HONOLULU (July 18) - With North Korea's announcement that it will return to six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program, the pressure is on for substantial results. However, a longtime Pyongyang watcher warns that any resolution calls for a change in attitude from two of the principals involved, North Korea and the United States.
Earlier this month North Korea agreed to return to the six-party talks, which also involve China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, after breaking off negotiations a year ago.
"Nothing is going to come of it without enormous changes of attitude on both sides," said Bradley Martin, a former Asia correspondent and author of a comprehensive book on North Korea. "They don't trust us -- especially they don't trust Bush and his administration -- and we don't trust them. There is such a deep, yawning gap there that before we can finally resolve things - if indeed it is possible to resolve things -- we're going to have to have a pretty high-level sit-down."
Martin is the author of "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty," which he began work on while at the East-West Center as a journalist-in-residence in 1991. He spent 25 years reporting on Korea and Asia for publications that include Newsweek, the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Baltimore Sun. A visiting research fellow at the Center this summer, he spoke about his book and the situation in North Korea at a recent public program.
In his comments on the need for high-level talks, Martin suggested President Bush dispatch his father, former President George H.W. Bush, as an envoy. "He knows a bit about dealing with Northeast Asian communists," Martin said.
In normalizing relations with China and Vietnam, the U.S. didn't have to fall in love with the regimes, Martin added, Washington just had to be neutral about the question of regime survival.
The danger of a coup d'etat, he warned, is it isn't known who would replace North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. "The alternative could be worse and far nastier than he is," Martin said.
He sees economic cooperation between North and South Korea as immensely important in stabilizing relations on the Korean peninsula. "Americans are not going to give huge amounts of aid even if we manage to come to some kind of agreement with North Korea," he said. "It's just politically impossible in Washington."
Martin expects most investment in North Korea will come from South Koreans and overseas Koreans -- people of Korean heritage in the U.S. and Canada -- especially those with ancestors from the North. "That's why the big push in South Korea to do something in North Korea came from Chung Ju Yung, founder of Hyundai, who came from North Korea," Martin said.
"This is tremendously important," he said. "The South Koreans have basically decided they would much rather be outside investors and advisers and facilitators for the time being rather than take over North Korea. I would say building up North Korea economically, getting friendly and resolving the nuclear crisis in that fashion could prove to be the way to go."
Bradley Martin can be reached at (808)944-7244 or by email at: martinb@eastwestcenter.org