Delegates to six-party talks began converging on the Chinese capital on Wednesday seeking to defuse North Korea’s smouldering nuclear crisis, but envoys and analysts cautioned that any final deal is a distant prospect.
Flying in to a city decked out for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the United States chief negotiator said the talks starting on Thursday would focus on implementing a 2005 statement offering isolated North Korea economic and security concessions in return for ending its nuclear weapons ambitions.
”But I want to emphasise that the real success is when we complete the September ’05 agreement,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters after arriving in Beijing.
”Not just when we start the ’05 agreement, but when we finish it, so we’re not going to finish that this week. We’ll just maybe take a good first step,” he said.
China has set no official deadline for the session, but its chief delegate, Wu Dawei, has said the talks may last three or four days. The Lunar New Year of the Pig begins on February 18.
Efforts to convince Pyongyang to renounce nuclear arms have assumed fresh urgency since it defied international warnings and carried out a first nuclear test in October, prompting United Nations sanctions endorsed by even the North’s long-time backer, China.
Hill said progress at the latest round of the intermittent talks depended on all six parties — host China, the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia.
”We worked very hard for this, done consultations all over the place, so let’s see if we can make some progress,” he said.
South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo echoed the need to make headway.
”The six-party talks are at a moment of truth. At this round, we must turn a corner in making North Korea’s pledge to denuclearise a reality,” he told reporters.
Chinese doubts
But a Chinese nuclear expert from an official think tank voiced doubts about the readiness of Pyongyang and Washington to set aside their differences.
”Frankly speaking, I have changed my view from optimistic to pessimistic,” Teng Jianqun, deputy secretary general of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, told a news briefing in Beijing.
A US financial crackdown on North Korea, as well as the North’s nuclear test, stood in the way of potential agreement, said Teng, adding: ”Mistrust between the two countries is the core element.”
”I am just wondering whether the parties concerned, especially the US and North Korea, would like to solve the dispute in the short term. The answer might be not,” he said.
The latest round is likely to focus on persuading North Korea to first shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant, a source of plutonium for its nuclear weapons programme. Washington has said that North Korea has also run a uranium-enrichment programme, providing another potential source of weapons material.
But the North has its own demands and they may again bog down negotiations as they did in December.
North Korea has said it will not contemplate scrapping its nuclear weapons until Washington lifts a banking crackdown prompted by accusations that Pyongyang ran dollar counterfeiting and other illicit businesses.
A new round of bilateral talks in Beijing in January between US Treasury Department and North Korean officials seeking to resolve the dispute ended with no sign of a breakthrough. – Reuters