POLITICS-NORTH KOREA: Pyongyang Test Endangers Peace Talks

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Sep 2 1998 (IPS) - The fallout from North Korea’s recent test of a medium-range ballistic missile went as far as New York, where the latest round of peace talks between Seoul, Pyongyang, Beijing and Washington is now in trouble.

Following the first test of North Korea’s Taepo Dong 1 missile, boasting a range of some 1250 miles, early Monday morning, the latest round of four-nation peace talks underway in New York hit a snag. U.S. officials quickly conveyed their displeasure to their North Korean counterparts – who responded by not attending Tuesday sessions while awaiting instructions from Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress – always wary of the “framework agreement” by which North Korea promised to end its nuclear weapons programme in exchange for help in building civilian nuclear reactors and an end to the U.S. embargo against Pyongyang – has stepped up its attacks on the Communist nation.

“The test clearly damages the political atmosphere between our two nations and the prospects for peace and security in the region,” Representative Benjamin Gilman of New York, chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said after being snubbed Tuesday by the North Koreans. “If North Korea attempted to use it as a bargaining chip, I think it backfired.”

Gilman argued that Congress, which has so far provided food aid worth some 200 million dollars to Pyongyang over the past four years of famine in North Korea, should suspend any discussion of new assistance. He contended that, unless North Korea cooperated better with the framework agreement, the Republican-led Congress would not allow any new aid to go to Pyongyang for the next fiscal year.

U.S. State Department officials are still trying to maintain the framework agreement, which has forestalled worries about North Korea’s nuclear programme and offered the first prospects of an end to the 45-year standoff on the Korean peninsula.

However, State Department spokesman Lee McClenny conceded, the missile test “is a matter of deep concern to the United States because of its potentially destabilising impact in Northeast Asia and beyond”.

Gilman argued that North Korea might now export its missile technology, as it has done in the past with Iran, among other U.S. nemeses. Recently, U.S. officials alleged that Pakistan – which conducted nuclear tests in May – had improved the range of its missiles by using North Korean technology.

Until Monday’s test, in which one Taepo Dong I missile landed near the Japanese island of Honshu, U.S. officials in New York had been more upbeat on the prospects of clinching an agreement with Pyongyang.

Although Washington contends that there are signs of a resumption of North Korea’s nuclear programme, the two nations have been eager to make headway on outstanding issues, with Pyongyang particularly in dire need of food aid. Yet Congress is loathe to do so at a time when, according to Gilman, the North Korean government has not abided by its nuclear commitments.

A Congressional team which has returned from a fact-finding mission to North Korea contends in its new report that the country’s hardline government is now arresting people who are seen searching for food, and placing them in special camps.

Selig Harrison, a North Korean analyst at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars, has contended that the U.S. government also needs to follow up on its commitments. U.S. officials have conceded that they have fallen behind in providing the technology for two nuclear reactors which Pyongyang intends to build to address its energy needs.

The slow pace of the talks and the laggard maintenance of commitments are not the only factors hindering the efforts to normalise relations. Next week, Kim Jong-il – who has effectively led North Korea since his father, Kim il-Sung, died four years ago – is expected formally to be named president. The test could be an effort to bolster his authority before the long-delayed appointment is announced.

The delays, however, are coming at a time when the reformist government in South Korea, led by President Kim Dae Jung, had been reaching out to its northern neighbour. The new government in Seoul has been much more outspoken than its predecessors, who were bitterly suspicious of Pyongyang, about the need to normalise relations in the Korean peninsula.

Between the frustrations in the New York talks and the missile test, however, Seoul’s recent optimism is also beginning to suffer.