N Korea may be next on agenda

2004-11-04 14:28

Washington - Re-elected United States President George W Bush will waste little time in trying to get nuclear-armed North Korea back to the negotiating table and dealing with the fallout of Iraq and the war on terrorism on Muslim communities in Asia as he fine tunes his policy on the region, analysts say.

They do not see any major shifts in American trade policy towards Asia although the Bush administration may have indicated during election campaigning about the need for greater trade protectionism toward China or elsewhere in the region.

One of the first moves expected by Washington following the re-election of Bush in Tuesday's presidential polls is to jumpstart the six-party talks aimed at ending the nuclear crisis in the Korean peninsula.

North Korea refused to attend the fourth round of the talks scheduled in September and many believed Pyongyang wanted to wait for the elections hoping for a less hardline US stance if Democractic Senator John Kerry defeated Bush.

Putting pressure

Kerry had vowed to deal directly with North Korea while Bush preferred a multilateral approach.

"I think we may see the United States trying to encourage if not prod both China and South Korea to put a little bit more pressure on North Korea to come back to the table," said Ralph Cossa of the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell made a trip to Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo late last month to push for an early resumption of the six party talks, involving the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Bush has firmly refused to sweeten Washington's aid-for-disarmament offer to North Korea in return for "complete" and "verifiable" dismantling and removal of its nuclear arms program.

Some analysts say Bush, who won a majority of the popular vote and whose party held onto both houses of the US Congress in Tuesday's elections, is expected to maintain his firm stand on North Korea as well on Iraq despite sharp criticism from many countries.

Walter Russell Mead at the Council on Foreign Relations said the Bush administration might say: "Even with all of this trouble, we've increased our popular majority, we've increased our votes in the Senate, more of the same, full speed ahead."

- AFP