Goals, opinions, and solutions from the South Korean Perspective

1.         Since North Korea made the decision to withdraw from the Non Proliferation Treaty in March 1993, tensions in the KoreanPeninsula heightened.^[1] Despite previous South Korean government’s policy of containing the north in the past, the Sunshine policy was put into place under President Kim Dae-jung to promote cooperation and increased interdependency to soften North Korea’s position on the matter of denuclearization and Korean reunification.^[2] The Sunshine policy aims to promote interconnectedness through economic assistance and increased interaction. Three main principles lie in the heart of the Sunshine policy which include; zero tolerance of a nuculearized North Korea, the non-absorption policy of the North by the South, and the seeking out of cooperative interaction with the North by the South.^[3] The Sunshine policy was put in place to further their goals of;

            “avoiding a devastating war on the peninsula (but winning should the North attack); engaging North Korea in a dialogue leading to change in Pyongyang's isolationist and extremist policies and related internal repression, in favor of a more open and interdependent view of world affairs; working closely with the U.S., Japan, China and others to block suspected North Korean efforts to use their "nuclear card" to gain unilateral military-political-economic concessions from the U.S. and others that would work against South Korean interests; seeking to avoid an East German-style collapse of the North and instead promoting a more gradual movement towards eventual unification under principles embraced by the South.” ^[4]

            Although the Sunshine Policy was viewed as a soft line, there were various instances where South Korea took a harder stance than other actors such as the United States and China would have adopted. Overall, the South developed a softer line through the implementation of the Sunshine policy and intensified diplomatic relations with countries sympathetic to North Korea‘s situation. The Sunshine policy was successful in establishing a Summit Conference in 2000, breaking the silence of negotiations from the end of the Korean War.^[5]

            Although the Sunshine policy aided in the development of several successful business ventures, such as the setting up of the Hyundai tourist facilities in North Koreas Mt. Kumgang, and the successful transfer of several tons of oil, electricity, and food for humanitarian aid, it was unable to keep North Korea from halting nuclear development in 2002 and in its first successful nuclear test in October 2006.^[6]

            The South Korean government proceeded by intensifying diplomatic out reach to countries such as the US, China, Japan, and Russia to increase multilateral talks and also proceeded to still help North Korea by sending humanitarian aid and electricity. North Korea reacted positively by shutting down several plutonium plants and the Presidents of the North and South met for another Summit conference in 2007 to discuss increasing inter-Korean relations.^[7] Several six party talks convened after that and yet, despite the progress, North Korea has remained deadlocked on the issue of denuclearization sighting several agreements that were not met by the United States and also their dire needs for electricity, oil, and money to successfully promise denuclearization.

            South Korea recently held elections last month and public opinion was voiced when President Lee Myung-bak was elected to change the softness of South Korea’s policy toward North Korea into a hard line.  Just a few weeks ago, South Korea made its first move with the new policy by voting in favor of a “resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council that condemned human rights abuses in North Korea.” As South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said at a news conference on nuclear talks just weeks after that, “time and patience is running out.”^[8]

2. South Korea insisted on developing relations with North Korea through bilateral talks so as to sustain the notion that they would be involved in negotiating the future of Korea as a whole. They feared that if the United States and North Korea were to enter into bilateral negotiations, the prospect of South Korean interests may be diminished in light of bringing the nuclear issue to an end.^[9] But in the midst of the provocative behavior of North Korea, South Korea began intense diplomatic relations with countries such as the US, China, Japan, and Russia to push for the notion of multilateral talks and increased international pressure. Their security depends on the success of diplomatic relations and international pressure could aid in the denuclearization process, and so they welcomed the Six Party Talks;

            “The South Korean government designated making a breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear issue through the six-party talks as the core task of its security policy.”^[10]

            Deadlocks between the talks have been increasingly dissolved by countries (such as South Korea, Russia, and China) stepping in to aid North Korea with its oil, monetary, and electricity needs and progress of denuclearization has aided in the normalization of relations between the United States, Japan, and North Korea. Although relations were in the process of reconciliation, the increasing inconsistency of North Korean behavior and added informative rumors of underground nuclear facilities in North Korea and expanded nuclear proliferation to Syria by North Korea has once again darkened the Six Party Talks.^[11]

            Although South Korea had once saw cooperation and economic aid as the main tools of diplomatic relations, they have lost their patience and wish to see international pressure increase to speed up the negotiation process and break through the deadlock. An adoption of a hard line toward North Korea has become a clear policy of the South, which should be translated into a hard line by the international community to sustain global and especially regional security.

