N. Korea forces U.S. to choose between dialogue or collapse of nuclear talks: analysts

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, April 14 (Yonhap) -- By quitting nuclear disarmament talks Tuesday, North
Korea played its last, strongest card to defend its rocket launch, but its true
intent is to entice the United States to reach out, analysts said.
Pyongyang is forcing Washington to choose whether to let the six-party talks
rupture or bring the North to the negotiating table, they said.
Just hours after the U.N. Security Council adopted a statement condemning the
North's April 5 launch, North Korea swiftly announced it was withdrawing from the
disarmament talks and restoring its partly disabled nuclear facilities.
Before the launch, the North had warned any U.N. action against it -- or even an
attempt to consider one -- would wreck the six-party talks, but its actual
response was much stronger, using such absolute terms as "never."
Accusing the U.N. statement of violating its sovereignty, the North said it "will
never participate" in the six-party talks and will start restoring the nuclear
facilities it has been disabling under a 2007 aid-for-denuclearization deal.
"Simply put, North Korea is asking the U.S., 'Will you leave us or negotiate with
us?'" Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea studies professor at Dongguk University in
Seoul, said.
"From the North Korean perspective, it needs to raise tension as much as possible
and drive the situation to the brink before it finally hits back to reverse the
tide," he said.
In the unanimously adopted presidential statement, the U.N. Security Council
demanded North Korea forgo further rocket launches and return to the six-party
talks also involving South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
Pyongyang says its rocket launch was part of its space development program and
views any U.N. action against it as "hostile." It claims the launch has
successfully put a satellite into orbit, while outside monitors say there is no
such object in space and that the North was actually testing its long-range
missile technology.
Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea studies professor at Korea University, said North
Korea's brinkmanship was reminiscent of its withdrawal from the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, an international accord meant to curb the spread of
nuclear technology, in 1993. The following year, Pyongyang reached a bilateral
deal with Washington to receive two light-water reactors in exchange for freezing
its nuclear activities.
The construction project, which cost South Korea billions of dollars, collapsed
in late 2002 when Washington accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium
enrichment program. The fresh nuclear standoff led to the current six-party
talks.
"North Korea's view has been that bilateral dialogue with the U.S. is more
effective than the six-party talks in getting a deal, and it now wants another
direct bargain," Yoo said.
Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said North
Korea is taking the toughest action available to it, but it won't go so far as to
conduct a second nuclear test. In the current stage, Pyongyang may reprocess its
spent fuel rods or expel inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency
from its Yongbyon nuclear facility to show its reaction, he said.
"North Korea is saying, 'We've done all that is required according to
international procedures, but now that the U.N. is siding with those in power,
we'll go our own way to defend ourselves,'" Yang said.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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