Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=1/6/03

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=FOSTER-CARTER KOREA

NUMBER=3-474

BYLINE=PAT BODNAR

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

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HOST: South Korean diplomats begin talks in Washington today (Monday), trying to resolve the crisis over North Korea's plans to re-start a nuclear power plant capable of making weapons-grade plutonium.

The South Korean delegation meets today with Japanese envoys and U-S Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who will travel to South Korea for further consultations next week. Aidan Foster Carter is a North Korea expert at Leeds University in Britain. He tells V-O-A News Now's Pat Bodnar there will be challenges to finding a diplomatic compromise.

MR. FOSTER-CARTER: I fear it won't be easy. And the South Koreans are sort of, I think, quite worried about the crisis that we've had of late, even though just at the moment it seems to have gone slightly off the boil. And obviously I guess one shouldn't anticipate it, but it would involve some sort of backtracking by both sides. The North Koreans would clearly have to agree to enter into some sort of process of dialogue that could produce tangible results. I'm putting that very carefully; the Americans no doubt would like it to be a lot stronger. Their present position is that the North Koreans must actually stop doing all their several nuclear bad things, that they should not be doing the two different programs, before the Americans will even agree to talk to them.

But that U.S. position doesn't really look viable. The Bush administration seems rather caught, saying on the one hand it does want a diplomatic solution, but it isn't about to talk. So, I think some retreat from that, if it can be managed without loss of face on either side, will be necessary to find some middle ground.

MS. BODNAR: So, if Pyongyang would provide some sort of possibly written guarantee of putting their program on hold, would they be able to negotiate the resumption of heavy fuel oil supplies that they so badly need?

MR. FOSTER-CARTER: I certainly think it is possible. I do think a solution is possible to this. Again, in general terms, yet another way forward might be a mediator. North Korea has indicated that -- which hasn't always been the case in the past, but recently they have indicated -- that some sort of mediation might be acceptable. Whether South Korea could do that job, I'm not sure, but China or Mr. Putin in Russia, who has met with Kim Jong-il three times. So, I think there is a potential way forward.

In terms of a written guarantee, ironically, that is what the North Koreans are demanding. They say they are ready to talk right now. They want a written guarantee of non-aggression from the United States, or at least from George Bush. They actually had one of them from Bill Clinton. But in the same breath, one of their spokesmen, their ambassador in China, is saying, how can we believe what the Americans say?

So, you kind of wonder what would really make trust grow between the two parties that clearly don't trust each other. But it looks to me as if, although we have had some very tense moments lately, that in principle, if both sides would perhaps move a little bit, one could see a way forward.

MS. BODNAR: The Japanese are also taking part in diplomatic efforts. Might they provide something that the long-term allies -- China and Russia -- might not in terms of either a face-saving or other incentives?

MR. FOSTER-CARTER: They might. In fact, the question of who exactly should be North Korea's interlocutor is an interesting and complicated one. The meetings that are going on in the U.S. right now is a regular forum. I think it is abbreviated TCOG, the Trilateral Coordination Oversight Group. That is the U.S. and its two close regional allies, South Korea and Japan, and that has been going for a few years. Because it is an old North Korean game, that even when we are not having a crisis, to try and drive a wedge between the allies. So, this is to fine-tune policy that they meet regularly.

But what is interesting this time with the nuclear crisis is that South Korea is getting worried, and promptly, before the TCOG meetings, sent its envoys to where? To China and Russia. And in the old Cold War days, that would have been unimaginable.

But I think it is probably to the good that you can get -- and the U.S. Government says this too I think -- if you can get as wide a coalition as possible, multilaterally, of all the concerned powers -- to, in their own way, present a common front; I mean, you may not get the Chinese going out on a limb and saying things as harsh as the Americans would say -- but if you can in fact line them all up to press North Korea.

HOST: Aidan Foster Carter is a North Korea expert at Leeds University in Britain. He spoke with VOA News Now's Pat Bodnar.

NEB/PB/RAE