Progress with North Korea?

Little or no tangible results usually emerge from the talks between North Korea and the United States or at the four nation summits. Thus the slightest change in nuance is often viewed immediately as a definitive step forward. This is because the Korean peninsula is one of the very few remnants of the Cold War still defying resolution. This remnant of East-West confrontation is made more intractable by the unpredictability of the North Korean regime and its nuclear program.

Yesterday, Pyongyang was claiming progress at both the bilateral talks with the U.S. and at the multilateral conference which also includes South Korea and China, held last week in Geneva. North Korea said Washington had hinted it was now willing to compensate the communist government for a one-off inspection of a suspected nuclear missile bunker.

It is of course true that Washington has been worried about North Korea's nuclear program and wants to see whether it was engaged in weapons production that would result in a further proliferation of nuclear weapon states. It was this concern that probably led U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen to say recently that South Korea might be brought under Washington's nuclear umbrella.

We believe that all weapons of mass destruction should be eliminated and any moves toward that end is welcome. If the talks with North Korea will ultimately remove the need for nuclear weapons in or around the Korean peninsula, that would be the most welcome development.

-- The Hong Kong Standard