To talk or not to talk with North Korea
Author: Mel Gurtov, Portland State University
The photograph that came out of an Asian regional security meeting—the ARF (Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum)—in Bangkok last week told it all: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walking past her North Korean counterpart without so much as a nod of greeting. ‘We really don’t have any intention of talking to them,’ she said. ‘What we are interested in is North Korea coming back to the table and continuing the negotiation that will lead to a denuclearized Korean peninsula.’ Yet a member of the North Korean delegation did not dismiss the idea of a meeting with Secretary Clinton on the sidelines. ‘It will depend on the situation,’ one delegate from the North Korean foreign ministry reportedly said. Other North Korean spokespersons have reportedly said the same thing since.
To meet or not to meet, that is the question. An assumption widely shared by North Korea specialists is that one purpose of all the saber rattling by Pyongyang in recent months is to refocus American attention on the Korean situation and negotiate a new agreement in bilateral talks with Washington. The Obama administration has not ruled out a new package of incentives, according to some reports, though the price North Korea would have to pay may at this point be too high: complete, verifiable, and irreversible nuclear disarmament, the same demand once made by the Bush administration. So far, however, any such U.S. offer would only be made in the context of the Six Party Talks (6PT).