[Cankor] Report #244

[cankor at cankor.ca]

Dear subscriber,

Welcome to issue #244 of the CanKor Report.

In this week's QUIDNUNC, retired Canadian Foreign Service Officer 
Bethany Armstrong responds to the question:
Was it a mistake for EU countries and Canada to establish diplomatic 
relations with the DPRK in the wake of the Inter-Korean summit of 2000?

This week, CanKor asks:
What is the DPRK’s most urgent need?

Please send your answer (maximum 150 words) to: editor at CanKor.ca
The CanKor team.

For articles not original to CanKor, direct links are available in the 
Contents section, should you wish to consult the originals on the internet.
If the links no longer function, you may refer to the full text articles 
appended to the issue.

For back issues, archives and other content, please visit our website:
http://www.cankor.ca
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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 244

Friday, 7 April 2006
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Top officials from the six nations engaged in nuclear disarmament talks 
converge on Tokyo for a “Track 2” academic conference, sponsored by the 
University of California's Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation. 
With the top US and DPRK chief negotiators Chris Hill and Kim Kye Gwan 
both attending the meeting, officials on all sides are at pains to 
explain repeatedly that no bilateral contact is in the offing.

In Pyongyang for talks with the DPRK military, PRC Defence Minister Cao 
Gangchuan, blames mistrust between the USA and the DPRK for the current 
stalemate in the Six-Party Talks.

According to "credible" reports cited by a South Korean intelligence 
officer, DPRK officials have been spotted wearing lapel pins with a 
picture of Kim Jong Il's second son -- the clearest indication to date 
that Kim Jong Chol may be the most likely candidate to succeed his father.

The greatest hurdle facing resumption of the Six Party Talks is 
Pyongyang’s refusal to participate following the blacklisting of a bank 
in Macao, thereby restricting much of DPRK’s business ventures. Although 
Washington argues that these measures are to be considered separate from 
the nuclear issue, some analysts agree that it is the most successful 
strategy for putting pressure on Pyongyang to date. This week’s CanKor 
FOCUS brings us up-to-date with the latest news on US Treasury 
sanctions, speculates on what next steps might be, and presents the 
latest response to the issue by the DPRK.
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Contents:
1. DPRK DELEGATION IN JAPAN FOR INFORMAL SECURITY TALKS
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-04-07-voa27.cfm

2. SIX NATIONS INVOLVED IN TALKS MEET IN JAPAN
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/04/AR2006040400538.html

3. PRC DEFENCE MINISTER HOLDS TALKS IN PYONGYANG
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-04/04/content_559998.htm

4. SECOND SON LAPEL PINS MAKE APPEARANCE
http://english.ohmynews.com/ArticleView/article_view.asp?no=283825&rel_no=1

FOCUS: Repercussions of actions against banks
5. DPRK SANCTIONS: WHAT THE USA COULD DO NEXT
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200603/200603130021.html

6. DPRK ACCUSES USA OF SLANDER
http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2006/200603/news03/29.htm#4

7. POCKETBOOK POLICING: WASHINGTON PUTS ON PRESSURE
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12114822/site/newsweek/

QUIDNUNC: Readers ask and respond to common and uncommon questions
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1. DPRK DELEGATION IN JAPAN FOR INFORMAL SECURITY TALKS
by Steve Herman, VOA News, Tokyo, 7 April 2006

North Korea's top nuclear negotiator and other high-ranking officials 
from the communist state have arrived in Japan for a rare visit. They 
will be attending an academic conference next week that will discuss 
Northeast Asian security issues, including Pyongyang's nuclear programs. 
Japanese officials are stressing that the Tokyo gathering is not a 
formal session for negotiating efforts to end North Korea's nuclear 
weapons programs.

Among the North Koreans who arrived in Japan Friday is Vice Foreign 
Minister Kim Kye Gwan, the country's chief negotiator on nuclear issues. 
He and eight other officials from Pyongyang are in the country for the 
North East Asia Cooperation Dialogue, sponsored by the University of 
California at San Diego.

Kim says his visit has nothing to do with the six-nation nuclear talks. 
He says that the United States knows what it must do to get North Korea 
back to the negotiations. Pyongyang has said it will not resume the 
nuclear talks until the United States ends its crackdown on alleged 
counterfeiting and money laundering by North Korean enterprises.

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Tomohiko Taniguchi says the four-day 
conference, which begins Sunday, will cover a range of what he calls 
"very important issues," including nuclear proliferation.

