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Analysis: Dim Hopes for Six-Party Progress

Council on Foreign Relations

December 14, 2006
Prepared by: Carin Zissis

Ahead of the Six-Party Talks set to resume in Beijing next week, Christopher Hill, the State Department’s point man on North Korea, said he hopes for “significant progress” in the first round. The talks began in 2003 and stalled when Pyongyang walked away from the negotiating table just over a year ago. North Korea’s October nuclear test and the earlier failed talks to control Pyongyang ’s nuclear ambitions cast a cloud over this latest round of negotiations. North Korea may be willing to close (BBC) its main nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in exchange for loosening restrictions on a Macau-based bank connected to Pyongyang ’s money-laundering as well as easing financial sanctions. But the deep mistrust between the United States and North Korea has produced a standoff (Bangkok Post) that shows little sign of quick resolution.

A commentary by Michael Breen in the Korea Times says, “The pretend objective, about nuclear weapons, may yield some pretend results,” but how the United States and China negotiate with each other will prove to be the most important aspect of the talks. In an October interview, CFR Director of Studies Gary Samore called China Washington’s “most important asset” in negotiating with North Korea. China convinced North Korea to rejoin Six-Party Talks in late October. Beijing and Washington need to overcome strategic differences to create a joint approach that includes a U.S. pledge not to move its troops north of the thirty-eighth parallel, write Minxin Pei and Oriana Skylar Mastro of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The divergent interests of Six-Party Talk members—the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia—limit possibilities for a coherent North Korea policy.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.