North Korea Returns to Six-Nation Talks
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

UNITED NATIONS — In an attempt to step back from the increased international isolation and sanctions incurred with its recent nuclear test, North Korea yesterday promised to return to diplomatic talks with China, America, and other major powers.
It was unclear what the resumption of the six-nation talks would achieve, however. Skeptics warned that any easing of the pressure on North Korea could send the wrong signal to Iran, as U.N. diplomats considered sanctions against the Iranian regime for defying a U.N. Security Council deadline on suspending uranium enrichment.
President Bush told reporters he was “very pleased” about the planned resumption of the talks between North Korea and China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and America. But he added that the result should be “a North Korea that abandons their nuclear weapons programs, and her nuclear weapons, in a verifiable fashion in return for a better way forward for her people.”
For its part, Japan was reluctant even to join the talks with North Korea as a nuclear power. “Return to the six-party talks as a nuclear nation is impermissible,” the Japanese foreign minister, Taro Aso, said in Tokyo, according to the Kyodo news agency.
Secretary-General Annan said he hoped renewed talks “will yield positive results leading to lower tensions in the region.” Meanwhile, the man chosen to replace him as U.N. chief, Ban Kimoon, was on a diplomatic swing as South Korea’s foreign minister yesterday, traveling between capitals involved in the Korean dispute and meeting in Tokyo with Mr. Aso and Secretary of State Rice. Mr. Ban is espected to resign as foreign minister this week.
The American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, denied that America had agreed to set aside certain financial sanctions to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table. The country should not be rewarded just for agreeing to resume negotiations, he added. “It’s not just the talks,” he said. “We want performance by the North Koreans.”
After Pyongyang’s October 9 announcement of a successful nuclear test, the Security Council penalized North Korea with sanctions, overcoming Chinese and Russian resistance. Yesterday, the council completed a list of specific measures that will take effect later today if none of the 15 members of the council expresses opposition.
The news from Pyongyang yesterday should not affect the punitive measures list, Peter Burian, the head of the council’s committee responsible for implementing the sanctions and the Slovak ambassador to the United Nations, said. But Mr. Burian added that if the news that Pyongyang is returning to the six-nation talks “is confirmed, and we see clear progress, then of course the Security Council will react on it.”
Meanwhile, the council has yet to agree how to act on Iran. Russia yesterday signaled a slight retreat from its tough opposition to any council resolution imposing sanctions on Tehran. At the end of this week, or early next, council diplomats are expected to resume stalled negotiations on a European-proposed resolution.
“Resolutions and sanctions are not a goal in themselves,” a security adviser to President Putin, Igor Ivanov, told reporters in Moscow. A sanctions resolution on Iran should be only “one of the elements aimed at assisting political negotiations, because only as a result of political negotiations and dialogue can a concrete result be achieved,” he said.
Several Turtle Bay diplomats yesterday dismissed comparisons of the diplomacy on Iran and North Korea. “For us, these are two different issues,” the deputy Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, Liu Zhenmin, said, and added that while Pyongyang said it had already tested a device, Iran’s guilt has not yet been confirmed.
But Iran and North Korea have reportedly been following each other, comparing and sometimes even copying each other’s diplomatic maneuvering as the Security Council attempts to deal with nuclear proliferation.
North Korea escalated its confrontation with the Security Council in early October by reporting a nuclear test, defying an earlier council demand. Similarly, Iran escalated its confrontation with the council last week by announcing that it had begun using a second cascade of 160 centrifuges in its uranium enrichment program, defying the council’s demand that it suspend enrichment.
Now, Iran could also copy North Korea’s use of diplomatic talks in an attempt to evade council sanctions. In the past, the executive director of the Nonproliferation Education Center in Washington, Henry Sokolski, told The New York Sun, Iran has consistently used diplomatic talks “as leverage.”
“The whole world is watching because they can see the moral equivalency even if the diplomats can’t,” Mr. Sokolski said. “If we treat North Korea softly,” rewarding its readiness to return to talks, “Iran will say, ‘Why shouldn’t we get [similar] treatment?'”