N. Korea likely to take time before returning to nuke talks: expert

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, June 16 (Yonhap) -- It will take time for North Korea to return to
negotiating for its nuclear dismantlement despite the international calls for the
reclusive communist state to stop its provocations and come back to six-party
talks, a Korea expert here said Tuesday.

"Although the two presidents urged North Korea to return to nuclear talks, I
believe that North Korea will respond poorly in the near term because the two
presidents also mentioned the U.N. Security Council's efforts to block North
Korea's nuclear and missile programs, pursuit of which North Korea argues is an
expression of their sovereign right," Scott Snyder, director of the Center for
U.S.-Korea Policy, the Asia Foundation, said in an interview with Yonhap News
Agency.
Earlier in the day, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President
Barack Obama called on the North to return to the multilateral nuclear talks that
involve the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.
"I want to be clear that there is another path available to North Korea, a path
that leads to peace and economic opportunity for the people of North Korea,
including full integration into the
community of nations," Obama said in a joint press session with Lee after a summit
meeting at the White House, the second of its kind. Their first summit was in April.

"That destination can only be reached through peaceful negotiations that achieve
the full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," Obama said.
"That is the opportunity that exists for North Korea, and President Lee and I
join with the international community in urging the North Koreans to take it."
North Korea, however, has threatened to boycott the six-party talks and to enrich
uranium for more nuclear bombs, and has warned of a nuclear war unless the U.S.
and the international community withdraw sanctions and hostile actions taken
against the North in response to its nuclear test on May 25.
"Obama's statement is his first endorsement of a positive path for North Korea,
but it may not be sufficient at this stage to bring North Korea back to the
negotiation table," Snyder said.
Lee and Obama said they will not bow to the North's traditional brinkmanship.
"There's been a pattern in the past where North Korea behaves in a belligerent
fashion and if it waits long enough is then rewarded with foodstuffs and fuel and
concessionary loans and a whole range of benefits," Obama said.
Lee also told the news conference that "The North Koreans will come to understand
that this is different, that they will not be able to repeat the past or their
past tactics and strategies."
The South Korean president went further, hinting at the possibility of shutting
down the industrial complex in the North's border town with the South, an
exemplary model of inter-Korean cooperation under the liberal South Korean
governments of the past decade.
"We urge North Korea not to make any unacceptable demands because we really do
not know what will happen if they keep on this path," Lee said of the Kaesong
industrial park, whose fate is in jeopardy with the North demanding a substantial
hike in wages, rents, fees and taxes, something that South Korean businessmen say
are not economically viable.
The conservative South Korean President Lee has not provided food or fertilizer
aid to North Korea since taking office early last year, calling for progress
first in the talks on denuclearizing the North, although his predecessors had
provided about 500,000 tons of food and roughly as much fertilizer annually to
the impoverished neighbor.
Despite the gloomy outlook for the nuclear talks, the Lee-Obama summit has helped
the two nations consolidate an alliance to stave off a possible attack from the
North, which is equipped with a nuclear arsenal and long-range missiles.
"The United States has expressed clearly its commitment to utilize all means at
its disposal to ensure that North Korea cannot utilize its nuclear capacity as an
unchecked source of leverage or extortion against South Korea without facing an
unambiguous U.S. commitment to respond on South Korea's behalf," Snyder said.
The scholar was talking about the extended deterrence, a euphemism for nuclear
umbrella, the U.S. provided for South Korea in a written joint statement, titled
the Joint Vision for the Alliance of the United States and South Korea, that was
released by the White House after the summit meeting.
"We will maintain a robust defense posture, backed by allied capabilities which
support both nations' security interests," the statement said. "The continuing
commitment of extended deterrence, including the U.S. nuclear umbrella,
reinforces this assurance."
The North's unprecedented provocations, ironically, helped Lee and Obama further
cement their countries' alliance, the scholar said, noting it is the first time
that the nuclear umbrella has been written into a statement signed by any U.S.
president.
Unlike other world leaders, who usually hold a one-hour so summit meeting alone,
Lee was treated exceptionally, with a joint press session and a luncheon meeting
with Obama.
"The summit has underscored alliance solidarity at a time of apparently
increasing tensions involving North Korea," Snyder said. "North Korea's own
actions have made such coordination easier than it might otherwise have been, but
generally speaking, the Obama and Lee administrations have emphasized an
expanding scope of common interests and the political will to work together to
meet those shared challenges across many different issue areas."
On the ratification of the Free Trade Agreement, pending since its signing in
2007, the two leaders still have differences that have yet to be narrowed down.
Lee said he talked with Obama "about the KORUS FTA and welcomed the initiation of
working-level consultations, to make progress on the issues surrounding the KORUS
FTA, and agreed to make joint efforts to chart a way forward on the agreement."
Obama, for his part, said that, "In Korea, there are issues of beef imports. In
the United States, there are questions about whether there's sufficient
reciprocity with respect to cars. These are all understandable, legitimate issues
for negotiation.
"Once we have resolved some of the substantive issues, then there's going to be
the issue of political timing and when that should be presented to Congress,"
Obama said. "But I don't want to put the cart before the horse."
Obama was discussing the view of the Democratic Congress, which is focusing on
health-care reform and economic measures to muddle through the worst recession in
decades, and is worried about a possible backlash from labor unions, the
Democratic political power base, which are concerned about job losses under the
FTA.
"I believe it is significant that President Obama signaled a positive approach to
consideration of the KORUS FTA, although there are clearly specific political
obstacles that must be overcome before the KORUS FTA is in a position to be
ratified," Snyder said. "Also, it is clear that there are other priorities the
Obama administration has with Congress that will come before the FTA."
hdh@yna.co.kr
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