U.S. Rejects Call for Talks with N. Korea
The New York Times reports:
The United States, South Korea and Japan are all balking at China’s request for emergency talks with North Korea over the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, as high-profile military exercises between South Korea and the United States in the Yellow Sea continued on Monday in a show of force.
Obama administration officials said that a return to the table with North Korea, as China sought this weekend, would be rewarding the North for provocative behavior over the past week, including its deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island and its disclosure of a uranium enrichment plant. Beijing called for emergency talks with North Korea, the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia, participants in the six-party nuclear talks, which have been suspended indefinitely.
“The United States and a host of others, I don’t think, are not interested in stabilizing the region through a series of P.R. activities,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman.
He said that the talks “without an understanding and agreement from the North Koreans to both end their behavior as they exhibited last week, but also to come to the table with a seriousness of purpose on the denuclearization issue — without that seriousness of purpose, they’re just a P.R. activity.”
Rejecting the emergency talks amounts to a pointed rebuke to China. The United States wanted China to signal clearly that North Korea’s aggressive behavior would not be tolerated. Instead, Beijing remained neutral about who was responsible for the recent flare-up, and offered only to provide a venue for all sides to air their differences.
Yet turning down China’s offer may also reveal the limited options available to the Obama administration and the South Korean leadership. Aside from a show of military solidarity, the two countries have based their response largely on hopes that China, as the North’s main economic and diplomatic supporter, might punish the reclusive government for its series of provocations.
Mr. Gibbs and other administration officials said that the United States also wanted to see North Korea take steps to denuclearize, which most Asia analysts said might be a tall order for the North at a time when its government is undergoing a leadership crisis.
South Korea and Japan are also clearly skeptical of whether the consultations, as suggested by the Chinese, are worth a try. President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea and Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan on Monday both denounced what they called North Korea’s brutality.
President Lee pointedly said nothing about the Chinese proposal; analysts in Seoul described it as disappointingly familiar. A spokesman for the Japanese prime minister said that while Japan is cautiously reviewing China’s offer, talks hinge on whether North Korea changes it behavior.
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