"I hope very much that this is going to create a very good catalyst for 
the six-party talks to be resumed, and North Korean officials, who will 
come back to their country again convinced of the vital importance to 
resume the talks," he said.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, 
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator to the North Korean nuclear 
talks will attend the conference. However, U.S. officials say there are 
no plans for a one-on-one meeting with the North Korean official.

China, South Korea, Japan and Russia are also parties to the six-way 
talks, and will have officials from the previous nuclear negotiations at 
the conference. (...)
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2. SIX NATIONS INVOLVED IN TALKS MEET IN JAPAN
by Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, 4 April 2006

Top officials from the six nations engaged in North Korean nuclear 
disarmament talks will converge in Tokyo next week for a private sector 
conference, fuelling hopes of sideline meetings here that could help 
jump start the long-stalled negotiations. US Assistant Secretary of 
State Christopher Hill, Washington's chief negotiator on the North 
Korean nuclear issue, is scheduled to arrive in Tokyo on Monday to meet 
with his counterparts from Japan and South Korea, US officials said. 
During his three-day visit, Hill will attend a conference of the 
Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue at which top negotiators from the 
other nations involved in the six-party talks -- China, Russia and North 
Korea -- also will be present.

It will mark the first time leading delegates from all six nations will 
be at the same forum since the last round of talks ended in Beijing last 
November. (...)

Asian and US diplomats said it was too early to tell if any sideline 
talks with the North Koreans would take place. Michael Boyle, spokesman 
for the US Embassy in Tokyo, confirmed that representatives from the six 
nations would be at the conference, but said no meeting between Hill and 
a visiting North Korean official have been prearranged. "They will be at 
the same conference," Boyle said. "That's all we can say." (...)

But the possibility of renewed contact between the six parties next week 
nevertheless represents the brightest prospect yet for renewed dialogue 
in the effort to dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. (. . .)

The so-called "track 2" meeting sponsored by the University of 
California's Institute of Global Conflict and Cooperation is bringing 
together top officials and academics from across the region. The 
conference comes at a time when Japan is taking bolder steps of its own 
to pressure North Korea. Japanese politicians have made progress on a 
bill threatening sanctions against North Korea if it does not negotiate 
in good faith on the nuclear issue as well as a bilateral dispute over 
Japanese citizens abducted by the North Koreans for use in spy training 
camps during the 1970s and 1980s. On Tuesday, Japan also added 20 North 
Korean businesses and institutions to an export restriction list aimed 
at preventing them from obtaining materials and technology that could be 
applied for military use.
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3. PRC DEFENCE MINISTER HOLDS TALKS IN PYONGYANG
Reuters, 4 April 2006

China said on Tuesday mistrust between North Korea and the United States 
was the main hurdle to negotiations on the North's nuclear program as 
the Chinese Defence minister held talks in Pyongyang. China has been 
urged to persuade North Korea to agree to another round of six-party 
talks also involving the United States, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

"The cause of the current stalemate is the mistrust between North Korea 
and the United States and their differences over some specific issues," 
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular news 
conference. He said all sides should stick to the goal of eventual 
de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

"China as a major mediator has always been making active and difficult 
efforts," Liu said. "The progress of the six-party talks is not totally 
up to Chinese efforts. The key to resolving problems is in the hands of 
North Korea and the United States."

The six countries agreed in principle in September that the North would 
dismantle its nuclear programs in exchange for aid and better diplomatic 
ties. But their latest session in November ended without progress. North 
Korea has said it would be unthinkable to return to the nuclear talks 
while Washington is trying to topple its leaders through action against 
Pyongyang's purported counterfeiting, drug trafficking and money 
laundering. North Korea has denied involvement in any illegal activities.

Chinese Defence Minister Cao Gangchuan held talks on Tuesday with Vice 
Marshal of the Korean People's Army, Kim Il Chol, also minister of the 
People's Armed Forces, at a time when Pyongyang is facing strong 
pressure to return to the negotiations.

"The talks took place in a comradely and friendly atmosphere," the 
North's KCNA news agency said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu 
said he did not know if Cao would meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il 
in Pyongyang. The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 
fratricidal 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace pact.

A North Korean official will make a rare visit to Japan later this week 
to take part in a private forum on security issues and could have talks 
with negotiators to the six-party nuclear talks, diplomatic sources said 
on Tuesday. And US chief negotiator Christopher Hill is expected to 
arrive in Tokyo on Monday for talks with his counterparts from Japan and 
South Korea, a US embassy spokesman said.

