Ranks breaking over North Korea

Since confronting the Kim Jong Il regime with evidence of a secret uranium nuclear program two years ago, the White House has demanded a "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement" of all nuclear activity in North Korea. Known by the acronym "CVID," and hewed to by the Bush team closely for a year of multiparty talks, the US position requires a full-scale retreat by Pyongyang before it can expect to receive loans, aid, and security guarantees.

Yet Wednesday, as the next round of six-nation talks on Korea's nuclear crisis commences in Beijing, Chinese and South Korean delegates are expected to break ranks, join forces, and politely challenge the practicality of American insistence on CVID.

As the states closest to North Korea both geographically and diplomatically, China and South Korea will ask the US to rethink what one high-level source in Beijing calls an "unrealistic" position. Both Beijing and Seoul are even prepared to discuss allowing Kim Jong Il to pursue a nuclear-energy program that is "peaceful," sources say.

"We agree with CVID in principle, but we question whether it will allow talks to be productive," says Jin Linbo, director of Asia-Pacific Studies at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. "China feels that CVID is a final goal, not something that needs to be complete right now."

Since February, differences between China and the US have widened in the nuclear-talks process, sources in both Washington and Beijing confirm. Last month China's deputy foreign minister suggested for the first time that Beijing had no convincing evidence that North Korea had or is pursuing the uranium program that sparked the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. The claim has been made at times in South Korea as well, to the frustration of US officials.

Some Korean affairs experts both in Asia and the US have said for months that the "complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement" formula is problematic. North Korea has never accepted the principle of CVID and has always balked at agreeing to that as a solution, including in the first round of six-nation talks last August. It has been clear for months that Kim Jong Il is waiting for the outcome of US elections in November before deciding what strategy to pursue, experts say.

Some analysts say the new request to Washington by Seoul and Beijing is mainly aimed at keeping the highly sensitive Kim engaged as the process waits for the elections. The move ensures that Kim is not "ganged up on in the talks" until the next diplomatic round, as a Beijing source put it. In exchange for the US backing off its CVID demand, the Beijing-Seoul plan would secure a freeze by the North on its nuclear weapons program, and a promise to allow inspections of the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

Monday a preliminary "working group" convened in Beijing prior to Wednesday's opening of talks.

South Korea's new approach emerged in talks and seminars over the past week, marking the fourth anniversary of the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang between North Korea's Kim, and Kim Dae Jung, then president of South Korea.

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