By Elijah N. Munyi
North Korea is presently caught in a swirl of an uncertain restlessness. A sick leader, independence anniversary and the unfulfilled hopes of casting away its ``rogue state'' label.
Amid this uncertain confluence of events, the North has apparently started reassembling its nuclear plant in protest over the U.S. sluggishness in taking it off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
North Korea has so far played the politics of nuclear disarmament expertly. However, this time it's losing its game. By reversing the tenor of diplomacy from extracting maximum economic compensation to latent confrontation with the U.S., North Korea is losing the goodwill on possibilities of increasing and broadening its disarmament compensation package.
Hopefully, having observed Condoleezza Rice sit in Moammar Gadhafi's kitchen in Tripoli last week, North Korea should move fast and take a page from Gadhafi's book on a strategy for comeback diplomacy.
In terms of their nuclear histories and acerbic relations with the U.S., North Korea and Libya have very similar stories. Both had nuclear ambitions fuelled by fears of their long-running isolation.
Both have been on the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism partly based of their involvement in the bombing of planes that resulted in massive deaths. Both countries have been led by reclusive authoritarian leaders who have been able to galvanize domestic support and avert coup d'etats.
And in recent years, there has been an implicit admission in these countries' regimes that becoming a nuclear state was not a quest worth the economic strangulation and sanctions that arise from being classified as state sponsors of terrorism.
Libya has been very clear in its objectives and strategy. The process of nuclear disarmament would only be one critical facet of a comprehensive comeback into favor with the big powers.
The Libyan leaders have therefore not only been engaging the U.S. on nuclear disarmament, but have used their leverage to extract diplomatic normalization with the EU.
Libya has also adroitly expanded the comeback diplomacy far beyond military terms to include trade and investment deals, compensation packages for colonial rule (by Italy) and issues on immigration.
The country has become the de facto spokesperson for African countries on perceived mistreatment of illegal immigrants in Europe. In other words, in its comeback, Libya is engulfing everyone and everything.
North Korea must be clear about its ongoing denuclearization. There is no going back. The strategy should be to seek issues of mutual interest that would engulf other big powers such as the EU, the U.K. and rich Scandinavian countries that are presently not represented in the six-party talks.
A comeback should involve much more than the six-party countries and many more issues beyond disarmament.
Secondly, the Libyan-style comeback diplomacy is not about exhibiting big egos but extracting big money. The intention of the government has been to achieve maximum extractive benefits in financial compensation, aid or investments.
As in the case involving Bulgarian nurses who were accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV, the conduct of Libya was cool but brazen blackmail. The nurses were used as pawns in a diplomatic game of wits.
Once the Libyans felt that the EU had offered a suitable ``ransom" involving nuclear cooperation with the French, a uranium mining project, hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation and normalization of diplomatic relations, they ``pardoned" the nurses and released them.
When Gadhafi's son was asked by a Newsweek writer if they had blackmailed the Europeans, he responded, ``Maybe, it is blackmail, but the Europeans also blackmailed us."
For North Korea, the diplomatic efforts should now focus on expanding its economic benefits from nuclear disarmament. For one, the North should seek to expand the compensation package beyond the 950,000 tons of fuel agreed in 2007.
Normalization of relations with Japan and South Korea should be priority objectives that would have fabulous economic benefits. To do this North Korea needs to engender goodwill on its part that would make other countries within the six-party talks more amenable to providing greater economic cooperation.
By fulfilling its obligations North Korea would enhance the credibility of its emergence, and increase its goodwill as a respectable negotiator. It's instructive to note that once a deal has been made between Libya and any other party, Libya has not reneged on its obligations.
For North Korea the denuclearization negotiations should be only part of a comprehensive emergence from international isolation. Focus should shift from symbolic conflict to enhancing economic benefits for disarmament. Reneging on its obligations and protracting negotiations is a poor tactic this time.
Elijah N. Munyi is a researcher at the Korea Institute for Development Strategy. He is a graduate of Yonsei University's Graduate School for International Studies. He can be reached at munyi@kds.re.kr or menyaga2000@yahoo.com.