Expectations low for new North Korea nuclear talks

Talks beginning Thursday on halting North Korea’s atomic weapons program are bedeviled by a fundamental question: Is the newest self-proclaimed member of the nuclear club willing to give up its membership?

Successive rounds of negotiations over the last four years involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have ended in disappointment, limiting expectations and calling into question North Korea’s motives.

Still, most at the bargaining table agree that disappointing talks are better than no talks, given what a cornered, desperate and extremely proud North Korea might do if left to its own devices. For decades, it has kept its citizens in near-permanent readiness for war, and in October tested a nuclear weapon during a 15-month lapse in negotiations.

A debate among experts is centered on whether the regime in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, sees nuclear weapons as an end in themselves or a commodity to be bargained away for aid and trade.

North Korea has limited leverage and few bargaining chips beyond the threat of armed conflict, analysts say, which helps explain why it has repeatedly balked at anything approaching a deal.

“Real negotiations will be very basic, if they are held at all,” said Chen Fengjun, research director of the Korean Peninsula Center at Beijing University. “Despite huge pressure from the international community, North Koreans see nuclear weapons as their lifeline and only card, not to be given up easily.”

Yet despite generally low expectations for the latest talks, which will be held in Beijing, experts see favorable conditions if North Korea decides to deal.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported this week that Pyongyang would consider halting work on its nuclear reactors in return for at least 500,000 tons of heavy-fuel oil annually, an end to U.S. economic sanctions and an agreement to remove North Korea from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism.

North Korea has a history of inflated bargaining positions on the eve of negotiations.

“I have not discussed this [deal] at all in my consultations with [North Korea], though I think it is quite possible that it will come up in our talks this weekend,” chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Tokyo on Tuesday.

The Asahi Shimbun article, based on an interview with think tank analyst David Albright and former State Department official Joel Wit after their recent trip to North Korea, also said Pyongyang would be willing to resume International Atomic Energy Agency inspections after a four-year hiatus and reactivate monitoring cameras. But North Korea reportedly said it would not agree to inspections of reactors where spent nuclear rods are reprocessed.

More broadly, analysts say, the United States is showing greater flexibility than before November’s midterm election, when some Washington hardliners opposed any negotiations with North Korea. Analysts point in particular to a U.S. willingness to ease some financial sanctions related to $24 million in North Korean assets held in a Macau bank over charges of money laundering and counterfeiting.

North Korea has an interest in relieving some of its economic pressure because of fear that food shortages could spur dissent and erode the ruling party’s power. It’s also aware that walking away from negotiations or taking the more drastic step of testing a second atomic device could bring harsh sanctions from China, a key source of fuel and food, and from the rest of the world in the form of United Nations sanctions.

Succession concerns also may be weighing on the North Korean leadership. Kim Jong Il, 65, reportedly has three sons and two daughters by three women, although details of the ruling family’s affairs are a closely kept secret.

Kim’s oldest son, 35-year-old Kim Jong Nam, was photographed last week coming out of the luxury Mandarin Oriental hotel in Macau. It spurred reports that he frequented casinos and saunas and favored late-night sessions of drinking whiskey and cognac.

Kim Jong Nam reportedly fell out of favor in 2001 after he embarrassed the leadership by trying to sneak into Japan on a false passport, supposedly to see Tokyo Disneyland.

Some reports suggest Kim’s second son, Kim Jong Chol, 25, is also out of favor with his father. One report said he was considered “too girlie,” although other accounts say his image has been seen on lapel pins. Other reports peg Kim’s third son, Kim Jong Un, 23, as heir apparent.

At best, analysts say, this week’s talks could see the United States agree to ease some economic sanctions in return for North Korea agreeing to halt some nuclear testing, building on a Sept. 19, 2005, joint statement.

“As long as some progress is made, it’s a good thing,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People’s University in Beijing. “But given that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and sanctions imposed by the international community remain relatively mild, it’s hard to have too much faith.”

mark.mangier@latimes.com

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Gu Bo in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.