North Korea: Unravelling already? Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I agree with Derek's analysis, only the plot's thickening by the moment. 

It's hard not to wonder whether yesterday's pathbreaking 6-party accord on North Korean nukes is going to last through the week.  A low-down chicken-egg dispute is now playing itself out on the front pages:  North Korea is arguing that it's obligation to dismantle its nuclear program kicks in only once the US provides it with a light-water reactor for civilian power. 

The Administration (backed by Russia and Japan) says just the reverse:  only once North Korea has verifiably abandoned its nuclear program and joined the NPT will discussions on the light-water reactor even begin.  The language of the agreement itself generally supports the American interpretation:  the obligations on DPRK are fairly firm, whereas the reference to the light-water reactor comes later, and refers only to the matter being discussed "at an appropriate time."

A good-faith misunderstanding?  Not likely.  The Administration has, at least publicly, always been vehement that any enticements offered to Pyongyang reward, rather than incentivize, disarmament.  Would they privately, in the course of talks, have proffered some token on the front-end go get the quid pro quo in motion?  Possibly, but a nuclear reactor is no token and given the history on this issue and the publicity surrounding it in recent days, its inconceivable that any of the six around the table could have misinterpreted the US position on this score.

Moreover, if the North Koreans had confidence in the agreement and viewed it as a breakthrough, even if they did have a difference of interpretation on this point, why go bellicose over it just hours after the deal was announced? 

The most optimistic explanation is that they're trying to build up leverage as discussions move to thorny details such as verification and the fate of North Korea's uranium program.   In other words, they'll ultimately concede on the sequencing, but demand something in return.   But their choice of words suggests this is something more than just a nasty negotiation tactic:

"The US should not even dream of the issue of the DPRK's dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing light-water reactors," said a foreign ministry statement. "This is our just and consistent stand as solid as a deeply rooted rock."

Not clear how they back away from that.

The darker interpretation is that there wasn't much of a deal in the first place. 

[This would hardly be the first time the US finds itself with a loftily-worded document in hand, signed by a foreign nation that professes utter unawareness of - and or fundamental disagreement with - what they just signed.   During my time as a US delegate at the UN I saw similar play out several times, and with countries far less slippery than North Korea.]

Here, the Chinese and South Koreans may have been so eager for progress that they tried to paper over longstanding differences.  With the Chinese chomping at the bit to get the accord announced (see the NY Times' play-by-play that Derek cites), the Administration may have decided to take a chance, hoping that - in order to save their deal - Beijing would later pressure Kim Jong Il to defer his demand for the civilian reactor. 

If Chinese influence on Pyongyang fell short that would, at the very least, defuse the criticism that Washington's lack of focus has afforded the Chinese the upper hand in the Korean Penninsula.   This calculation is consistent with the Administration's relative reticence in trumpeting this deal:  particularly given the political shape their in, if they thought they had a clear victory the Administration would have shouted it from the hilltops.

I have to imagine that Chinese and South Korean leaders and diplomats are doing some serious scrambling behind the scenes right now.  If they can pull a lasting deal out of this morass, that will be a real achievement.

Comments

[Dan Kervick]

Moreover, if the North Koreans had confidence in the agreement and viewed it as a breakthrough, even if they did have a difference of interpretation on this score, why go bellicose over it just hours after the deal was announced?

Doesn't the DPRK pretty much always talk this way Suzanne? Their negotiating style has been marked from the beginning by outlandish flights of rhetoric and seemingly intransigent positions from which they eventually transited. In July of 2004, for example, they characterized a US proposal that North Korea follow Libya's lead, and give up its nuclear weapons program, as a "daydream".

They just made a formal commitment to give up their nuclear weapons program.

Now, continuing with the "dream" rhetoric, they say "the US should not even dream of the issue of the DPRK's dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing light-water reactors." OK, sure.

The North Koreans negotiate in a crude, colorful and clumsy style. It is not surprising that in a dictatorial and totalitarian society like the DPRK, with its ruthlessly planned economy, negotiation over terms has not yet developed into the urbane and subtle art form that prevails in more market-oriented societies, where haggling over terms is a fact of daily life.

Eventually, some means can be found whereby the world will get its de-nuclearized DPRK, North Korea will get its light water reactor, and everybody can say the other guys went first. Maybe the term "dismantlement" is the place to focus. Perhaps the North Koreans will eventually accept that a nuke program has only been dismantled when the last bolt has been removed from the last nuke plant. They can then "begin the process of dismantlement", get most of the way there, get their reactor, and then unscrew the bolt and say that they didn't dismantle the program until they had the reactor.

Cleaving to the incentive/reward distinction might be important for US diplomatic face-saving, but in the end we all know this is just a trade, and it doesn't really matter who delivers first as long as the deliveries both take place.

[Alan Cooper]

I agree with Dan Kervick's comment that "it doesn't really matter who delivers first as long as the deliveries both take place".

