Concessions possible on N. Korea

Policy shift seen as way to defuse nuclear issue

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 9/1/2003

WASHINGTON -- After more than two years of trying to isolate reclusive North Korea, the Bush administration is preparing to offer Pyongyang diplomatic relations, security guarantees, and other concessions if it agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, according to administration officials involved in internal deliberations.

The approach marks a major policy shift toward what President Bush has labeled a member of the "axis of evil." The Bush White House broke with the Clinton administration's carrot-and-stick approach, preferring to stand firm against North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, whom it accused of violating a 1994 agreement to freeze Pyongyang's weapons program.

The administration, however, has little to show for the confrontational approach. North Korea pulled out of a global treaty governing atomic weapons earlier this year and is now threatening to conduct a nuclear test.

Bolstered by new talks last week, a consensus has emerged in Washington that the most effective way to defuse one of its most challenging foreign policy crises is to reemphasize the Clinton approach of possible rewards in return for North Korean cooperation, the officials said.

"Now [the administration] has learned the hard way that the solution to this is going to be negotiation," said a State Department official who asked not to be named. "The approach until now has been terribly inefficient and wasteful. We could have been here two years ago."

It is unclear, however, whether North Korea would agree to declare its intent to end the nuclear program as a basis for a comprehensive agreement. Officials declined to discuss details of the talks, only to say the atmosphere steadily improved after Pyongyang threatened to conduct a test detonation if it did not receive a pledge from Washington that it would not invade.

The three days of talks in Beijing -- involving the United States, Japan, China, Russia, and North and South Korea -- ended on Friday. The United States worked hard to develop a strategy to confront North Korea with what looked like big-power unity against its nuclear ambitions.

The talks, the first involving Washington and Pyongyang since April, had their share of fireworks. At the opening of the Beijing talks, the top North Korean negotiator said for the first time that his country now has a nuclear bomb and is planning to soon conduct a nuclear test to prove it.

North Korea's state-run news agency warned before the meetings that it would respond strongly if the United States refused to meet its longstanding demand for a formal treaty in which Washington would promise not to attack, something the Bush administration says is out of the question because it would be tantamount to blackmail.

Over the weekend, North Korean officials labeled the talks a failure and said there was no need for further meetings. It was unclear whether the statements signaled a change in policy or another ploy to gain leverage in future talks.

US officials, however, downplayed the hard-line North Korean stance, with the US envoy, Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly, calling the discussions a success.

Rather than calling Pyongyang's bluff, "We were determined not to overreact to anything they said," said an American diplomat who asked not to be named, saying the measured US response was evidence of the shifting tactics.

The Bush administration is willing to make a series of offers to North Korea that would avoid appearing to reward Pyongyang, yet grant concessions as part of a comprehensive settlement in which North Korea agrees to dismantle its nuclear weapons program under international supervision.

"There are things we could still do to get this on a straighter trajectory," said an administration official who asked not to be identified.

He said one leading proposal is to offer to open up a "liaison office" in Pyongyang staffed with US diplomats -- as Washington did with Communist Vietnam -- as a first step to normalizing relations. Washington has no formal diplomatic ties with Pyongyang.

While stopping short of agreeing to a formal nonaggression pact, another proposal is some form of American security guarantee to allay Pyongyang's concerns about a US military attack, officials said. It could include a collective statement from all the parties involved that North Korea will not be threatened if it lives up to its end of the deal, they said.

Other considerations include providing economic incentives, such as resuming fuel oil shipments under the 1994 Agreed Framework negotiated by the Clinton White House to rein in the North's nuclear weapons. Those shipments were suspended last year when Pyongyang said it was continuing to enrich uranium and threatened to separate weapons-grade plutonium from nuclear fuel rods.

The administration official said, however, that the North Koreans must first drop the insistence on a formal US pledge of nonaggression.

"The North Koreans probably asked for the wrong thing," he said.

The official said the starting point for a deal had to be North Korea's agreement to dismantle its weapons program.

Despite the policy shift, the debate over engaging the North Koreans is probably far from over. Some hard-liners and conservatives are urging the White House to take stronger action to isolate North Korea. Instead of negotiating a deal, they are urging the administration to take more aggressive steps to force compliance with international norms and a unilateral disarmament on the part of Pyongyang.

The Senate Republican Policy Committee called last week for a United Nations resolution to impose international sanctions against North Korea for its behavior.

"Up to now, it has been the consistent policy of the Bush administration war on terrorism not to negotiate with terrorists or terrorist-sponsoring states," said a committee paper released last week. It warned that negotiating with North Korea would signal "to Iran, other rogue regimes, and would-be treaty violators that they can defy the international community and get away with it."

"Conservatives increasingly are pushing to go to the UN," which has formally condemned the North Korean regime for its nuclear violations in order to punish it, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

"I think it is critically important not to ignore facts on the ground," said Dan Poneman, a former National Security Council official in the Clinton and first Bush administrations. "To the extent that North Korea has separated more plutonium or built additional nuclear weapons, or if they take a step such as testing, it would require the strongest international response."

Intelligence officials believe North Korea probably has enough material for one or two bombs, but most specialists believe its program is not advanced enough to conduct a nuclear test.

Nevertheless, the United States and its allies in the region fear that the longer the standoff, the greater the prospect of a war with a nuclear-armed Pyongyang, which also has an army 1 million strong. The prevailing view in the administration, officials said, is continued confrontation is not worth the risk.