be angry with the US decision to impose restrictions on a Macau bank where the Pyongyang regime deposited some $24 million. Washington charges the bank with complicity in laundering North’s counterfeiting $100 bills and assisting the communist regime to sell weapons of mass destruction. It has also leaned heavily on other countries to bar North Korean accounts charging that most of the transactions from that country are suspect. Over the last one year, NK had been silently working on the nuclear test managing to evade international scrutiny because of their attention to Iraq, Iran, and Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. It agreed to return to talks after the October 9 tests when the US promised direct and separate talks on the financial issue.

Japan’s chief negotiator Kenichiro Sasae said that “There is still a big gap remaining” and that “There was nothing that we can be optimistic about” but said he hope NK will “take a more forward-looking stance.” Apparently, NK takes umbrage to Japan’s stoic position against its nuclear weapons program and refused to meet with Tokyo while meeting the others.

Although no tangible progress is visible, there has been progress on engagement. US Treasury Departyment Deputy Assistant Secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes Daniel Glaser met with a NK delegation but conceded that “it’s going to be a long-time process” assuming that the talks are “really productive.” After meeting at the US Embassy, the next meeting will be at the North Korean Embassy. It also seems extremely unlikely that the US would or indeed should simply remove the financial restrictions as the North wants, because counterfeiting, trading in weapons of mass destruction, and possibly proliferation of nuclear weapons is not just a legal matter but also a great threat to international peace.

China sees itself as a facilitator of “the process of talks” and says that it wishes to see “positive achievements.” Chinese junior Foreign Minister says that the “first step” is “to map out the measures that help realize the joint statement” which will then help the teams “decide what moves we will take." China still hopes that the September 2005 Agreement in which NK agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees will be the basis for forward movement. According to a Chinese press release, the 6 nations (NK, US, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea) spent the first two hours focused on ways to implement the September 2005 Agreement. Not much progress has been made on that score either.

China is NK’s largest ally and is believed to have more influence that any other nation and the return of Pyongyang to negotiations is directly attributable to Beijing’s efforts.