Now nuclear, North Korea will talk

A surprise three-way meeting between US, Chinese, and North Korean diplomats here Tuesday has likely headed off the possibility of a second nuclear test by Pyongyang in the near future. It has also restored six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula, bringing a modicum of stability to a region rocked Oct. 9 by an atomic blast from the cultish military regime of Kim Jong Il.

Given the bristling anger in northeast Asia after the nuclear blast, analysts say it is salutary that Mr. Kim is returning to the table to talk with his immediate neighbors. Talks could resume by late this month.

At a minimum, China and the US – neither of which anticipated the test – need to be seen in the region to be engaged in efforts to deal with Kim, says Ashton Carter at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Yet most observers doubt that the North, having spent 40 years on its atomic program, is likely to give it up without dramatic achievement. Kim agreed to return to the talks without any "preconditions," including the lifting of US-led financial sanctions.

"There has been no real consensus on the main goal of the six-party talks," says Shi Yinhong of People's University in Beijing, who says that North Korea's return is an attempt to regain "strategic flexibility and undercut the hard-liners in the US.

"Now, North Korea has successfully maneuvered to bring the region back to its former status quo," he adds. "They have relieved the tension generated by the nuclear test; the only difference is that North Korea now has gained a nuclear ability."

It remains unclear what status North Korea will formally enjoy as it returns to an international arena of diplomacy that it walked out of last year. But there seems little doubt Pyongyang expects to think of itself as a bona fide nuclear-status nation as talks resume – and is likely to push others to do so as well.

Such a position is leagues from the kind of dismantlement the six-party talks are based on. "No nation that has tested a nuclear device has ever gone on to give up that device," points out Scott Snyder, a Korean specialist with the Asia Foundation. "South Africa gave up its program without having tested. So if I'm a US diplomat, I've got quite a steep uphill right now."

Some Chinese analysts say that Kim's move back to the table is a victory intended to create an aura of reasonability to his program and nuclear test, and to begin a campaign to win back the good graces of China and South Korea, which he isolated by his surprise test three weeks ago.

China's initial outrage over the North's test was quickly tempered by a lack of practical options to rein in the unpredictable Kim.

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