On April 15, Cao is due to lead a delegation of 18 senior military 
officers to the South for talks on promoting military exchanges between 
the two countries, South Korea's Defence Ministry said in a statement. 
Cao will also meet South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and inspect 
military units and industrial plants, the ministry said.
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4. SECOND SON LAPEL PINS MAKE APPEARANCE
Associated Press (AP), 5 April 2006

North Korean officials have recently been spotted wearing lapel pins 
with a picture of leader Kim Jong Il's second son, indicating that he 
may have become the most likely candidate to succeed his father, a 
report said Wednesday. There have been no concrete indications from 
North Korea's regime of who will follow the 64-year-old Kim in power. 
Kim took over leadership of the communist nation in 1994 after the death 
of his father, founding President Kim Il Sung.

Yonhap news agency, citing a South Korean intelligence official, said 
North Korean officials had recently been seen at a North Korean 
restaurant in Beijing wearing lapel pins with the picture of Kim Jong 
Il's 25-year-old son, Kim Jong Chol, who has been mentioned in recent 
media reports as a likely favourite candidate. The official, who wasn't 
named, called the report "credible" and said it appeared Kim Jong Il was 
leaning toward naming that son to follow him in power.

There is little publicly known about Kim Jong Chol, except that he 
studied in Switzerland and is a fan of US professional basketball. North 
Korean citizens normally wear lapel pins with the image of the late Kim 
Il Sung, part of the personality cult around him that permeates every 
aspect of life in the country. Other commonly worn pins depict Kim Jong 
Il or simply the country's flag.

Jong Chol and another of Kim's younger sons, Jong Un, are believed to 
have the same mother, Ko Yong Hi, who reportedly died of cancer in 2004. 
An older son, Kim Jong Nam, is believed to have been an earlier 
favourite to assume power but is widely believed to have fallen out of 
favour after embarrassing the government in 2001 by being caught trying 
to enter Japan on a fake passport, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo 
Disneyland.

The intelligence official said Jong Nam was recently seen traveling in 
Europe with a woman who wasn't his wife, and was suspected of being 
connected with North Korea's alleged spread of counterfeit US currency 
through a bank in Macau that has been blacklisted by the US government.
"Kim Jong Nam can't return to Macau," the official told Yonhap.

The US-imposed restrictions on that bank and on other North Korean 
businesses have caused a deadlock in international talks on the North's 
nuclear program with the North refusing to return to the negotiating 
table until they are lifted.
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FOCUS: Repercussions of actions against banks

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5. DPRK SANCTIONS: WHAT THE USA COULD DO NEXT
Chosun Ilbo, 13 March 2006

The US looks likely to impose additional sanctions against North Korea 
after strangling transactions with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, 
which it accuses of being Pyongyang’s primary money laundering concern. 
White House spokesman Scott McClellan last week said the US will 
“continue to take measures” to stop the North from engaging in illegal 
activities. South Korean officials, meanwhile, are not denying a New 
York Times article that said the Bush administration is pleased with the 
effect of the financial sanctions and efforts to promote its 
Proliferation Security Initiative and is thinking of more measures along 
the same lines.

Experts say the US could move against other banks it suspects of moving 
North Korea’s gains from a range of criminal activities including 
currency forgery the US accuses it of conducting. Samsung Economic 
Research Institute researcher Dong Yong-seung says Washington does not 
regard sanctions imposed on the Macau bank as punishment. “It is likely 
the US would start taking measures against many other banks that do 
business with the North,” he said. That could chiefly target Chinese 
banks, many of which do business with Pyongyang. Prof. Yoo Ho-yeol of 
Korea University says it is likely that the US will try to stop 
countries trading with the North by way of such measures. They could 
specifically target countries suspected of facilitating North Korea’s 
trade in drugs and counterfeit tobacco products.

Some South Korean officials believe the US will also intensify its 
campaign against North Korea’s human rights abuses. “We need to focus on 
the fact that the Bush administration has recently said the North must 
implement its human rights commitments more actively,” a researcher with 
a government agency said. “It could particularly put greater stress on 
abuse of women and children.” Another researcher said the US may insist 
on imposing stronger controls on goods from the joint-Korean Kaesong 
Industrial Complex in the North.

