||Globaliser

Six party talks to resume in South Korea

The chief negotiators in six-party talks from China, North Korea and the U.S. met in Beijing on last week and agreed to resume six-party talks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said North Korea set no conditions and the meeting will be in November or December, according to wire reports.

An armed North Korean soldier grips his weapon while on patrol in Sinuiju, North Korea, 24 October 2006, across the Yalu River from Dandong in northeast China's Liaoning province. The reclusive Stalinist state confirmed 31 October it would return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks on condition that the lifting of US financial sanctions is "discussed and settled" in the framework of the negotiations. While the confirmation followed a dramatic Tuesday night announcement in Beijing that Pyongyang had agreed to return to negotiations just three weeks after it stunned the world with its first atomic test, analysts say the road to a final agreement will be a long and rocky one. - AFP

The Chinese announcement mentions neither that South Korea, the biggest party to the North Korean nuclear issue, took part in the preparations nor whether it was told of the tripartite meeting in advance.

It was widely speculated since Oct. 9, when the North tested a nuclear weapon that it could return to the six-party talks in a bid to be recognized as the world-_s ninth nuclear power. The North wants to discuss the denuclearization of Northeast Asia with the U.S. on an equal footing, and it has again demonstrated that it feels it can ignore the South.

Of course, the substantive reason the North is returning to the six-party talks so soon is the pain from well-coordinated international sanctions since the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution sanctioning it. What's more, North Korea will have been shocked by the reality that China, its trusted ally in many a crisis, acted as a messenger conveying the U.S. response and mobilized its own means of pressure.

Such an abrupt shift in the situation of the international community made a mockery of this government's remark that entrusting our fate with the UN would be tantamount to giving up our own fate. It also proved the prophets of doom wrong, former president Kim Dae-jung among them, who said North Korea will counter UN sanctions with military action.

They exposed themselves not as prophets of the Northeast Asian future but pitiful objects of North Korean blackmail, as Pyongyang-_s toys. From the outset, North Korea was looking over South Korea-_s head and contemplating bigger transactions.

The six-country talks will become more complicated. Having excluded the South from their efforts to resume the talks, the U.S., China and North Korea will not allow the South to play any great role in the give-and-take negotiation among them.

If the administration treads the path it has trod since North Korea's nuclear test even under these circumstances, it is evident that South Koreans will be forsaken by history because they have a government as incompetent as that of 100 years ago, and their fate will again be in the hands of other countries. Undeterred, the administration in the present Cabinet reshuffle renewed its resolve to march ahead in the wrong direction, stumbled, and fell. It is a disaster.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor