Source: Associated Press
March 7, 2013: In this file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed by the Korea News Service, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, walks with military personnel as he arrives for a military unit on Mu Islet, located in the southernmost part of the southwestern sector of North Korea’s border with South Korea. (AP/KCNA)
PYONGYANG, North Korea – North Korea’s top governing body on Sunday proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South Korea.
The powerful National Defense Commission headed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a statement through state media proposing “senior-level” talks to ease tensions and discuss a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War.
In Washington, a National Security Council spokeswoman said talks with North Korea would require that it comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and live up to its international obligations.
Foreign analysts expressed skepticism over the North Korean proposal, saying the impoverished country often calls for talks after raising tensions with provocative behavior in order to win outside concessions.
The rare proposal for talks between the Korean War foes follows months of acrimony over North Korea’s defiant launch of a long-range rocket in December and a nuclear test in February, provocative acts that drew tightened U.N. and U.S. sanctions. The U.S. and South Korea countered the moves by stepping up annual springtime military exercises that prompted North Korea to warn of a “nuclear war” on the Korean Peninsula.
However, as tensions subsided in May and June, Pyongyang has made tentative overtures to re-establish dialogue with South Korea and Washington.
In a notable shift in propaganda in Pyongyang, posters and billboards calling on North Koreans to “wipe away the American imperialist aggressors” have been taken down in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, a recent proposal from Pyongyang for Cabinet-level talks with South Korea — the first in six years — led to plans for two days of meetings in Seoul earlier this week. The talks dramatically fell apart even before they began amid bickering over who would lead the two delegations.
North Korea fought against U.S.-led United Nations and South Korean troops during the three-year Korean War in the early 1950s, and Pyongyang does not have diplomatic relations with either government. The Korean Peninsula remains divided by a heavily fortified border.
Reunifying the peninsula was a major goal of North Korea’s two late leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and is a legacy inherited by current leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea is expected to draw attention to Korea’s division in the weeks leading up to the 60th anniversary in July marking the close of the Korean conflict, which ended in an armistice. A peace treaty has never been signed formally ending the war.
As Pyongyang continues to shun disarmament and shut out nuclear inspectors, Washington’s top worry is North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang is estimated to have a handful of crude nuclear devices and has been working toward building a bomb it can mount on a missile capable of striking the United States.
Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un enshrined the drive to build a nuclear arsenal, as well as building the economy, as national goals. North Korea claims the need to build atomic weapons to defend the country against what it sees as a U.S. nuclear threat in Korea and the region.
North Korea will not give up its nuclear ambitions until the entire Korean Peninsula is free of nuclear weapons, a spokesman from the National Defense Commission said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
“The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula does not only mean `dismantling the nuclear weapons of the North”‘ but also should involve “denuclearizing the whole peninsula, including South Korea, and aims at totally ending the U.S. nuclear threats” to North Korea, the spokesman said.
The U.S. denies having nuclear bombs in South Korea, saying they were removed in 1991. However, the U.S. military keeps nuclear submarines in the region and has deployed them for military exercises with South Korea.
After blaming Washington for raising tensions by imposing “gangster-like sanctions” on North Korea, the unnamed NDC spokesman called on the U.S. to propose a venue and date for talks but warned against setting preconditions.
U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said Sunday that the U.S. hopes to have “credible” negotiations with North Korea.
“But those talks must involve North Korea living up to its obligations to the world, including compliance with U.N. Security Council resolutions, and ultimately result in denuclearization,” she said. “We will judge North Korea by its actions, and not its words and look forward to seeing steps that show North Korea is ready to abide by its commitments and obligations.”
Washington has been burned in the past by efforts to reach out to Pyongyang. Months of behind-the-scenes negotiations yielded a significant food-for-disarmament deal in February 2012, but that was scuttled by a failed North Korean long-range rocket launch just weeks later.
Pyongyang’s bid to reach out to the U.S. comes as South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, is to sit down for talks with China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing later this month. Park, whose North Korea policy calls for building trust while remaining firm on provocations, has been active in reaching out to Beijing. Xi, meanwhile, met recently with Obama in California.
China crucially supplied North Korea with troops during the Korean War, and has remained a key ally and benefactor since then, but has pushed Pyongyang to return to disarmament talks.
“The fact that North Korea proposed talks (with the U.S.) ahead of the South Korea-China summit signifies its intent to keep China in check,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies of Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea.
Pyongyang also is sending a message to South Korea warning that if Seoul does not actively try to improve relations with North Korea, the regime will go directly to Washington, sidelining Seoul, he said.
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