Other strategies could include making things more difficult for North 
Korea-related projects in international organizations. What effect that 
would have on efforts to dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear program and bring 
the reclusive country back to the six-nation negotiating table remains 
to be seen.
*************************************************

6. DPRK ACCUSES USA OF SLANDER
Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), 28 March 2006

The United States on March 16 in a "national security strategy report" 
designated again the DPRK as an "outpost of tyranny". This is an 
unpardonable insult, sinister slander and provocation to the dignified 
DPRK. Minju Joson today observes this in a signed commentary. It says: 
As soon as it took office, the Bush administration newly adopted its 
nuclear strategy focused on the DPRK and started posing undisguised 
threat of nuclear attack against the DPRK.

Under such situation where the US-threatened pre-emptive nuclear attack 
was impending in actuality, the DPRK had no other option but to make a 
bold decision to build nuclear armed forces for self-defence. The 
six-party talks, hailed by countries concerned and other countries as 
the most suitable way for settling the nuclear issue of the Korean 
Peninsula, could be provided thanks to the DPRK's initiative step. The 
adoption of the September 19, 2005, joint statement, too, was 
attributable to its principled and sincere pursuit and efforts. At the 
crucial moment when both sides were to move in actuality toward the 
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, the United States took 
financial sanctions against the DPRK under such unreasonable pretexts as 
"counterfeit notes" and "money laundry". Meanwhile, it is playing cheap 
tricks to shift the blame for the deadlocked six-party talks on to the DPRK.

The US calculates that its aims will be attained if it throttles the 
DPRK, binding it hand and foot. But, it is the DPRK's traditional way of 
struggle to make head-on breakthrough. The US must be well aware of what 
it means.
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7. POCKETBOOK POLICING: WASHINGTON PUTS ON PRESSURE
by Christian Caryl with Mark Hosenball in Washington, George Wehrfritz 
in Taipei, B.J. Lee in Seoul, and Akiko Kashiwagi in Tokyo, Newsweek, 2 
April 2006

Swiss businessman and Asian-art collector Jakob Steiger never figured in 
headlines before last month. But his low profile ended with a bang when 
the US Treasury announced that it was imposing sanctions against his 
firm, Kohas AG, for acting as a "technology broker" for the North Korean 
military. The Bush administration claims that the company, based in the 
university town of Fribourg, is half-owned by a North Korean firm that 
was named on a previous US blacklist of entities suspected of 
involvement in "the proliferation of goods with weapons-related 
applications."

On its own the action against Kohas might seem like a sideshow in the 
much larger US effort to eliminate Kim Jong Il's nuclear-weapons 
program. But in fact, the move is just the latest twist in an intense 
American offensive against North Korea-one that experts believe is 
finally beginning to squeeze the regime. Numerous US government 
agencies, including the FBI, Treasury, State Department and CIA, have 
been working for three years to curtail Pyongyang's vast network of 
black-market activities-from the sale of missile technology to heroin 
trafficking to the manufacture of fake cigarettes and bogus Viagra-and 
to cut off the financial conduits by which the proceeds are laundered. 
David Asher, who ran the Bush administration's interagency effort, says 
that criminal North Korean businesses were targeted as part of "the 
largest undercover investigation against Asian organized crime in a 
decade." Washington has raised the possibility of sanctions against 
financial institutions that deal with Pyongyang, and has arrested or 
indicted dozens of figures linked to Chinese triads and the Irish 
Republican Army, among other groups.

Whether this effort to squeeze Kim will persuade him to abandon his 
nuclear arsenal remains to be seen. But Washington officials believe 
that this campaign of "targeted sanctions" is proving very effective. 
"From what we've seen, this has been affecting the North Korean elite in 
particular," says Peter Beck, a Seoul-based analyst with the 
International Crisis Group (ICG). Indeed, according to an unclassified 
US government document obtained by NEWSWEEK, during Kim Jong Il's 
January trip to China, he reportedly told Chinese President Hu Jintao 
that "his regime might collapse under the weight of the US crackdown on 
his financial dealings."

If nothing else, the latest US actions have given Washington a powerful 
card to play in the negotiations with Pyongyang, known as the Six-Party 
Talks. In recent years North Korea's two neighbours, China and South 
Korea, have held most of the leverage in the on-again, off-again 
negotiations. They insist on engaging the Pyongyang regime (meaning, 
primarily, propping it up with political favours, aid and investment) 
rather than confronting it. But the engagement policy has had mixed 
results, at best.

