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SLUG: 3-811 North Korea
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DATE=10-30-03 TYPE=INTERVIEW NUMBER=3-811 TITLE=NORTH KOREA BYLINE=DAVID BORGIDA DATELINE=WASHINGTON CONTENT= MR. BORGIDA: And now joining us, Ambassador William Clark, now President of the Japan-America Student Conference. He's a former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and he's held a wide variety of other senior U.S. diplomatic positions. Ambassador, thanks for being with us. AMBASSADOR CLARK: Thanks for the invitation. MR. BORGIDA: We appreciate you being here to talk about the situation in North Korea. They haven't yet, the North Koreans, announced any date for these talks. How important or symbolic, meaningful, is that? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, dealing with the North Koreans is a little like dealing with the Red Queen in "Alice in Wonderland" at her tea party. There's always jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today. You'll notice from the lead-in, he had said that they had refused to set a date. Now the Chinese have met with them. They have agreed in principle - and the details are in the principle -- to have a meeting, but they have not specified a date. So I'm not sure how much progress that is. They hadn't said before that they wouldn't have a meeting. Now they've said positively that they will, but they haven't said when. MR. BORGIDA: Describe for us the meaning, too, of the promise of food aid. We talked about how devastating the winter could be in terms of providing food to the nation's hungry there. Is it a carrot and stick approach? How does the food aid part of the equation fit in? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, the food aid plays in, because the North Korean economy is, quite frankly, a shambles. They don't have the fuel to fire their generating plants for electricity; therefore they can't run the factories. If they can't run the factories, you can't make goods. If you can't make the goods, you can't give them to people. You also don't have fuel to run any of the mechanized farming equipment, so you have people planting the fields in an old-fashioned way. And in your lead-in you saw pictures of them harvesting with hand sickles and one at a time. This is not the way to get a full crop to feed the people. Twenty million people is a lot of people. The army is well fed, the bureaucracy is pretty well fed, but the people are awful hungry. MR. BORGIDA: The six-way talks in August were obviously inconclusive. Would you expect that, if there is a date set and more talks are held, that we'll run into the same inconclusive ending and that this is merely a circle here, diplomatically speaking? Or do you think that there will come a point where there will be some progress? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, you shouldn't ever expect talks like these to produce final results in one or two meetings. Nor should you expect to see what you get to see on television or from the reports, people sitting around a table, coming to an agreement. The real deal is in side talks that are held, and there's a lot of trading that goes on there. So it depends on who puts what on the table and whether it appeals. But I would expect that it would take a series of meetings to get to a final conclusion. MR. BORGIDA: Well, let's mine that for a moment, if you will. We've talked about food aid. What other sorts of issues can be on the side that can be meaningful and move these talks forward, should they occur in fact? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, the North, and particularly the Dear Leader, has made a very big point about signing a non-aggression pact with the United States. Now, we have said we're willing to give them verbal assurances that the whole world will know about that we won't attack, but that's not the point to them. The point is that he will then put himself on the same level as the President of the United States, and he can say to his people, "Look what I've done." Which is not much, it let's him take an ego trip, but you won't have moved the problem forward. So you have a number of psychological issues that play into this as well as the real needs of the North Korean people. MR. BORGIDA: Now, China is the key ally to the North in the region certainly and it's promising food aid. Is there any more Beijing can do? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, Beijing has done more than anyone, as you point out. It's not what they can do more perhaps. They could do less. MR. BORGIDA: How do you mean that? AMBASSADOR CLARK: Well, they could back off on fuel supplies. They could back off on food supplies. The North has taken a very interesting stand. One of the richest people playing, who would like to get into the game, is Japan. And the North has said they don't want the Japanese at the talks. That has to be resolved too. But if you're looking for aid and support, you certainly don't rule out the second richest country in the world. MR. BORGIDA: How can China finesse that? Can they say, we're not going to give you food aid if you don't allow Japan to come into the picture or is that way too oversimplified? AMBASSADOR CLARK: It may be true, but it won't be public. It's the sort of thing you do behind the scenes, saying, look, you need it, we haven't got it, the Japanese will give it. The problem there is resolving the fact that they kidnapped a number of Japanese 20 years ago and accounting for them. So there are wheels within wheels on this one. It's going to take time to sort it out. MR. BORGIDA: Time to sort it out. Ambassador William Clark, now President of the Japan-America Student Conference and he's the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. You know what you talk about. Thanks so much for being with us. MR. BORGIDA: Thanks for the invitation. (End of interview.) NEB/PT |
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