The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [162]
After the coffee shop talks, Quinones and several other U.S. diplomats crafted prospective assurances against "the threat and use of force, including nuclear weapons" and against "interference in each other's internal affairs." To defend themselves against potential intra-administration criticism that they had given in to Pyongyang, they took the phrases directly from the UN Charter and previous official U.S. statements in other circumstances.
Meeting in lengthy sessions on June 10 and 11-the very eve of the June 12 date-Gallucci and Kang hammered out a six-paragraph joint statement. The key points were the American security assurances, an agreement to continue their official dialogue and, in return, a North Korean decision to "suspend" its withdrawal from the NPT for "as long as it considers necessary."
The joint statement removed the immediate threat of North Korean withdrawal from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and defused the sense of crisis, even though it did not resolve any of the inspection issues that had brought it on. The Americans who had participated in the negotiations were elated, especially because Pyongyang's negotiators proved to be open to argument and logic rather than the extrater- restials some had expected. "I would make a point to Kang and he would make a point," said Gallucci, which would have been unremarkable in most negotiations but had by no means seemed assured in the case of North Koreans. After the opening lecture, Gallucci found Kang more open to reason than the Iraqis he had dealt with. Above all, Kang handled the nuclear questions in ways that suggested these were bargainable-that agreements could be made on many issues, if the two sides could agree on the price.
For the North Koreans, a joint statement with the United States was an achievement of immense importance. A year earlier, at the end of the Kanter-Kim Yong Sun talk, the Bush administration had refused to issue such a document. Even though vague in many respects, the joint statement this time was of great symbolic value to the Foreign Ministry and to others in Pyongyang who were arguing for making a serious effort to bargain with the Americans on the nuclear program. Even if it had only described the weather in New York, the statement would have been tangible evidence that the United States had recognized the legitimacy of North Korea and was willing to negotiate. By raising the stakes with its nuclear program, North Korea suddenly had become important to the United States. For the same reasons that Pyongyang was satisfied, the joint statement raised hackles in conservative circles in Seoul, where American relations with North Korea were anathema. This zero-sum pattern was to persist throughout the nuclear crisis.
In what had seemed only a minor piece of business at the end of the June 11 session, the American side suggested that follow-up communications take place through the North Korean UN Mission in New York. This move, which the DPRK officials immediately understood and accepted, gave the two countries a direct, authorized, and far more workable conduit for exchanges than the rigidly structured diplomatic talks in Beijing that had taken place periodically since 1988. If North Korea's objective had been to seize the attention of Washington and force it to negotiate seriously on a bilateral basis, its strategy had succeeded brilliantly.
THE LIGHT-WATER REACTOR PLAN
On July 1, as Washington officials were preparing to continue the talks with Pyongyang on the outstanding nuclear issues, the new South Korean president, Kim Young Sam, voiced harsh criticisms of the negotiations in separate interviews with the British Broadcasting Company and The New York Times. In the Times interview, which drew the most attention in the U.S. capital, Kim charged that the North Koreans were manipulating the