Word: pyongyang
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...North Korean negotiators will spend the year driving their American counterparts crazy. They will also manage to squeeze some concessions out of the U.S. while giving nothing substantial away themselves, and in the meantime continue developing an arsenal of nuclear weapons. That may sound a little pessimistic; after all, Pyongyang did return to the negotiating table this week after boycotting the talks or nearly a year. But after the resumed six-party talks aimed at bringing the North's nuclear program to an end concluded in Beijing, Friday, it was depressingly clear that Dear Leader Kim Jong...
...Last week's talks underlined the painful truth that, right now, Pyongyang is holding most of the cards. The two principals leading the talks with Pyongyang, Washington and Beijing, are seemingly hamstrung. China is scrambling to find a new approach to its wayward client after being blindsided by the North's nuclear test on October 9, which was undertaken despite a specific request for restraint from Chinese President Hu Jintao. Fearful that putting pressure on the North's fragile economy could lead to an implosion that would send hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into China's north east, Beijing...
...Monday North Korea's delegate Kim Kye-gwan demanded the lifting of U.N. sanctions imposed after the October nuclear test, as well as banking sanctions previously imposed by the U.S., before it halts its nuclear program - a typically hard-line opening stance for Pyongyang. He also insisted that the talks be about "arms reduction," i.e., that North Korea be accepted as a nuclear power. The U.S. has no intention of doing that, of course. But Pyongyang appears to be insisting that before there is haggling over the precise contents of an incentive package to coax North Korea to retreat from...
...China, which is brokering the talks, has always made clear that Pyongyang will have to be given security guarantees by the U.S. as part of any soluion. Hill has also said the U.S. would be willing to create a working group to address the banking sanctions, which are a priority of the Pyongyang regime, whose financial operations have been severely disrupted by U.S. Treasury Department measures against banks used by the country in Asia. The financial pain those sanctions cause the regime might give the U.S. a measure of leverage, but only to the extent that they can be used...
...sanctions and other issues extraneous to the nuclear standoff - vastly complicates the art of the deal in Beijing. But the fact that both parties are at the table suggests that neither has a good alternative to the search for a compromise: China, North Korea's key patron, has left Pyongyang in no doubt that its own economic interests and those of its most benign neighbors demand that it take the path toward denuclearization and easing tensions with the U.S. At the same time, with China and South Korea resolutely opposed to cranking up the sort of pressure that would hurt...