Obama ponders direct North talks
Published: 24 Sep. 2009, 05:01
U.S. President Barack Obama, left, meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao at Obama’s hotel in New York on Tuesday. Both leaders are in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. [REUTERS]
In his summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama said his country is willing to engage in bilateral dialogue with North Korea to bring the regime back to the six-party nuclear talks, Yonhap News Agency reported, quoting a senior U.S. official.
The China-U.S. summit took place during the UN Summit on Climate Change on Tuesday, New York time, and lasted for about 90 minutes.
Since 2003, North Korea has participated in the nuclear disarmament negotiations involving the South, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S. But it declared last April that it would no longer take part in the talks.
“[Obama] noted that bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea could be useful if they contributed to restoration of that framework and a serious North Korean commitment to those goals,” Yonhap quoted the official as saying. According to the report, China supported Obama’s view.
The U.S.-China summit came as Washington officials mull over Pyongyang’s recent invitation of Stephen Bosworth, special representative for North Korea policy, to travel to the North. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il also told a visiting Chinese envoy last week that his country adheres to the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and is willing to discuss the matter through bilateral and multilateral talks.
Obama also pressed Hu to further cooperate in persuading the North, the Associated Press reported. Quoting a senior U.S. official, the report said Obama told Hu that it was key for Washington and Beijing to have “demonstrable solidarity” on the matter “because absent solidarity, that would provide openings for bad behavior on the part of the North Koreans.”
The official did not detail Hu’s response.
China, the main ally and benefactor of the North, is the host of the six-nation talks. In the past, it had been reluctant to push stern sanctions against the North.
Following his meeting with Obama, Hu was also scheduled to meet with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak later in the day. “President Lee and President Hu will discuss a wide range of issues, including the North Korean nuclear issue,” Lee’s spokeswoman Kim Eun-hye told reporters ahead of the summit.
Lee is also scheduled to have a bilateral summit with his Japanese counterpart, Yukio Hatoyama. The nuclear issue is also expected to be a key agenda item.
Lee’s meetings with the leaders of China and Japan also come shortly after he made a proposal of a “grand bargain” with North Korea to resolve the nuclear crisis. In his earlier speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Lee proposed that the North’s complete, irreversible nuclear dismantlement be exchanged for a package of incentives in a “one-shot deal,” rather than solving the problem step by step.
It remains to be seen how China and Japan will react to Lee’s proposal, but the United States appears to be uncertain. In his press briefing on Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Seoul and Washington agree on the common goal that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear free, but the U.S. continued to push forward the step-by-step measures agreed to in 2005 at the six-nation talks.
“Regarding President Lee’s speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, I think it’s really not for me to comment on the particulars, because ... this is his policy. These were his remarks,” Kelly said. “I will say that we’ve been very clear that if ... North Korea takes irreversible steps leading to complete denuclearization, and thereby upholds its commitments made in the joint statement of 2005, that we and our partners would be prepared to reciprocate in a comprehensive and coordinated manner, that we’d be prepared to discuss some kind of package of steps that we could take.”
Kelly continued that he was not sure if Lee’s “grand bargain” is a change of approach, adding, “We’re willing to look at other approaches if the North Koreans agree to uphold their commitments that they’ve already made.”
The New York Times also said Washington was caught by surprise by Lee’s proposal. A senior U.S. official told the newspaper that trying to solve the North Korean nuclear problem in a single step seemed “far-fetched.”
By Ser Myo-ja [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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