The US decision to ratchet up the pressure on North Korea's illicit 
activities was taken shortly after George W. Bush was first elected. 
Asher, a former banker and State Department official, started leading 
what became known as the North Korea Illicit Activities Initiative in 
late 2001, and it immediately conducted a study of the North Korean 
economy. Investigators found that the country's official revenues 
couldn't cover a "black hole" of about $500 million-equivalent to half 
the country's annual exports. Pyongyang was plugging that shortfall in 
its balance sheet, the experts concluded, through a broad network of 
criminal business dealings.

In particular, Washington confirmed what had long been suspected in many 
quarters: Pyongyang was printing and distributing large quantities of 
high-quality counterfeit US $100 bills, known as supernotes, which are 
almost impossible to detect without sophisticated equipment. Sources say 
that the number of fake supernotes in circulation has spiked in recent 
years. Many have been found in South Korea, China and Taiwan. In August 
2005, customs officials in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's southern port city, 
searched a shipping container of goods in transit from mainland China to 
Los Angeles. They discovered $2 million in fake greenbacks hidden in 
seven suitcase-size cardboard boxes. The Taiwanese officials were acting 
on a tip from the FBI. Altogether, Treasury officials say, the US 
campaign has confiscated some $48 million in fake $100 bills around the 
world over the past four years.

But the Americans didn't stop there. On Sept. 15 the Treasury Department 
issued a blandly worded announcement designating a bank in the Chinese 
gambling haven of Macau as a "primary money laundering concern" for 
North Korea. Strictly speaking, the measure didn't amount to 
sanctions-merely a warning that the bank in question, known as Banco 
Delta Asia SARL (BDA), was under suspicion. US banks can still do 
business with BDA, but the threat that they might yet be ordered to cut 
off dealings with the Macau bank has made them wary. In today's 
interconnected financial world, an official US move to blacklist a 
foreign bank would be the kiss of death, since any financial institution 
doing business in dollars needs to hold accounts in correspondent US 
banks in order to complete transactions.

Nervous depositors immediately staged a run on BDA, withdrawing nearly 
40 percent of its deposits within a week. In a desperate attempt to 
salvage its reputation, BDA announced it was cutting all ties with 
Pyongyang and froze nearly 50 accounts linked with North Korean 
companies and institutions-including nine belonging to presumably 
high-ranking members of the Pyongyang government. A US official tells 
NEWSWEEK that at least some of the names on the frozen accounts, both 
corporate and individual, were not the real names of the assets' owners. 
The official says there was some reason to believe that those nine 
accounts handled personal business for Kim Jong Il or members of his 
immediate circle. (How much money was in the accounts has not been 
disclosed.) In a recent statement, BDA said that it "will not resume 
relationships with North Korean or related entities going forward. The 
bank is implementing new, enhanced anti-money-laundering procedures."

The BDA move clearly stung Pyongyang. Within weeks after BDA froze the 
accounts, North Korean emissaries began arriving in Macau, demanding 
that the money in the accounts be released. Macau authorities expelled 
them. Then, in February, a North Korean spokesman complained that the 
United States had effectively banned the North "from having normal 
financial transactions such as remittance of dollars to banks and 
settlement by credit cards." (Not many ordinary North Koreans, needless 
to say, use plastic money.) Following the BDA action, other banks around 
the world have begun to cut ties with North Korea for fear that the 
United States might retaliate. US Treasury Department Under Secretary 
Stuart Levy says the targeted sanctions, or threat of sanctions, has put 
"huge pressure" on the Pyongyang regime. He predicts that as more 
business people and governments learn about the risks of dealing with 
North Korea, the US campaign will have a "snowballing ... avalanche effect."

In another measure of the campaign's effectiveness, Pyongyang soon 
declared that lifting the sanctions would be the precondition for 
resuming the stalled Six-Party Talks. The ICG's Beck visited Pyongyang 
not long after the original sanctions were imposed, and says that he 
immediately noticed a change. "Our minder complained about the financial 
clampdown more than anything else. He mentioned it several times over 
several days." Adds Ahn Ye Hong, a North Korea expert at the Bank of 
Korea in Seoul: "Usually the North Koreans don't admit problems, even if 
they're starving."

