North Korea ready to talk?
2003-04-14 08:17
Seoul - The United States' destruction of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime may have induced North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il to hasten to the negotiating table to resolve the Stalinist country's nuclear crisis, officials said on Monday.
A cautious statement from North Korea indicating a shift in its position, and a welcoming response from US President George W Bush, triggered optimism that diplomacy may be defusing the impasse over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
Bush, euphoric over the military victory in Iraq, was responding to more good news on Sunday when he indicated that the bitter standoff with North Korea over its nuclear programme was easing.
"We are making progress on the Korean peninsula," Bush told reporters at the White House.
"We have made it clear that we think the best way to deal with their proliferation is through a multinational forum. It looks like that might be coming to fruition, that's very good news," he said.
Bush's comments followed North Korea's announcement Saturday that it would accept any form of dialogue with Washington over its suspected nuclear programme if the latter dropped its hostile policy towards the communist state.
Until now, Pyongyang had insisted on one-on-one talks with Washington to resolve the dispute over its nuclear ambitions.
Washington has rejected Pyongyang's demand, insisting a bilateral negotiating track would amount to a reward for "bad behavior" by North Korea.
The North Korean change of heart was linked by South Korean officials to the war in Iraq. The swift US military victory and the fall of Saddam stunned North Korea's Stalinist leadership, according to analysts here.
"I think the Iraq war might have prompted a change in the international political landscape," national security advisor Ra Jong-Yil was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency. "North Korea appears to be a little bit flexible and softer in its approach to dialogue."
Diplomatic pressure from China and Russia could also have prompted the North Korean statement from an unnamed foreign ministry official on Saturday.
"If the US is ready to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy for a settlement of the nuclear issue, the DPRK (North Korea) will not stick to any particular dialogue format," the spokesperson told the official Korean Central News Agency.
The official did not elaborate on what form of "bold" move Pyongyang was expecting from the United State, but analysts said the language could be taken as a reference to the Bush administration's so-called "bold initiative" of economic and political support for North Korea that was shelved when the nuclear crisis erupted in October.
South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun, who has in the past expressed fears that war could break out over the nuclear crisis, was cheered by the North Korean statement, saying he felt "confident that North Korea's nuclear problem will be solved peacefully through diplomatic means".
A foreign ministry official said South Korea would now press Washington and Pyongyang to begin dialogue as soon as possible. Foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan spoke with US ambassador Thomas Hubbard earlier on Monday to convey the government's position.
South Korea's unification ministry said the format for multilateral talks would have to be worked out through careful and probable lengthy negotiations, but could include the two Koreas, Japan, China, the United States and Russia.
North Korea, along with Iraq, where US-led forces have ousted the regime of Saddam Hussein, and Iran, was branded by Bush as part of an "axis of of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address.
The nuclear standoff erupted in October when North Korea reportedly admitted that it was running a secret uranium-enrichment programme, in violation of a 1994 nuclear deal between the two countries.
North Korea had asked for a non-aggression pact and direct talks to resolve the crisis. Washington, which has not ruled out the military options, said Iraq and North Korea were different cases and it was seeking a peaceful resolution to the North Korean standoff.