In fact the common statement makes no precise commitment as to the timing of either delivery except that they should both be incremental and effectively simultaneous.

First we have "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards."

Then a bit later "The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK."

And near the end "The six parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the aforementioned consensus in a phased manner in line with the principle of 'commitment for commitment, action for action.' "

So one of the deliveries will be "soon" and the other "at an appropriate time" and of course what is appropriate may depend on who is doing the judging. It is not inconsistent for the DPRK to say that an appropriate time is before soon, and the last bit quoted above makes it hard to argue that they are not intended to be effectively simultaneous.

While this certainly does not support the DPRK posturing, neither does it support the claim that "only once North Korea has verifiably abandoned its nuclear program and joined the NPT will discussions on the light-water reactor even begin". The question of who is the idiot depends on who spoke first (and since the conversation may have been private we'll never know the answer).

Also, I find Suzanne's "A good-faith misunderstanding? Not likely. The Administration has, at least publicly, always been vehement that ..." to be unconvincing. It basically amounts to claiming that the other's interpretation of the agreement must be wrong because it doesn't match the USA's initial position ... which is something many of us in the world have heard before in other contexts. For example, your characterization of others with whom you have negotiated as "slippery" begs the question of what adjective to apply to a nation which basically forces an agreement on a binding resolution mechanism for trade disputes and then refuses to honour it when someone at home doesn't like the result.

[Robert McDougall]

The administration's low key reaction to the Korean statement makes more sense than Suzanne Nossel's angst.

First up, this isn't an operative agreement. Its provisions are vague, timing and sequencing are all up in the air. Rice well described it as a "statement of principles"; the parties may or may not succeed in constructing an operative agreement on that basis.

As to the timing of North Korea's abandonment of its nuclear programs, it's not the case that North Korea interprets the agreement's provisions one way, and the United States another. Rather, there is no provision on that point. The language of the joint statement (while in some ways favourable to the U.S.) doesn't "generally support the U.S. interpretation"; it makes it perfectly plain that timing and sequencing remain to be determined.

A good-faith misunderstanding? Not likely. . . its inconceivable that any of the six around the table could have misinterpreted the US position on this score.

So what? What the DPRK has signed onto is not the U.S. position, but the Joint statement. Do you suppose that the U.S. is speaking in bad faith when it repeats demands inconsistent with well known DPRK positions?

. . . if the North Koreans had confidence in the agreement and viewed it as a breakthrough, even if they did have a difference of interpretation on this score, why go bellicose over it just hours after the deal was announced?

AFP's theory is that "The hawkish North Korean comments appeared to be a response to Washington's portrayal of the deal as a breakthrough" (more likely, to Chris Hill's statement that the "appropriate time" for discussing a light water reactor would come "only after North Korea has completely and verifiably dismantled its nuclear weapons program"). The New York Times indicates that the situation was pre-planned: "Each country, [Ms Rice] suggested, would issue separate statements describing their understanding of the deal, with a specificity that is not in the agreement itself". But there's not much mystery here anyway. North Korea agreed to what it agreed to, which includes a commitment to abandon its nuclear program but no commitment on timing; by any bargaining logic, it can't let the U.S. preemptively helping itself to a further round of concessions before the next round of negotiations; it can't allow silence to be taken for consent to what it hasn't consented to.

[Suzanne]

I think its charitable in the least to suggest that a war of words like this was precisely what the Administration expected to happen within days of the announcement. I don't buy it. Yes, they're reacting calmly and saying the dispute comes as no surprise. And, as I said in the original post, they were well aware of how much the paper agreement left unresolved. But I don't think they're pleased about the way things are unfolding so far.

[doc]

...i'm probably missing something here, again, but it seems to me that perhaps all DPRK wants is time to finish up - does October 21, 1994, mean anything to anyone here? or, more to today's point, October 2002?

DPRK intends to become a nuclear power - my guess is that all negotiations that seek to curtail that ambition end up with a diplomatic version of wha gwan mu followed by loud drums followed by wha gwan mu followed by...

[Robert McDougall]

By the way, the Washington Post is on board with the agree to disagree story now:

Rice, working primarily with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon, then came up with a solution over the weekend -- that the text was acceptable as long as each party could offer its own interpretation of the sequencing.

[Dan Kervick]

I think we should recognize that in the statements released since the agreement, we are not really seeing a dispute over "interpretations" of the agreement, however much diplomats may choose to present it that way. The sequencing of the various commitments is simply not specified in the agreement, so any positions on sequencing advanced by the parties are not merely matters of "interpretating" of the agreement - they are additions to it.

There in no way one can pull anything substantive out of phrases like "early date" and "appropriate time". The agreement simply doesn't specify whether the early date comes before the appropriate time, or vice versa.

The agreement contains many blanks yet to be filled in, and between now and the next round of talks, all sides will engage in a propaganda battle to have those blanks filled in to satisfy their own interests. The North Koreans' propaganda will be of their customary colorful sort; the US propaganda will likely be more restrained.

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