North Korea requires long-term strategic relationship with the U.S.

Publication: International Journal on World Peace

Publication Date: 01-MAR-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 Professors World Peace Academy

Talks between U.S. and North Korean diplomats in New York in early March, on top of the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement in the six-party talks on initial actions for the implementation of the September 2005 Joint Statement, represent meaningful progress toward resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue, at long last.

Since December 2006, there were three bilateral meetings between U.S. and North Korean delegates in Berlin, as well as talks in Beijing between Democratic People's Republic of Korea and U.S. Treasury Department officials. These preparations by an election-chastened Bush administration laid much of the groundwork for February's agreement. The recent talks between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, are a further step toward normalization of relations between the two countries. The North is anticipated to freeze its nuclear program in mid-April if its funds, frozen in a Macao bank under U.S. pressure, are returned by then (at this writing, technical problems are delaying the funds return).

Clearly, the stage is set within the framework of the six-party talks to resolve an issue that has festered since 1990: ending North Korea's nuclear program. But it would be a mistake to think that either North Korea has had a "change of heart" or that U.S. financial pressure since October 2005 alone forced the North to make choices it previously could avoid. The real reasons for improvement in the talks have likely...

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