3.         The United States and South Korea have had similar and conflicting views about policies toward North Korea for some time. Under the Sunshine Policy, South Korea had pushed the United States to adopt a more soft line policy towards North Korea by eliminating them from the terrorism list so they were capable of accessing aid from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. South Korea and the United States have also had their own negotiations to aid in the increasing conflict between the establishment of 37,500 American troops in South Korea and problems arising from public opinion that they should evacuate or be under South Korean Military Control in the time of war. Although South Korea never publicly denounced America for not fulfilling its end of the agreement of producing more fuel and the delayed construction of two light water reactors, they were in the process of giving North Korea the electricity promised by the United States, which gave rise to more controversy between the United States and South Korea, with the United States stating that they were breaking the incentives for the progression of a denuclearized North Korea. South Korea never reached an agreement with North Korea and the electricity was not delivered.^[12]

            I suppose the greatest necessity South Korea foresees to bring peace is aid to North Korea in the form of electricity and humanitarian aid (food). The consistent need to bring humanitarian aid and electricity to the country is a central and vital issue, for many of the family members of the South remain in the North and under very poor conditions. Although the South may develop a harder line towards the North, they will never stop the sending of aid to their family members and would publicly critique anyone who would, including the United States.^[13]

4.         As stated before the goals of South Korea consist of denuclearizing North Korea, stabilizing the KoreanPeninsula, and gaining progress towards a unified (democratic) Korea. Therefore, South Korea would be satisfied with the implementation of the February 13, 2007 agreement which includes;

“Within 60 days, the D.P.R.K. will:

·         Shut down and seal for the purposes of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility;

·         Invite back the IAEA to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications;

·         Discuss with the other parties a list of all its nuclear programs, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods, that would be abandoned pursuant to the Joint Statement.

The Parties agreed to provide emergency energy assistance to North Korea in the initial phase. The initial shipment of emergency energy assistance equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil (HFO) will commence within the first 60 days of the agreement.” (Permanent denuclearization implementation to be clarified and also numbers of economic and humanitarian aid)^[14]

            With the added notion that all of their plutonium plants and uranium enrichment plants are shut down, they remain transparent in their denuclearization process and resist proliferating technology to other countries, and stop aiding terrorist organizations, then sanctions against North Korea may be lifted and America has agreed to take them off of the state sponsored terrorism list, which was a goal of South Korea from the beginning.[15] After the North Korean nuclearization issue is resolved, South Korea would like to once again reinstate bilateral talks to increase cooperative relations and interaction with North Korea so they may begin to address the short term goal of peace, economic development, and reunification of families, and the long term goal of reunification of Korea as a whole.^[16]

5. Bilateral and Multilateral negotiations both have their strengths and weaknesses, but one cannot blindly compare the two without considering the situation at hand. The right tactic to use is derived from analyzing the situation and understanding both the benefits and consequences of each type of negotiation.

Bilateral negotiations have several benefits such as opportunity to clarify disputed claims, the possibility of a speedy resolution and direct communication allows for confidence and trust building. Although bilateral negotiations have its various benefits, it also has its weaknesses and it is only appropriate to use when the conditions are right. In a negotiation it is important to change attitudes and not just stakes to bring a long lasting resolution, and sometimes it is not appropriate to have bilateral talks when attitudes are not seemingly going to change. We can look at the Israeli-Palestinian issue and see that it would was best for a mediator and shuttle diplomacy to be involved due to the fact that religious competition and deep historical violence toward each other would make face to face contact less productive. Another weakness of bilateral talks is that a resolution is believed to be an outcome of the negotiations and if it fails, belief in a future resolution diminishes, halting the desire and belief in diplomatic negotiation.