Pyongyang is trying to wriggle its way out of the crisis. In recent 
weeks the regime has claimed that it, too, has been a "victim" of 
counterfeiting, and promised to punish any North Korean citizens shown 
to have been involved. Citing an anonymous government intelligence 
source, Seoul's Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported recently that Kim Jong Il 
ordered the execution of anyone manufacturing counterfeit money. In 
response, the US ambassador to Seoul, Alexander Vershbow, coolly 
suggested that Washington might be willing to talk if the North Koreans 
hand over the plates from their illicit supernote printing plant.

Some experts say that the real target of America's new financial 
crackdown isn't Pyongyang but Beijing, which is Kim Jong Il's most 
important patron. The American sanctions campaign puts the Chinese "in a 
very delicate situation," says Lee Dong Bok, a former South Korean 
intelligence official who is active in a human-rights group called the 
North Korea Democratization Forum. In February the US targeted a small 
Hong Kong subsidiary of the Bank of China, for holding what was said to 
be up to $2.7 million in fake US currency, presumably from North Korea. 
(A Bank of China spokeswoman in Hong Kong said: "We have no knowledge of 
any investigation. We've always attached great importance to 
anti-money-laundering policies.") What's more, US investigators have 
suspicions that Macau casinos have been used for money laundering in 
general, and money laundering by North Korea in particular.

China's thriving trade with America would be impossible without good 
relations with the US financial system. Beijing is desperately trying to 
build credibility for its shaky banking sector, and therefore wants to 
avoid the taint of dirty dealings with Pyongyang. Indeed, the Bank of 
China, for example, is planning an initial public offering later this 
month, likely to be partially underwritten by US investment bank Goldman 
Sachs. "This is really about the Bank of China," says one Western 
financial expert in Tokyo. And the Americans show no sign of letting up. 
"You can't negotiate on crime," says Levy of the Treasury Department, 
adding: "We're just starting."

Japan, where Pyongyang reaps an estimated $300 million a year from 
illicit activities, is starting a crackdown of its own. One Japanese 
court has eliminated a tax exemption once granted to Pyongyang-related 
organizations. And financial regulators have been subjecting money 
transfers to the North to closer scrutiny. But like the Chinese, the 
Japanese are worried that pushing too hard could result in North Korea's 
collapse, with all sorts of undesirable knock-on effects for the region. 
For their part, the Americans say they're just trying to get North Korea 
back to the negotiating table, and that the sanctions are a way of 
pressuring them to give up their nukes, rather than to foment regime 
change. Finding the right balance will be tricky -- but in the meantime, 
Pyongyang will continue to feel the pinch.
*************************************************

QUIDNUNC
In this section of CanKor, we invite readers to send questions, answers, 
or responses. Answers should be under 150 words and may be edited for space.

*************************************************
WAS IT A MISTAKE FOR EU COUNTRIES AND CANADA TO ESTABLISH DIPLOMATIC 
RELATIONS WITH THE DPRK IN THE WAKE OF THE INTER-KOREAN SUMMIT OF 2000?
*************************************************

Despite the setbacks, I believe that the efforts at engagement that 
extending diplomatic recognition to the DPRK in 2000 underpinned, were 
the right course of action for Canada and other "Western" countries. It 
has never been easy to assess the impact of third party approaches. 
Personally, I always wondered how much wishful thinking I was engaging 
in when I projected potentially positive influences resulting from the 
contacts -- albeit still limited -- entailed through humanitarian 
assistance. I do believe, however, that the principles underlying 
engagement were sound and that some progress was being made to break 
down the barriers of firmly entrenched mistrust.
Resolution of the USA/DPRK relationship, however, has always been 
fundamental to long-term peace on the peninsula. I am therefore sorry 
that time ran out on the Clinton Administration efforts. The symbolism 
of Madeleine Albright's visit was in itself amazing. The subsequent 
initial neglect of the process by the Bush Administration might have 
been weathered, but the Axis of Evil speech and the invasion of Iraq 
would have served to confirm to Pyongyang that the longstanding mistrust 
was not misplaced.
I have not followed the 6 party talks closely, but I have had little 
confidence that they will lead to significant progress. Nixon, Bush is 
not. Their real value may lie in the engagement of China (and perhaps 
Russia and Japan) in the process so that, when the time comes that the 
USA again gives serious attention to a diplomatic approach, the pattern 
for more broadly based talks will have been initiated, if not set.

Bethany Armstrong, Canadian Foreign Service Officer (retired)
*************************************************

WHAT NOW?

What is the DPRK’s most urgent need?

[Answers should be e-mailed to: editor at CanKor.ca]
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End CanKor # 244

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