By Ankit Panda
The Six Party Talks might be back on the horizon. What will it take to get them going again?
The Six Party Talks between the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan on one side and North Korea on the other broke down in 2009 with little to show for the six years they were active. North Korea’s nuclear activities since the breakdown of the talks makes it amply clear that the Korean peninsula is no closer to denuclearization. When the North pulled out of the talks in 2009, after it launched a “satellite” (read: Taepodong-2), it issued a harsh statement noting that “there is no need for the six-party talks any more … We will never again take part in such talks and will not be bound by any agreement reached at the talks.” A lot has changed since then, and there are burgeoning signs that the Six Party Talks might be back on the horizon.
Despite the harshness of that statement, Pyongyang may have had a slight change of heart under Kim Jong-un. The incentive for the North to seek a reset in the Six Party Talks is primarily economic this time. There are signs that Kim Jong-un, either independent of outside counsel or on the counsel of other senior DPRK leaders, sees a necessity to return to the negotiating table. Additionally, despite the North’s recent provocations towards South Korea, there are encouraging signs that Pyongyang might be interested in a more stable situation across the 38th parallel. Recent family reunions between families split by the Korean war armistice, high level talks, and Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s address calling for closer relations between the two Koreas indicate that inter-Korean relations in spring 2014 will be calmer than spring 2013 when tensions were high. The give-and-take of the Six Party Talks has been simple: the North gives up its nuclear program and receives partial reprieve from biting international isolation and sanctions.
Pushing the North Koreans back to the table this time are the Chinese, who haven’t been particularly thrilled with the direction Northeast Asia’s favorite pariah state has been taking since Kim Jong-un took over. Jang Song-thaek’s execution in late 2013 was something of a wake-up call and China has spent the first two months of 2014 lobbying particularly hard for a resumption of the Six Party Talks.
Read the full story at The Diplomat