Crucial omissions in Korean talks

Last week in New York, North Korean foreign ministry officials sat down with Americans and South Koreans to discuss a possible future peace negotiation, and with the Americans alone the normalization of bilateral relations. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin analyses what was missing from the inconclusive discussions.

HONG KONG (JP): As South Korean, North Korean and American diplomats gathered at a round table in New York on March 5 to try and start the process of bringing peace to the war-threatened Korean peninsula, ten crucial oversights were observed.

First and foremost, no one said loud and clear that it was high time the Cold War was ended in Korea. None of the three countries were represented by a sufficiently senior figure to forcefully make such a political statement. The U.S. was merely represented by a deputy assistant secretary of state, the two Koreas by deputy foreign ministers. Besides, the Clinton Administration overlooked the cliche that the Cold War is already over and no member was willing to say this was wrong.

Ironically, two days later President Bill Clinton illustrated how deeply this particular cliche had permeated his foreign policy "thinking". At a press conference in Washington, Clinton talked airily about the crucial questions which will "determine what the world will look like 30 or 40 years from now". Among these was how Russia and China, the two great former communist powers, would define their greatness. In other words, in his fifth year in office, Clinton has still not grasped that the two most dangerous security crises which he faces in East Asia largely stem from the fact that neither China nor North Korea are going to become "former communist powers" -- if they can possibly help it.

Second, no one around the table -- the shape of which had been a bone of Cold War contention in the run-up to the meeting -- stressed that they were legally bound and committed to push forward the peace process without any further delay. The delay was three months short of 44 years.

The commitment was contained in Article Four, Paragraph 60 of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement. It is worth noting this because it has been long honored in the breach between the two Koreas. It reads: "In order to ensure the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, the military commanders of both sides hereby recommend the governments of the countries concerned hold a political conference of a higher level of both sides by representatives appointed to settle through negotiation the question of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea and the peaceful settlement of the Korean question. This should be done three months after the Armistice Agreement is signed and becomes effective."

Such a conference was held the following year by the foreign ministers of the major powers, but it quickly shelved any serious effort at Korean settlement and instead became the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina at which the division of another country, Vietnam, was agreed.

There have been occasional efforts since then to implement Paragraph 60 but they have broadly founded on differing visions. North Korea has only been interested in discussing the withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea. The U.S. and South Korea regarded a peace settlement as a prior requirement before any such withdrawal.

A third omission from public discussion, after last week's meeting in New York, was the underlying reason why this was the first effort since 1972 to take Paragraph 60 a step further. That was the year when South Korean President Park Chung-hee faced dissent as he sought to defeat oppositionist Kim Dae-jung in a real election. There was a brief breakthrough in North-South peace efforts in 1972, which eventually went nowhere because North Korea merely hoped to take political advantage of the situation in South Korea.

Last week's meeting hardly appeared to be an enduring breakthrough either, because this time the boot was on the other foot and troubles were threatening North Korea. Billed as a briefing on U.S./South Korean proposals for a peace negotiation, North Korea's presence at the table was achieved because of the looming famine and its need for food aid. The U.S. and South Korea required a minimum degree of reciprocation for the small amount of aid they have pledged so far this year.

Necessity also explained North Korea's attendance. For the best part of a year Pyongyang has studiously ignored the initiative announced by South Korean President Kim Young-sam and President Bill Clinton resurrecting the idea of a four power conference (the two Koreas, China and the U.S.) as the best way to negotiate a Korean peace treaty.

Almost certainly, a fourth omission was that the Americans and the South Koreans failed to politely point out that, if the North was sincerely interested in peace, it would not have preferred a submarine infiltration last September as its initial response to the Kim-Clinton peace conference proposal.

A fifth omission by the U.S. and South Korea was also observable. North Koreans were not told bluntly that complete and unequivocal adherence to the Korean Armistice Agreement was an indispensable condition for food aid, peace talks or, for that matter, a nuclear reactors deal. For five years the North Koreans have slowly but effectively demolished the armistice institutions.

The Americans have been particularly remiss in not contesting, every inch of the way, this clear breach of a solemn commitment by the North, made with the signature of the then Marshal Kim Il- sung, supreme commander of the Korean People's Army.

