Is Peace Declaration Feasible Without Denuclearization?
By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
A former director of the U.S. National Security Council for Asian affairs has said the second inter-Korean summit slated for Oct. 2-4 in Pyongyang should address concrete obligations or actions expected of North Korea in giving up its nuclear ambitions rather than ``beautiful'' but empty rhetoric as seen in the first summit.
Victor Cha, 46, an international relations professor at Georgetown University, said that it is important for the summit to support the six-party talks, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
He mentioned the current process of trying to disable the Yongbyon nuclear facilities as a second phase following its shutdown, and said this action needs to get the support of the leaders of the two Koreas during their meeting.
``It should be more than words, nice words. We got nice words and nice pictures once already in June 2000 summit,'' Cha said in an exclusive interview with The Korea Times in Daejeon Thursday. ``I don't think that's going to be enough.''
Cha also expressed concerns over President Roh Moo-hyun's recent remarks that the core agenda of the summit is not the denuclearization of North Korea but a peace system on the Korean Peninsula. Roh said Tuesday that he would suggest a peace declaration because it was the main item on the summit agenda.
``I don't think a peace declaration is particularly good for South Korea because this Roh administration will go down in history as the government that offered a peace declaration to North Korea while North Korea still had nuclear weapons,'' Cha said. ``I mean the South Korean government should offer a peace declaration to North Korea that is part of the process of full denuclearization.''
He said it was very bizarre for the South to offer the declaration because the offering itself means the South Korean government recognizes North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state, while no other country has done so.
North Korea wanted to be recognized as a nuclear-weapons state after its nuclear test in October 2006. However the South, United States, China, Japan and Russia, which are parties to the six-nation talks refused to do so at nuclear talks in December, 2006, according to Cha.
``I don't know why the Roh administration wants to be remembered in history as the one that has given a peace declaration when North Korea is still a nuclear-weapons state,'' he said. ``The United States, we won't issue a peace declaration. What we offered to North Korea in a joint statement is security assurance: we will not attack them with nuclear or conventional weapons.''
He guessed that Seoul wanted to make the declaration to make Pyongyang feel less threatened - but added this does not really explain the real situation very well.
He explained that a peace declaration is legalistically a lower concept than peace treaty, adding the former can be done by the two Koreas while the latter also involves the United States.
Turning to a normalization of ties scenario raised by U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow, Cha didn't give it much importance, saying the timetable for this has always been there waiting for North Korea to follow. The shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities was made by the summer of 2007 as planned, and the next step is full declaration of nuclear programs and disablement by 2007 and the final phase is the dismantlement in 2008 he said.
Cha stressed that the United States can begin discussing the normalization of relations and a peace treaty with North Korea at anytime but the two things will never be concluded unless Pyongyang implements the final stage of denuclearization.
Asked why North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed to have the summit with Roh who has less than five months in office, he said one of the possible reasons might be that North Korea got paid for it.
``We found out after the first summit _ there was side payment to the North. And people are actually curious about if there was another side payment for this meeting,'' he said. ``I think the (South Korean) government should answer the question about whether it paid to have this meeting.''