OPINION:
Many are hopeful that North Korea’s decision to participate in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang will result in a resumption of North-South political talks following the Winter Olympics.
It’s certainly fair to assume that given the speed with which Kim Jong-un committed North Korea’s participation in the Olympics and the size of the North Korean team and delegation — 22 athletes, 24 coaches, 21 media representatives, 200 cheer leaders and a 140-person orchestra — that North Korea is interested in improving relations with the South.
The sight of athletes and coaches from the South and North marching together under a unified Korean flag is a powerful statement that peace and reunification may be achievable.
Nevertheless, it was disheartening to hear that North Korea on January 29 canceled the Joint Cultural Performance with the South, claiming South Korea’s media was encouraging “insulting” public sentiment toward the North. It’s obvious the leadership in North Korea still doesn’t understand that South Korea is a vibrant liberal democracy that protects a free press. Hopefully, at this late date, Kim Jong-un will not renege on other commitments he made to South Korea.
There are cynics who argue that we’ve seen this act before. That North Korea, likely hurting from biting sanctions, only wants relief from sanctions and international isolation; they are not interested in any substantive discussion that deals with its nuclear and missile programs. This could be true, but we won’t know until after the Olympics on March 18.
Expectations are that North Korea at that time will return to confidence building discussions with the South, to include humanitarian and possibly political issues. Resuming efforts to reunite separated families would be a good first step, as would a willingness to discuss the North’s nuclear program and the need to reconstitute multilateral talks dealing with the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Having been involved in negotiations that resulted in the Sept. 19, 2005 Joint Statement, that committed North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs in return for security assurances, a peace treaty, economic development assistance and a discussion of the provision of civilian Light Water reactors when North Korea returned to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapons state, we should return to this seminal agreement in future talks with North Korea.
This Joint Statement, endorsed by Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, was a product of the Six Party Talks hosted by China. It was a hard-negotiated forward-leaning agreement, implemented on an action-for-action basis, with the North actually commencing with the dismantlement of its Yongbyon nuclear facility (with DOE monitors on site) and the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia providing security and economic deliverables to the North.
Unfortunately, implementation ceased in 2009 when North Korea refused to sign a monitoring and verification protocol that would have permitted DOE monitors to leave the Yongbyon site to inspect suspect undeclared nuclear facilities.
Given the six years of work that went into negotiations and initial implementation of the Joint Statement, from 2003 to 2009, it would be advisable to table the 2005 Joint statement, and the Six Party Talks process, in any future discussions with North Korea.
Indeed, the 2005 Joint Statement was an agreement Kim Jong-un’s father endorsed, hoping its implementation would eventually lead to bilateral normalization negotiations with the U.S., that would have included issues dealing with human rights and illicit activities.
Kim Jong-un a few years ago discarded this 2005 Joint Statement, stating that North Korea would never return to the Six Party process. In retrospect, this was a convenient declaration from the young leader, who then aggressively pursued a program to build more nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering these nuclear weapons to distances as far as the continental U.S.
If North Korea, after the Olympics, is willing to re-engage with South Korea and eventually enters into discussions with the U.S. and others, it would be prudent for the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to resurrect the September 2005 Joint Statement and the six country process that produced this agreement, using it as the beginning of resumed negotiations with North Korea for the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
• Joseph R. DeTrani is the former special envoy for negotiations with North Korea. The views are the author’s and not any government agency or department.
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