Resumption of Talks

All Parties Involved Should Be More Positive, Flexible

As the United States and North Korea reopen talks Tuesday on the denuclearization of the communist country, few officials in Seoul are holding their breath ― or at least trying not to appear to do so.

President Barack Obama's special envoy, Steven Bosworth, has also repeatedly tried not to give false hope to his North Korean counterparts about any drastic breakthrough, by limiting the purpose of his visit to Pyongyang to two topics ― the North's return to the six-nation talks and its compliance with the 2005 agreement on disarmament.

The veteran diplomat, however, didn't seem to want to rule out all possibility of substantive progress, reportedly saying to Rep. Chung Mong-joon, chairman of the governing Grand National Party during their flight to Seoul, ``who knows what moves North Korea will take?''

Bosworth's words overlap with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's similar remarks a few weeks ago that Washington was willing to discuss the conclusion of a peace treaty as well as diplomatic normalization provided Pyongyang makes a commitment to verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. So it seems that the North holds the key in moving the stalled process forward.

If Bosworth falls short of responding to a possible North Korean commitment positively, it will be in part because of South Korea's request not to go that far between Washington and Pyongyang, while sidelining Seoul in the process. Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan has made it clear that although terminating the armistice may be the job of the U.S., North Korea and China, the two Koreas should be the main parties in signing a peace treaty, an argument which itself is not wrong.

But should Seoul's anxiety that it might hand the initiative over to Pyongyang in inter-Korean relationships be allowed to block what could be the most significant momentum for a breakthrough? To any watchers with a longer and broader perspective, the answer would be No.

The Lee Myung-bak administration's undue emphasis on the alliance between South Korea and the U.S., and by its extension, Japan ― runs the risk of limiting its main ally's room for maneuvering, and, if stretched too far, could lead to its eventual isolation from the rapidly changing political environment in Northeast Asia.

It's been some time since the axis of power started shifting from America to China not just regionally but globally, forcing even Tokyo to break away from its absolute reliance on Washington and move closer to Beijing and leaving only Seoul to the outdated trilateral ― actually unilateral ― alliance. Already, the U.S., China and Japan have begun new trilateral strategic dialogue.

Seoul's biggest weapons to counterbalance the new regional order and keep it from falling into relative isolation is to take the initiative for peace on the Korean Peninsula, to which rapprochement with North Korea is critical. The Lee administration wants to take a leading role in inter-Korean relationships, but it would be all too obvious to pursue its initiative based on cooperation and engagement rather than on confrontation and one-upmanship.

Few people with a modicum of common sense would think North Korea ― which has nothing but a few nuclear bombs, if any, and its economy all but demolished ― will be able to reunify this divided peninsula on its own terms. It's time Seoul recalled the old saying, ``Lose small and win big.''