The six party talks are the only game in town

One of the most disturbing things to come out of last week's debate was Kerry's insistence that he would deal the Norks alone and his belief that the Agreed Framework had been working before Bush came to power.

As for the Agreed Framework, as I said back in February:

One of the more maddening things I have to hear every time the Norks make it into the news is "the Bush administration scraped the Agreed Framework and ruined the chance for peace with North Korea."

Yada yada. The Agreed Framework was dead before the ink was dry on the paper, it just took us several years to realized it.

First of all, the Norks began subverting the agreement as soon as they signed it by trying to start an uranium-based bomb program. They only had one real obligation; don't try to make nukes. And you know what? They broke it.

Second, the President of the USA never had any desire to fulfill our part of the bargain either. I'm not talking about Bush here. Clinton made that agreement only because he thought the Norks would collapse long before we had to live up to our part of the bargain. Why do you think it took six years just to pour the foundations on those light-water nuke plants?

So, we are stuck now because Clinton once again made an agreement that he knew the USA wouldn't agree to, just like he did with the Kyoto treaty and the International Criminal Court.

So, anyone who refers to the Agreed Framework as a starting point in the context of the current talks is a raving loony and needs to be taken out back and put out of his misery. We are starting at zero and if the Norks think that they will get a better deal out of Uncle Sam than they got back in '94, they are sadly mistaken.

Please, note that I am not calling for Kerry to be 'taken out of his misery' (no need for the Secret Service to come knocking).

As for going it alone with the Norks, once you do that the six party talks are dead since the Norks will use them to drive a wedge between the positions of the US and the other regional actors. However, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia all have a stake in what happens with North Korea and will have a say, whether we let them in on talks or not and then we are back to square one. Furthermore, only an agreement reached within the context of the six party talks will keep the Norks honest since they can't afford to piss off everyone at the same time.

But you don't have to take my word for it (hat tip to The Shape of Days):

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, standing at his side, said the "entire international community" agreed that the six-nation approach was the best way to deal with the problem.

So, if Kerry is president, we can count on another band-aid deal reached without the imput of the other nations in the region and which the Norks will violate with impunity in due course. Nice.

Comments

[CharlesInCharge]

Multilateral talks are essential because they recognize the reality that NK nuclear weapons are not just America's problem. In fact NK nukes are South Koreas problem 1st, Japan's problem 2nd, and China's problem 3rd.

Bilateral talks make north Korea's nuclear weapons the USA's problem. Sotuh Korea would love to see this become Americas problem because theyre living in fantasyland with regards to North Korea. Every South Korean youth I have asked has told me they want the US to pay billions of dollars to North Korea.

Bilateral talks make this America's problem alone, and its just not!

[Ralph]

Yangban has advanced a tough argument here against Kerry's bilateral approach to the NK nuclear disarmament negotiations. But his argument is not foolproof and begs the question of whether the six-powers talk is working after 3 meetings. The NK have voiced strong complaints to the CVID terms and have threatened to drop out of the talks. The multilateral approach does have the advantage of including all of the closest neighbors to NK, both friendly and otherwise, with a stake in the outcome. Yangban emphasizes Bush's debate argument that NK will use the bilateral talks to its advantage to drive a wedge between the US, its allies, and China and Russia as well. But there is already disagreement with SK on how to confront NK, as a completely untrustworthy intransigent (US) or as a bribable supplicant facing economic meltdown (SK). I am in the camp that believes the Agreed Framework was not a complete failure. The NK agreed to freeze further work on fuel rods at the main Yongbyon reactor and lived up to the NPT provisions for inspection and continuous monitoring of internal reactor activities to the end of Clinton's presidency. As Yangban made clear Clinton had no intention of honoring the terms of the AF. He delayed work on the light water reactors calculating that the hard pressed NK economy and its dire energy shortage would soon lead to an overthrow of the KJI regime. The NK had apparently also started work on a uranium enrichment project in a secret location from about 1997. Bush accused NK of breaching the terms of the AF and canceled the AF early in his first term. Bush also nixed Kim Dae Jung's sunshine program to bring about reconciliation and a reduction in tensions on the Peninsula. Until the six-powers talk was arranged by China in 2003, there had been no attempt at reviving a dialogue with Kim Jong-il. In the interim time, the NK have pulled out of the NPT, kicked out the IAEA from Yongbyon, restarted the reactor, and finished re-processing the hitherto frozen fuel rods. The NK foreign minister announced recently that the re-processed plutonium had been extracted and weaponized into eight warheads. This ups the ante and creates a more dangerous environment on the Peninsula. Notice that these are plutonium warheads not uranium warheads. There has been no intelligence followup on the uranium enrichment project since the original accusation except for the Pakistani scientist A Q Khan's admission that they had supplied equipment to the NK project in the past. The NK continue to deny that they are working on a uranium weapon and China agrees in their assessment. So my conclusion is that the plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor was always the main danger and before the blowup in relations between Bush and KJI, the AF was fairly effective in stopping further work at Yongbyon. There has been no question about this matter through both Clinton and Bush administrations. The question about the uranium enrichment project was the main issue that killed the AF. Yangban chooses to ignore this history in his condemnation of NK behavior. Kerry understands much of this history as his short discussion in the debate shows. Bush has a poor grasp of foreign affairs as his failed Iraq occupation shows. His father explained after the first Gulf War why he and his experienced advisors decided not to invade and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Bush II is too uninterested and inexperienced to have the good judgment displayed by his more experienced and sensible father.

[Dan Mehlhorn]

Kerry doesn't know squat! All he can do is say he'll do different than Bush. Kerry doesn't want Kim disarmed or his people freed and reunited with the South. Kerry likes Communist dictatiors and doesn't like democracy. It makes him rub elbows with the common rabble.

[CharlesInCharge]

Ralph - "So my conclusion is that the plutonium from the Yongbyon reactor was always the main danger and before the blowup in relations between Bush and KJI, the AF was fairly effective in stopping further work at Yongbyon."

Obviously, you are correct that all work stopped at Yongbyon. However, all indications are that the North Koreans started work on a uranium enrichment program IMMEDIATELY after signing onto the agreed framework. No surprise. Also, the North Koreans have likely been working on nuclear weapons since the late 1960's and it has openly declared the need to build nukes since then.

Both these facts tell us that:
1) North Korea want nuclear bombs really really really badly.
2) They cheat on agreements.

George W. Bush is irrelevant to these 2 problems - they will exist regardless of who is president. So lets leave him out of this debate.

I want to know how you would solve this, Ralph? I suspect it involves giving North Korea billions of dollars in exchange for unverifiable promises. (These promises will always be unverifiable because North Korea will never let the US see its underground nuclear bomb factories and miitary installations. It will always point to Yongbyon and claim thats the only one. Its clearly not.)