North Korea’s demand on dialogue, reconciliatory gesture toward the U. S.

North Korea have criticized fiercely the Bush Administration’s North Korea policy, and suspended dialogue with Seoul since summit talks between South Korea and the U. S. last March. Chairman Kim Jong-il’s declaration of the moratorium on the missile testing could be interpreted as a means to deliver some messages to the U. S. That is to say, it would ask indirectly for the U. S. to get into dialogue with North Korea.

In order to grasp the background of Kim Jong-il’s remarks, it is necessary to look back the situation which first declaration of the freeze on missile testing has been made.

North Korea’s declaration of the moratorium on the missile testing was made on September in 1999, through four times meetings on missile between North Korea and the U. S., William Perry’s (U. S. North Korea Policy Coordinator and Special Advisor) visit to North Korea, and the measures to ease economic sanction against North Korea, after the tension between North Korea and the U. S. had heightened by the launch of a Tae-po Dong missile on August, 1998.

Hence it seems that North Korea can solve the uncomfortable relationship with the Bush Administration through dialogue and mutual concession just like the past case.

On the other hand, Chairman Kim would probably mention the concrete time of the year of 2003 because he is considering the necessity of setting up the new frame for the relationship to the U. S from 2003.

Until now, it is 94` Geneva agreement that has regulated the relationship between North Korea and the U. S.. According to Geneva agreement, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) is supposed to provide two Light Water Reactors in 2003. 94` Geneva agreement can be seen as a international agreement that rules until 2003, even though it is not likely to provide the Light Water Reactor in 2003 due to the delayed construction.

The declaration of a moratorium contains North Korea’s intention to wait and see how the U. S.’s review of North Korea policy proceeds. This is supported by the fact that Chairman Kim mentioned his visit to Seoul with the U. S.’s review of North Korea policy, while referring to the period of the moratorium on the missile testing.

It is in this background that he said that although he hopes the second inter-Korea summit talks to be held, the atmosphere is not ready. That is, he confirmed that the U.S’s future policy towards North Korea has great impact on the relationship between two Koreas as well as second round of summit talk.

However, Kim Jong-il’s re-claim of his intention to hold further missile test is interpreted as a sign of creating positive atmosphere in the process of reviewing the North Korea policy. In response to North’s effort, the U.S is expected to react responsibly. Therefore, after that, he is expected to visit Seoul. Besides, it is predicted that North Korea intends to relate the missile issue to that of Nuclear. And it is also analyzed that there is an intention to facilitate negotiation by bringing missile issues to the table, fitting in the year 2003 when Nuclear problem is due to resolve.

Kim Young-Sik spear@donga.com