North Korea Is Reported to Hint at Nuclear Talks

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June 6, 2005
North Korea Is Reported to Hint at Nuclear Talks
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER
WACO, Tex., June 5 - North Korea has contacted the Bush administration in recent days in what American officials believe could be the first indications that the country is preparing to return to substantive negotiations about its nuclear program, senior American and Asian officials said Sunday.

The contacts were disclosed as a senior Defense Department official in Singapore, traveling with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the administration would probably decide within weeks whether to push for United Nations Security Council penalties against North Korea.

The comments by the official suggested that the long debate in the administration over how to handle North Korea may be coming to a boil. President Bush is to meet with the president of South Korea, Roh Moo Hyun, on Friday, at a moment of unusually high tension between the two allies over North Korea.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, responding to a reporter's question about the Defense Department official's remarks while she was traveling to an Organization of American States meeting in Florida, said it would be optimistic to assume that a decision would be made that quickly. She said neither she nor Mr. Bush had a timetable in mind.

American and Asian officials would say little about the back-channel contacts between North Korea and State Department negotiators led by Christopher R. Hill, the newly appointed assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs. The contacts were first reported by the Japanese press over the weekend, but it was unclear if they were substantive or what precisely was discussed. One official said the contacts, through the North Korean mission to the United Nations, appeared to indicate a softening of North Korea's refusal to participate in negotiations.

The contact, from the North Koreans, followed a visit by two American officials to the North Korean mission in May.

His colleagues say that Mr. Hill, a seasoned negotiator who played a major role in the Dayton accords, which ended the Bosnian war in 1995, is looking for leeway to give North Korea incentives to return to the talks but is meeting resistance from officials who want to stand pat with Mr. Bush's vaguely worded offer last June to improve relations once North Korea begins dismantling its nuclear facilities and allows full inspections.

Administration officials have been floating a variety of plans for possible sanctions for many weeks, including what some officials say they hope would be less contentious approaches, including an effort to intercept any suspected shipments of missiles, drugs or counterfeit currency. That could amount to a near total quarantine of the country, but it would only work if China participated. So far China has gone the other way, increasing trade with North Korea. So has South Korea.

South Korea and, more tellingly, China have also argued vigorously against any move to the United Nations, which North Korea has said it would regard as an act of war. As a permanent member of the Security Council, China has veto power, and it has been the focus of strong criticism from Mr. Rumsfeld for its increasing military buildup. Both countries have urged the United States to improve on the offer it made to North Korea last year.

The senior official traveling with Mr. Rumsfeld, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the administration's interagency re-examination of North Korea policy was driven by its frustration that the six-party talks have been stalled for a year. The Security Council option "is something we're giving increased study to," said the official, who said that "probably we'll come to a decision in the next few weeks," after Mr. Roh's visit.

The United States has found more of an ally in Japan. Together, they say that North Korea's claims in recent months to have built several new nuclear weapons - claims American intelligence agencies say they cannot verify but that policy makers say they must assume to be true - have added urgency either to speed negotiations or to declare them a failure. One senior administration official who has been deeply engaged in the debate all but rejected the idea of making a new offer to North Korea.

"How many times do you bid against yourself?" he said in an interview. "How many times do you do that?" The official, who insisted on anonymity because President Bush had not decided how to proceed, said Mr. Bush's message to North Korea would remain clear: "You come back to the table to give up the nuclear program and discuss the June proposal."

Mr. Bush has been criticized by some officials who have left his administration for failing either to offer North Korea enough of a carrot, or a stick.

Richard N. Haass, who was director of policy planning in the State Department during Mr. Bush's first term, is highly critical of the administration's approach in a newly published book, "The Opportunity" (Public Affairs). The administration's approach, he writes, is a "diluted hybrid" of diplomatic options that lost "valuable time" to keep North Korea from moving forward with its weapons program.

Mr. Haass said Mr. Bush's vague proposal, which was largely drafted by Stephen J. Hadley, now the national security adviser, fell "short of what the North would accept" but also failed "to include any clear penalties for refusing to cooperate." North Korea felt no pressure to negotiate, he concludes, and never returned to the table.

Mr. Haass, who has supported diplomatic approaches, also writes that the United States should not rule out the use of force. He said it should make clear to North Korea that any retaliation for attacks on its nuclear sites would "lead to a war that would end with regime change, that is their removal from power, and the effective end to North Korea as a separate state."

South Korean officials say Mr. Roh is opposed to issuing any such warning. In Washington last week to lay the groundwork for Mr. Roh's trip, South Korean national security officials told their Bush administration counterparts that Mr. Roh would probably bring with him a new set of enticements for the North, hoping to get Mr. Bush to sign on, according to officials who had met with them.

South Korea's new plan is expected to include a series of carefully sequenced steps for North Korea, Washington and other nations, at a level of detail that goes far beyond the plan proposed last June.

In his public comments, Mr. Rumsfeld has been uncharacteristically restrained on the topic of North Korea, clearly trying not to get ahead of Mr. Bush or his cabinet colleagues. "The president's policy is exactly what has been announced: encourage the six-party talks, the diplomatic path, and to the extent he or the others have announcements to make, they'll make them," Mr. Rumsfeld said Sunday.

David E. Sanger reported from Crawford, Tex., for this article, and Thom Shanker from Singapore. Joel Brinkley contributed reporting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.