The future of a stalled diplomatic drive to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme depends largely on how it views United States President George Bush’s State of the Union address, analysts say.
In his key policy address before Congress in Washington on Wednesday, the US president avoided inflammatory language aimed directly at the Stalinist regime.
Three years ago, he grouped North Korea along with Iran and Iraq in an ”axis of evil”, but this time he used more neutral language in the one sentence addressed to North Korea.
”We are working closely with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions,” Bush said.
South Korea’s news agency Yonhap quoted a muted reaction from one North Korean official, a diplomat in New York.
”We watched his speech, which we think is no big deal, but we need time to respond,” Yonhap quoted the diplomat as saying.
Peter Beck, the director of the North East Project for the International Crisis Group, said Bush’s remarks were surprisingly mild. He noted they came a day after reports in the US press, leaked by unidentified officials, that North Korea had almost certainly sold processed uranium to Libya.
”It was milder than expected,” he said. ”But the pre-emptive leak in the press shows that there are still divisions in the administration on how to handle North Korea.”
The leak suggested North Korea had provided Libya in 2001 with nearly two tonnes of uranium hexafluoride, material that can be enriched to bomb-grade level. North Korea denies the charge.
Hardliners in Washington say Bush should hang tough in all dealings with a regime that should not be rewarded for bad behaviour.
Other nations engaged in six-party talks intended to halt the North’s nuclear arms programme, including China and South Korea, want Washington to compromise.
Senior officials from Bush’s National Security Council were in Seoul on Thursday to exchange views on the nuclear standoff. It erupted in October 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of operating a nuclear weapons programme based on highly enriched uranium, violating a 1994 arms-control agreement.
Pyongyang publicly denied that charge but has since said it possesses a nuclear deterrent and has restarted a plutonium scheme.
Last year, experts said the North was delaying a return to the talks while hoping for a victory in the November US elections by John Kerry, Bush’s Democratic opponent.
The North then said it would not consider returning to the talks until Bush had mapped out his second administration’s policy towards it.
A US congressional delegation that visited Pyongyang last month said the North was keen to return to the talks within weeks if it could expect a fair hearing from Washington.
Pyongyang has now run out of excuses and must make a strategic decision on whether to return to the table, according to some analysts.
”As of today the waiting game should end. They have to decide,” said a former government adviser on North Korea, Jun Bong-Geun.
Others say it could still delay further.
”North Korea can always find something to object to,” said Beck. ”But if they look at the Bush speech reasonably, they will see it as an invitation to talk.”
Paik Hak-Soon of the Sejong Institute, a private think-tank, said North Korea could see things differently — particularly Bush’s reference to his goal of ”ending tyranny in our world”.
Only two weeks ago, his new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, referred to North Korea as an ”outpost of tyranny”.
”This is an indirect but very strong warning aimed at North Korea,” Paik said. ”I don’t see anything in his speech that would help change North Korea’s mind and induce it to return to dialogue at an early date.” — Sapa-AFP