Powell Begins Asia Tour With Diplomatic Juggling

On his first stop on a three-nation tour of Asia, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that he and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had discussed ideas for defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis and agreed to seek a peaceful solution.

Powell said the Japanese had “some variations” on the latest American idea for multilateral talks with North Korea, but he did not elaborate. He said he would be discussing various proposals for bringing North Korea to the bargaining table as he travels today to China and then to South Korea.

Relations between Tokyo and Washington have been particularly warm of late, but the two sides came into this weekend’s meeting with different priorities. While North Korea is Tokyo’s key concern of the moment, Washington is focused on its showdown with Iraq.

Polls find that nearly 70% of Japanese respondents oppose military action against Baghdad. But support for U.S. policy on Iraq is seen by many here as a condition for ensuring American protection against North Korea.

Powell said he hoped the Japanese government would support -- and lobby other nations to endorse -- a second U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq, which the U.S. and Britain plan to introduce early this week.

Powell said he and Koizumi also discussed North Korea’s missile program, which is of particular concern to Japan.

The stumbling block in the North Korea crisis at the moment is finding a formula for talks that will satisfy Pyongyang as well as U.S. officials.

The isolated, impoverished North Korean government, which asserts its right to produce nuclear weapons to defend itself against what it sees as a likely American attack, wants to talk only to the U.S., which it views as the puppet master of Asia. Most other Asian nations want the U.S. to hold such talks before North Korea’s march toward nuclear weapons goes even further.

But the United States wants other countries to be part of any negotiations -- both because North Korea’s neighbors will be most affected if the Stalinist regime develops a nuclear arsenal, and because the administration believes that only a united, international campaign of pressure has a hope of keeping nuclear weapons off the Korean peninsula.

Powell said that a 1994 bilateral agreement between the U.S. and North Korea that was supposed to freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear program had failed to “put the nuclear genie back in the bottle.” Last fall, North Korea acknowledged that it had a secret uranium-enrichment program. The regime has since expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and taken steps to restart its nuclear reactors, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

“As we solve the problem this time, we [must] find a solution that will remove the nuclear potential on the [Korean] peninsula, and at the same time provide assistance to the North Korean people,” Powell said.

He said the outside world stands “ready, willing and able” to help North Korea solve its deep economic problems and food shortages, but that such help could come only when North Korea abandons its nuclear programs.

“You can’t eat plutonium, you can’t eat enriched uranium,” Powell said. “As long as you pursue those technologies, those who can help you grow the things that you can eat ... can’t help you.”

As he flew to Japan on Saturday, Powell acknowledged that North Korea could cheat on a deal with the world community just as easily as it could cheat on an agreement with the United States.

“But I think that if more nations in the region and the international community were involved, then the obligations on North Korea would be stronger, and the consequences of failure to perform or abide by [a deal] would be greater,” he said.

The United States has floated what it calls a “five plus five” proposal for multilateral talks among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Australia, Japan, the European Union and the two Koreas.

Details of the Japanese version of the plan were not immediately available today.

Analysts suggest that Powell might be proposing bilateral talks within this context, perhaps under the auspices of the United Nations, now that the IAEA, the world body’s nuclear watchdog agency, has referred the North Korean matter to the Security Council.

Meanwhile, some analysts question why a fearful North Korean government would go alone into a room with diplomats representing nine potentially hostile parties. Even under the Clinton administration, when U.S.-North Korean relations were much better, seemingly endless negotiations never succeeded in persuading North Korea to start “four-party talks” with the U.S., China and South Korea to work out a formal peace treaty to conclude the Korean War. That conflict ended in 1953 with only a truce.

North Korea is demanding a nonaggression treaty from the United States, but Larry Niksch, an Asia expert at the Congressional Research Service, warned that such a demand is far less innocuous than it sounds.

Niksch said North Korea’s idea of a nonaggression treaty goes far beyond even written assurances from the U.S. not to attack. In fact, he said, it is “just a smokescreen” for the peace treaty North Korean has been proposing since 1974: withdrawal of all 38,000 U.S. troops from the Korean peninsula and recognition of North Korea’s government.

That may be what North Korea has in mind, but the Bush administration is beginning to dangle at least some inducements in front of Pyongyang. On Friday, Powell said U.S. food aid to North Korea would resume, and administration officials continue to talk about a “bold approach” of economic aid that could be made available if Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear programs.

Japan could be a major contributor to a package of aid and economic development for its neighbor, but it has cut off all food aid amid public outrage over North Korea’s past abductions of its citizens.

Koizumi has a difficult domestic balancing act when it comes to North Korea. He staked his prestige on a diplomatic overture, visiting North Korean leader Kim Jong Il last year and returning with a promise to bring the abductees home. However, the process has bogged down and public sentiment against North Korea has hardened.

North Korea conducted a missile test in 1998 that left no doubt that it could hit the Japanese mainland, and Japanese officials have recently asserted the right to attack North Korea preemptively if they think a strike on Japan is imminent.

The U.S. would need Japanese support to pursue trade and financial sanctions against Pyongyang. But during the last North Korean nuclear crisis, in 1994, Japan was reluctant to help implement sanctions, in part because of its dislike for confrontation and in part due to political considerations tied to the large population of ethnic Koreans in Japan.

Despite the specter that North Korea could soon put nuclear warheads on its missiles, Japan would still face a tough job marshaling the votes for legislation restricting financial remittances to North Korea.

Powell could help Koizumi in his quest to gain more Japanese public support for a tough U.S. line, depending on what the secretary of State says on North Korea. Powell, a former general, is well respected and is seen as a balanced policymaker despite his military background.

In his private meetings scheduled for today with Japanese leaders, including one with the head of Japan’s defense agency and key members of parliament, Powell will probably explore how tough a stance the Japanese leadership is willing to take on its bellicose neighbor.

Victor Cha, a Korea expert at Georgetown University, said Powell may well be asking not only whether Japan would support a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning North Korea but also whether it would help enforce sanctions if necessary.

In public, Bush administration officials say talk of sanctions is “premature” but have not ruled out any possibility, including the use of force, should diplomacy fail.

Meanwhile, Japan will be looking for closer intelligence links with the U.S. given the growing concerns about the North Korean missile threat, said Satoshi Morimoto, a professor at Takushoku University.

Japan does not hold one of the rotating Security Council seats right now, but it has a robust U.N. presence and well-oiled diplomatic ties with the five permanent members. The question is whether it will lobby other nations to support U.S. policy on Iraq and counter French and German opposition.

“The United States doesn’t really need any help in waging a war [on Iraq], but it’s just more convenient for them to say that ‘we’re doing this together with other countries,’ ” said Hajime Seki, director of the Tokyo-based Toranomon Strategic Think Tank.

Washington is also looking at other ways Japan could contribute to a war in Iraq, given that its constitution precludes an outright military role and its bad economy makes it difficult to write a large check.

“It’s hard for Japan to locate a huge sum of money as it did in the Gulf War,” said Morimoto. “But the government will offer a comprehensive human needs program starting the day after the war ends.”

This is expected to include rebuilding, security and refugee aid. Morimoto said the Koizumi government has drafted the necessary legislation but will wait until the need is imminent before submitting it to parliament.