U.S.
– North Korea: sweet and sour diplomacy
The U.S. sends an undiplomatic diplomat at a delicate moment in difficult negotiations
By Ralph A. Cossa
Honolulu -- "I look forward to their most vitriolic outbursts – they normally come just before actual progress is going to be made." That was how a veteran U.S. diplomat summed up his dealings with North Korea. China may have invented "sweet and sour" food sauces; Pyongyang has perfected it as a foreign policy technique.
Now the Bush administration seems once again to be giving Pyongyang a dose of its own medicine, but the timing and the purpose are curious, or worse yet, clumsy.
The visit to Tokyo and Seoul this past week by John Bolton, our hawkish undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, is widely perceived as either interfering in South Korean presidential elections or fraught with unintended consequences. The White House sent a hawk to do a dove's work .
Administration sources said Mr. Bolton was originally scheduled to give a "bellicose and threatening" speech about North Korea during his three-day visit to South Korea. He was to aggressively denounce North Korea as an evil terrorist state and to threaten U.S. withdrawal from the 1994Agreed Framework, under which Pyongyang agreed to swap nuclear reactors that produce weapons-grade plutonium for fuel oil deliveries annually until less proliferation-prone light water reactors are built.
But with Pyongyang in the midst of a "sweet phase," the White House decided to not be quite so "sour" during Bolton’s trip. He delivered his initial criticisms of North Korea in Tokyo (where they fell on more sympathetic ears) rather than in Seoul. He was slightly less confrontational than usual in South Korea, but he again staunchly defended President Bush's characterization of North Korea as part of an "axis of evil," and went on to say that North Korea's failure to promptly allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspections would put the future of the Agreed Framework in "serious doubt." In doing so, he conveniently forgot to mention that the North is not required to come into full compliance with IAEA regulations until a "significant portion" of the reactors are constructed (but before critical nuclear components are delivered).
Prior to Bolton's visit, there were real signs of progress in Pyongyang’s relations with Seoul, and with Washington as well. The likely cause is that in Brunei last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell apparently made clear in his 15-minute chat with his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam-sun, that one of the prerequisites to U.S. willingness to re-engage with Pyongyang was resumption of inter-Korean dialogue. Now, high-level talks have resumed between North and South Korea, and Pyongyang has signaled that it would welcome a high-level U.S. visitor in the not-too-distant future.
The North-South talks provide the most cause for cautious optimism. One test of Pyongyang's sincerity will be whether, as promised, it again allows the temporary reunion of families separated since the Korean War. The North’s previous delays and outright cancellations were particularly cruel, given the advanced age of many of the participants-in-waiting. Now that Seoul has agreed to hold these tightly controlled reunions only at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort area (thus keeping North Koreans from seeing first hand the South's amazing progress), there is no reason for further delays.
The strongest sign of genuine progress came when Pyongyang agreed last week to fulfill earlier agreements to create the road and rail corridor across the demilitarized zone. No one questions Seoul's eagerness to move the process forward, but serious questions continue to be raised about Pyongyang's sincerity – and Washington's as well. But just when it seems the North is becoming more agreeable, enter John Bolton.
Experts throughout East Asia are wondering why a self-professed hawk, who has created more diplomatic problems than he has solved, was sent to South Korea in the first place.
Complicating matters further, South Korean presidential politics are heating up, so almost anything an American official says is likely to be taken out of context or be seen as part of a conspiracy. However toned down, Bolton's comments reinforced the suspicions of many in Seoul that Washington is indeed trying to undermine North-South and U.S.-North Korea dialogue.
Why the Bush administration thought it was a good idea to send America's most undiplomatic diplomat to Seoul at this sensitive juncture remains anyone's guess. Openly antagonizing and insulting North Korea while feeding South Korea's worst suspicions about U.S. intentions is counterproductive to our national interests. It foolishly and unnecessarily undermines U.S.-South Korea relations and Washington's own message that it seeks cooperation, not confrontation, on the Korean Peninsula.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ralph A. Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS [pacforum@hawaii.rr.com], a Honolulu-based non-profit research institute affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.