Second Beijing Talks over North Korea fizzles: What next?

It won't be so easy for North Korea to shed its image as one of the rogue nations in today's world. The second Beijing Talks concerning what to do with North Korea vis-à-vis its nuclear weapons programme started on February 25, 2004. Two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia, and USA are attending the six nations' meeting. The not-so-easy meeting of six nations to discuss the dispute over North Korea's nuclear programme fizzled to an end on February 28, 2004 with no apparent breakthroughs announced but with an agreement to try again and create working groups to help solve the problem.

Speculation was rife for the last few years that North Korea was actively building nuclear weapons. This has become a thorny issue amongst Pyongyang's neighbouring countries, notably South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia. In the aftermath of 9-11 terrorist attacks in America, President Bush in his State of the Union Address had mentioned North Korea by name as being one of the rogue nations in our present-day world. In late August 2003, Beijing was the venue for the first ever summit on North Korea's nuclear weapons programmes. In that meeting, no resolution was passed. Nonetheless, all parties agreed to attend a second round of meeting to discuss the issue in Beijing. Nearly six months later, the same six nations have met in Beijing to deal with the nagging issue -- how to persuade North Korea to give up its desire to make nuclear bombs. It seems as if it is no easy task. North Korea refuses to shed its image as the bullyboy of the Far East as it accused the U.S. on second day of the summit of pressing "stale" demands in arms talks but said it was willing to halt nuclear weapons programme provided the West and its neighbour come up with energy aid in exchange.

In the second Beijing Talks, a debate was engendered centering the "energy aid" package as demanded by North Korea. According to Russian representative attending the talk, the U.S. and Japan were not ready to join the compensation plan. Japan does not have any diplomatic ties with her neighbouring rogue nation. Therefore, according to Japan, the establishment of a diplomatic tie is an important prerequisite to any aid to North Korea. All six parties attending the summit were close to agreeing on to discuss the "energy-for-freeze" proposal. It seems as if there will be a third summit to iron out the differences of opinion amongst the participants. The idea is to thwart North Korea to built any nuclear arsenal at all cost. If some aid package to North Korea will do the job, the participants think it is a small price to pay. And they are ready to pay for it.

North Korea is now willing to stop making nuclear arsenals for a price but it wants to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The U.S. however claims that North Korea may already have developed a few nuclear bombs; therefore, the U.S. is insisting that Pyongyang dismantle not only the plutonium development but also the suspected uranium enrichment programme. It should be pointed out here that both the processes are required for successful nuke making. The debate about dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme was put into fore in October 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted to a covert programme to enrich uranium for bomb making. However, Pyongyang kept on denying this allegation.

The participants to Beijing Talks are not unified in their approach to "bribe" North Korea to dissuade the rogue nation from making nuclear bombs. However, both the host nation of China and the U.S. are offering a positive spin on Beijing Talks. Russia's delegation head, deputy foreign minister, Alexander Losyukove, on the other hand characterised the outcome of the summit being "lack of clarity" on how Pyongyang should halt its nuclear programmes -- either by outright elimination, removal or reduction.

It should be pointed out here that North Korea is an energy deficient nation, which has no fully operational nuclear power plants. However, a five-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon complex that experts believe had produced weapons-grade plutonium and which is not connected to any electrical power grid system in North Korea. Besides this one, two other larger nuclear reactors, a 50-megawatt at Yongbyon and a 200-megawatt at nearby Taechon were suspended at early stages of construction in 1994 because the West made much fuss about potential misuse by Pyongyang regime.

The talk on North Korea's weapon development programme and how to end this had ended on scheduled time. A joint communiqué would be released soon. After four grueling days of Beijing Talks that led to conflicting developments, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said "various serious differences" remain before the standoff can be resolved but he called for patience. The minister also said, "We must use a constructive attitude to narrow differences and expand common ground through dialogue, to resolve the issue, although differences are on the road ahead." The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that North Korea had urged a "last-minute revision" to a joint statement by all six countries working to resolve the dispute over its nuclear programme. However, the host nation of China was working to "persuade North Korea" to accept the statement.

North Korea is no ordinary nation. Its authoritative regime is very brutal, to say the least, who seldom looks into the welfare of its citizens. A massive food shortage is known to exist in this nation for the past few years. On top of it, the regime is allegedly trying to blackmail the international community using its on-going nuclear weapon development plan. The Pyongyang administration believes that by projecting a bullyboy image to its neighbours it can receive all kinds of concession. America had labeled North Korea as a rogue nation, which had received nuclear technology from Pakistan, which in turn had received nuclear bomb making blueprint and material assistance from China. It seems as if China has an infant terrible by its side; undoubtedly, therefore, North Korea is now China's headache. Until the third summit of six nations reconvenes in Beijing, stay tuned for North Korea's endless rants.

Dr. A.H. Jaffor Ullah is a researcher in USA.