Another U.S. mistake, this time by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, suggested strongly that Euro-centric thinking, and a consequent failure to give Korea the attention it deserves in the global scheme of things, may be the real reason why the U.S. has failed to meticulously insist that the armistice be upheld.

"There's never been a (Korean) armistice," Albright told Jim Lehrer on Newshour (March 6). Surprisingly, Albright did not correct herself -- and Lehrer did not ask whether she was referring to the lack of a peace agreement rather than the lack of an armistice. But at least Albright, unlike her boss, has taken aboard that the situation in Korea remains the "last vestige" of the Cold War.

A sixth curious omission by American "experts" on Korean affairs has been the discussion of a vital issue --- if North Korea can disdain its signature on a crucial document such as the armistice, how can one be sure it will honor its signature on other agreements?

The South Korean case, by contrast, is compelling. It never signed the Korean Armistice, due to the political foolishness of former President Syngman Rhee, but nonetheless strictly abides by its terms.

The lack of a South Korean signature on the Korean armistice agreement has had critical consequences. It was, for example, the appointment of a South Korean general to head the United Nations Command side in the key armistice institution, the Military Armistice Commission, which initially led to the start of the North Korean boycott of MAC in 1992-1993.

Technically, since South Korean troops are part of the UN Command, the appointment was justifiable, even though South Korea is not a signatory itself. But it was imprudent politics. The Americans thought the appointment might encourage essential North-South dialog but it actually had the opposite effect.

The Americans failed to take into account a longstanding North Korean policy which takes advantage of President Rhee's foolishness. The North has maintained that it is the only legitimate Korea, that the armistice signatures prove it, and that peace must be negotiated between the North and the United States alone.

Whether the New York meeting signaled that we have now heard the last of this policy is doubtful. A seventh omission was that the Americans did not go out of their way to stress they would never accept a North Korea-U.S. peace negotiation. Perhaps it was considered redundant. But when negotiating with Pyongyang, it is often advisable to be as persistent with one's own viewpoint as it is to be certain of their viewpoint.

An eighth omission was also made by the Americans -- the neglect of the Russian formula for a Korean peace conference. The four power idea was originally put forward by Dr. Henry Kissinger in the 1970s amid the fervor engendered by Sino- American rapprochement. The U.S. concept -- that the U.S. and China help steer peace talks while the two Koreas do most of the negotiating still makes sense. The Korean War was in large partly a civil war. As Albright observed "in the end, the two parties -- the two Koreas -- have to try to come to an agreement".

Yet the Russian concept also remains relevant in terms of great power -- an eight nation conference, consisting of the five permanent members of the security council plus Japan and the two Koreas. Certainly any final Korean peace agreement must be approved by Tokyo and Moscow as well as Beijing and Washington. Korea is a place where the interests of four major powers directly intersect. The four-power proposal is questionable because it includes only two of them.

The ninth omission was obvious in bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea on the normalization of their relations, which also took place in New York on March 8 after the trilateral peace conference "briefing". These talks enabled North Koreans to maintain, at home, that their policy of negotiating with the U.S. alone was still being followed.

The Americans evidently talked about the possible opening of liaison offices in each other's capitals, in the continued absence of full diplomatic recognition, about cooperation over the thousands of Americans still missing-in-action in the Korean War, and about North Korean compliance with missile nonproliferation. All these items are important, of course, but, amazingly, no mention was made of any U.S. insistence that the first priority, both for peace and for normalization, must be a reduction of the North Korean offensive capability close to the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas.

One million heavily armed North Korean troops remain in place, sustaining the tension in the Korean Cold War, and thereby making any one-sided U.S. or South Korean force reductions impossible. The North Korean force posture has not changed despite the threat of famine. One would expect an American negotiator to maintain that this is an unacceptable anomaly -- and to publicize it as that.

The tenth omission from both of the New York meetings was, perhaps inevitably, the lack of any clear-cut result. Beset by grave problems involving the survival of their state, North Koreans may still perceive that the U.S. is in an appeasement mode. Pyonyang wants to see how much it can get, before taking any strides towards peace or normalcy.

Window A: The South Korean case, by contrast, is compelling. It never signed the Korean Armistice, due to the political foolishness of former president Syngman Rhee, but nonetheless strictly abides by its terms.

Window B: One million heavily armed North Korean troops remain in place, sustaining the tension in the Korean Cold War, and thereby making any one-sided U.S. or South Korean force reductions impossible.