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| South Korean nuclear envoy Noh Kyu-duk, left, speaks in front of the U.S. Department of State building in Washington, Monday, after meeting with his U.S. counterpart Sung Kim on North Korea. Yonhap |
Interim deal may recognize Pyongyang as nuclear power
By Kang Seung-woo
Grappling with the fallout from its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the United States is weighing the possibility of shifting its tone on North Korea's nuclear program ― in other words, seeking to maintain the status quo on the Korean Peninsula rather than aggressively pursuing complete denuclearization.
Under the circumstances, diplomatic observers believe that the Biden administration is open to reaching an interim deal, which means that the two sides would take simultaneous steps that could lead to the denuclearization of North Korea and they believe are more practical and realistic.
Last week, when Sung Kim, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, visited Seoul, he indicated that Washington would want to stably manage the situation on the Peninsula due to the crisis in Afghanistan.
According to Rep. Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who defected to South Korea in 2016, the U.S. nuclear envoy delivered a conciliatory message to the Kim Jong-un regime that the U.S. could compensate for its absence of military provocations at this point ― in spite of a recent International Atomic Energy Agency report suggesting that North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.
In addition, the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS), published July 30, said the Biden administration is likely to pursue a phased approach to the North Korean nuclear issue, offering some partial sanctions relief in exchange for steps toward denuclearization.
"The Biden administration does have the option of just forgetting about North Korea in the short to medium term," said Harry Kazianis, a senior director of Korean Studies at the Center for the National Interest.
"If the administration gets sucked back into Afghanistan and feels it does not have the time or the political capital to try and push for a deal with North Korea, it could simply opt not to rock the boat and hope the status quo holds, even if that means a North Korea that builds more and more nuclear weapons."
Joseph DeTrani, a former U.S. special envoy to the six-party talks, said, "A step-by-step approach to complete and verifiable denuclearization is something I would support."
He added, "It is similar to what we had with the six-party talks Sept. 19, 2005 Agreement of an action for action, commitment for commitment path to the complete dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons and facilities."
The six-party talks on the denuclearization of the peninsula is a multilateral forum, composed of the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas, that has been suspended since 2008.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King's College London, said the U.S. has already settled on a step-by-step approach.
"The ultimate goal will always remain denuclearization. But statements by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in years past suggest that they knew that outright denuclearization wasn't realistic," said Pacheco Pardo, who doubles as the KF-VUB Korea chair at the Brussels School of Governance.
"Since the Biden administration took office, the U.S. has signaled its willingness to negotiate. To me, this suggests that the administration has accepted that a step-by-step approach is the only viable way to address the North Korean nuclear issue."
Former chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Robert Gallucci said if talks do ever begin again, the U.S. should not characterize initial incremental moves, such as partial sanctions relief for some restraint in the nuclear weapons area, as "abandoning the denuclearization objective." "A 'reciprocal process' aimed at normalization and denuclearization can begin with small steps," he added.
However, there are lingering concerns that, should the U.S. adopt the action-for-action process with the Stalinist state, it would have to formally recognize the country as a nuclear state ― a status the country has aggressively sought.
"We should never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state," DeTrani said. "Indeed, this is North Korea's goal: A normal relationship with the U.S. and acceptance as a nuclear weapons state."
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| This image shows North Korea's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. Yonhap |
"I don't think that the U.S. will ever accept North Korea as a nuclear power de jure," he said. "But the U.S. and the international community at large have been living with a nuclear North Korea since 2006. So de facto, we are living with a nuclear North Korea. I think that in the U.S. there is finally recognition of this fact. And the Biden administration probably knows this deep inside."
Kazianis said there are massive political ramifications from admitting that North Korea is already a nuclear weapons state.
"The U.S. could craft an interim deal that takes the idea of full North Korea denuclearization and puts it at the end of the long-term diplomatic normalization process that could take years or even a decade. That way, other benchmarks would be how success is graded ― like ending the Korean War, conventional arms control, diplomatic liaison offices, and capping the North's nuclear program," he said.
"What Team Biden could do is move the nuclear goalposts if you will; this way, America can always say it wants denuclearization, but will turn the goal into something more aspirational and not so etched in stone. That makes the most sense as North Korea will not ever just surrender its nuclear weapons for what amounts to Washington's promise that the benefits will someday, somehow, follow."
The nuclear talks have been deadlocked since the Hanoi summit between the U.S. and North Korea ended without a deal in February 2019.
Experts advised the U.S. to try to engage North Korea even if it remains to be seen whether such pursuits will pay off.
"The best thing Team Biden can do is actually show some interest ― which right now, they clearly are not, as their North Korea policy amounts to two words: let's talk," Kazianis said.
"However, there is a big catch to this in that Washington is not detailing its vision about what a new U.S.-North Korea relationship would look like under Joe Biden. That means Pyongyang will once again have to risk political capital to tease out a deal over many months."
Pacheco Pardo also said, "It makes sense for the Biden administration to continue to insist that the door for negotiations with North Korea remain open. This will force Pyongyang to make a choice. But escalating tensions will lead nowhere, as 2017 showed."
