COMMENTARY
It's time for direct talks with North Korea
By Barry K. Gills
Now is the time to open direct talks with North Korea and avert a war that could destroy Seoul and destabilize northeastern Asia.
Advertiser library photo • Feb. 18, 2003
The developing crisis over North Korea's nuclear program is as much a consequence of the Bush administration's intransigent approach as it is of North Korea's defiant responses.
South Koreans near the DMZ prepare for a situation their government hopes to avoid by establishing better relations with North Korea.
The present situation reveals serious weaknesses in the existing framework for security in the region, which urgently needs radical restructuring. The absence of diplomatic relations with North Korea on the part of the United States and Japan is one weakness; the absence of a real peace treaty with North Korea (the armistice is merely a truce) is another. However, the situation today, in which the United States risks precipitating a new conflict by refusing to talk directly with Pyongyang, does not reflect continuity with U.S./North Korea policy during the past decade, but rather, an abrupt break.
The momentum for better relations with North Korea established during the 1990s has been turned by the present administration into another end-game scenario with the potential to rapidly get out of control. The Koreans have the most to lose from this crisis, while it is difficult to see what the United States has to gain by willfully avoiding the path to a peaceful solution.
The recent loss of the Agreed Framework, established in 1994, by which the United States pledged to assist North Korea in exchange for freezing its nuclear program, has further undermined the basis for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. In the absence of the Agreed Framework, recent U.S. policy has jeopardized the achievements of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy," achievements which earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. While the Clinton administration was near to normalizing diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, the Bush administration, having first suspended North Korea policy upon coming to office, has opted for a hard-line position with little room for compromise. Even worse, the Bush team has reopened the "military option," which implies a "pre-emptive strike" against North Korea's nuclear facilities. It is clear that such a strike would lead to war on the peninsula, with devastating consequences. No wonder, therefore, that the new president of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, who was elected on a platform advocating better relations with the North and every other government in the region, remains opposed to any such scenario.
As a direct consequence of the change in U.S. policy under President Bush, there has been a sea change in public opinion in South Korea regarding the U.S. role on the peninsula. South Koreans have gone from seeing the United States as a friend and protector to seeing us as a threat to peace. South Korean patriotism can be called anti-Americanism, but this is a misreading of the real situation. South Korea is a wealthy and advanced nation, and its people and present leadership demand, simply and rightly, that Seoul must be fully consulted on any actions by Washington that might affect peace and security in South Korea.
In the absence of the Agreed Framework, North Korea is taking actions that deliberately escalate tensions while making it clear that it seeks direct talks with Washington to resolve the situation peacefully.
The Bush administration says it wants multilateral talks and will not "reward" North Korea with bilateral talks to defuse this crisis.
In the context of this impasse, therefore, there are really only two options remaining: Continue to let things drift by pushing North Korea to the wall, thereby risking a major war, in the hope that the North will compromise first or that there will be a "regime change" in North Korea from within; or decide now to initiate direct talks with North Korea, and re-establish a basis for U.S. assistance, especially for energy supplies, in exchange for re-freezing the North's nuclear program. Any rational U.S. foreign policy would certainly opt for the latter and not the former. One thing should be perfectly clear: War is not an option.
Once we get over this immediate crisis, the United States should move with new determination to normalize relations with North Korea, establish a permanent peace treaty and work closely with the Roh Moo-hyun government and other governments in the region to create a new multilateral framework, as advocated by the United States, that can provide enhanced security cooperation and de-escalation of tensions throughout the region. There is no contradiction between direct bilateral talks now and multilateral talks in the future. The first is a means to the second.
But without the direct talks, we may have no other options than war in the future, and this is unacceptable.
Barry K. Gills is director of the Globalization Research Center, University of Hawai'i-Manoa, and a former Fulbright Scholar in South Korea.
