People's Democracy

 DPRK ON SIX-PARTY TALKS

Onus Is On US For Confidence Building

IN a statement issued from Pyongyang on September 20, the foreign affairs ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has clarified its stand on the close of the fourth six-party talks. Apart from the USA and North Korea (DPRK), Russia, South Korea, China and Japan too are parties to these talks.

Drawing the attention of the international community, the second phase of the fourth six-party talks on the nuclear issue between the DPRK and US opened in Beijing on September 13 and closed on September 19.

The talks that started on the DPRK's positive initiative in August 2003 were held several times for the last more than two years, and repeatedly gone through many twists. But they repeatedly proved fruitless and unproductive due to the conflicting stands of the parties concerned, contrary to the international community’s expectations about the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. The DPRK says it always approached the talks with patience and sincerity, and proceeded from the principled and fair stand of achieving the general goal of the denuclearisation of the peninsula at any cost. That is why, meeting all challenges, it made it possible to agree on the joint statement which contained only "verbal commitments."

That joint statement, the DPRK says, reflected its consistent stand on settlement of the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US and, at the same time, committed the US and South Korea to denuclearising the whole of the peninsula.  As already known, while agreeing on denuclearising the peninsula, the issue over which the DPRK and US have most serious differences is the issue of the former's right to use nuclear power for peaceful purposes. It was with this aim in view that the DPRK demanded light water reactors (LWRs) from the US if the latter wanted the DPRK to give up building its plutonium fuelled reactor. It was due to these differences that the first phase of the fourth round of talks, held in August this year, had to be postponed without yielding any desired results. 

One notes that in fact the stand of the present US administration amounts to saying that the DPRK has no right to pursue nuclear activities for a peaceful purpose --- a stand that violates the independent right of a sovereign state. At the same time, the US also refused to provide LWRs to the DPRK on the pretext that it pulled out of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and is no longer a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DPRK foreign ministry says that, while opposing this adamant stand of the US, it had made it clear that the basis of finding a solution to the nuclear issue between the DPRK and the US is to wipe out the historically created distrust between the two countries. It is with this aim that the DPRK has been asking for LWRs from the US, as the basis for building bilateral confidence. The former strongly demanded that by providing LWRs to it, the US must remove the very cause that compelled the DPRK to withdraw from the NPT.

One recalls that all the concerned parties except the US have been for a discussion on the issue of respecting the DPRK's right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes and providing LWRs to it.

This time, under the pressure of the opinion trend, the US delegation got in touch with Washington several times and finally had no option but to withdraw its assertion. The six parties to the talks agreed to take suitable measures to implement, phase by phase, the points agreed on in the joint statement --- in accordance with the principle of "action for action" in the days ahead.

The DPRK foreign ministry says that as clarified in the joint statement, the country will return to the NPT fold, sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and start complying with it immediately after the US provides LWRs to it as a basis of confidence building.

The DPRK has clarified more than once that it will have no need of even a single nuclear weapon if the DPRK-US relations are normalised, bilateral confidence is built, and the country is not exposed to the US nuclear threats any longer.

The DPRK statement says, “What is most essential is, therefore, for the US to provide LWRs to the DPRK as early as possible as evidence proving the former’s substantial recognition of the latter's nuclear activity for a peaceful purpose.”

The statement made it clear that the US should not expect the DPRK to dismantle its nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs to it.

Now the international community will be watching how the US moves in actuality in the "action for action" phase in the future. But, the DPRK says, if the US again insists on "the DPRK's dismantlement of nuclear weapons before the provision of LWRs," there will be no let-up in the nuclear stand-off between the DPRK and the US and this will have very serious and complicated consequences.

“If the US opts for reneging on its promise,” the DPRK statement clarifies, “we will go ahead without an inch of deflection along the road indicated by the Songun line.”

On the same day (September 20), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) expressed hope that all parties would seriously fulfil their commitments made at the six-party talks. 

After these talks ended at Beijing on September 19 with the adoption of a joint statement, a spokesman of the PRC foreign ministry said, "I believe all parties will take a responsible attitude towards the earnest fulfilment of their commitments so as to realise denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula and to safeguard peace and stability on the peninsula and (in the) north-east Asian region as a whole." The PRC said the September 19 joint statement has established a framework for a package solution to the nuclear issue.

As for the DPRK’s position that it has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, China said other parties have expressed their respect to it and agreed to discuss the subject of provision of light water reactors to the DPRK at an appropriate time.

"The six parties need further consultations on what the appropriate time is," said the PRC foreign ministry spokesman, adding that there were still many problems ahead though they were not insurmountable.

He referred to the joint statement as "just a general frame," expressing the hope that “all parties could continue to push forward the six-party talks in the spirit of mutual respect and equal consultations."