On the other hand Multilateral negotiations has many benefits as well, such as providing political cover for negotiations that otherwise may not be feasibly held bilaterally for some political reason, for instance in the case of the six party talks, it allowed for America to negotiate with North Korea indirectly, so as not to portray the vision of America negotiating with a partner of the “Axis of Evil.” This arrangement also aids in the spreading of blame if talks fail and it allows for other countries to share the burden of bringing up stakes so that intentions cannot be blamed on just one country like North Korea has blamed the United States for trying to undermine their government. It also creates a situation in which groups may form to add pressure to bring about a common goal, which is exactly what the six party talks did when collectively the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea “ganged up” on North Korea to denuclearize and to stay true to their promises; “Having these partners participating ensures that this approach is more robust -- because it provides both stronger incentives and stronger leverage for fulfillment of North Korea's commitments.”[17] Another benefit not usually recognized is that of relationship building between parties that are involved in the negotiations (directly and indirectly), for example our relationship with China has developed in a positive manner and also stabilization of the region with normalization of Japanese and North Korean relations was an added benefit.[18]

Yet with all of its benefits, it has many consequences as well. For one, multilateral talks means more people and more people means there being less of a chance that everyone reaches an agreement, and given that there are several parties multilateral talks are known to take longer and may even have several rounds (as seen in the six party talks). Another problem that arises from there being too many actors is that success is usually seen to come in the form of a signed resolution and not a successful implementation, for the implantation is much harder to achieve given that all of the different parties may have different expectations of the manner to implement or of the agreement itself.

In the end I think that certain situations call for certain types of negotiations and in the case of North Korean nuclear crises, it was important to have regional actors involved. I think that a mixture of both bilateral and multilateral talks are productive, yet we must once again be sure that the conditions are right for such negotiations to take place, for even a mixture can have devastating consequences if not tackled correctly.

Goals, opinions, and solutions from the South Korean Perspective

1.         Since North Korea made the decision to withdraw from the Non Proliferation Treaty in March 1993, tensions in the KoreanPeninsula heightened.^[1] Despite previous South Korean government’s policy of containing the north in the past, the Sunshine policy was put into place under President Kim Dae-jung to promote cooperation and increased interdependency to soften North Korea’s position on the matter of denuclearization and Korean reunification.^[2] The Sunshine policy aims to promote interconnectedness through economic assistance and increased interaction. Three main principles lie in the heart of the Sunshine policy which include; zero tolerance of a nuculearized North Korea, the non-absorption policy of the North by the South, and the seeking out of cooperative interaction with the North by the South.^[3] The Sunshine policy was put in place to further their goals of;

            “avoiding a devastating war on the peninsula (but winning should the North attack); engaging North Korea in a dialogue leading to change in Pyongyang's isolationist and extremist policies and related internal repression, in favor of a more open and interdependent view of world affairs; working closely with the U.S., Japan, China and others to block suspected North Korean efforts to use their "nuclear card" to gain unilateral military-political-economic concessions from the U.S. and others that would work against South Korean interests; seeking to avoid an East German-style collapse of the North and instead promoting a more gradual movement towards eventual unification under principles embraced by the South.” ^[4]

            Although the Sunshine Policy was viewed as a soft line, there were various instances where South Korea took a harder stance than other actors such as the United States and China would have adopted. Overall, the South developed a softer line through the implementation of the Sunshine policy and intensified diplomatic relations with countries sympathetic to North Korea‘s situation. The Sunshine policy was successful in establishing a Summit Conference in 2000, breaking the silence of negotiations from the end of the Korean War.^[5]

            Although the Sunshine policy aided in the development of several successful business ventures, such as the setting up of the Hyundai tourist facilities in North Koreas Mt. Kumgang, and the successful transfer of several tons of oil, electricity, and food for humanitarian aid, it was unable to keep North Korea from halting nuclear development in 2002 and in its first successful nuclear test in October 2006.^[6]

            The South Korean government proceeded by intensifying diplomatic out reach to countries such as the US, China, Japan, and Russia to increase multilateral talks and also proceeded to still help North Korea by sending humanitarian aid and electricity. North Korea reacted positively by shutting down several plutonium plants and the Presidents of the North and South met for another Summit conference in 2007 to discuss increasing inter-Korean relations.^[7] Several six party talks convened after that and yet, despite the progress, North Korea has remained deadlocked on the issue of denuclearization sighting several agreements that were not met by the United States and also their dire needs for electricity, oil, and money to successfully promise denuclearization.

            South Korea recently held elections last month and public opinion was voiced when President Lee Myung-bak was elected to change the softness of South Korea’s policy toward North Korea into a hard line.  Just a few weeks ago, South Korea made its first move with the new policy by voting in favor of a “resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council that condemned human rights abuses in North Korea.” As South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said at a news conference on nuclear talks just weeks after that, “time and patience is running out.”^[8]

2. South Korea insisted on developing relations with North Korea through bilateral talks so as to sustain the notion that they would be involved in negotiating the future of Korea as a whole. They feared that if the United States and North Korea were to enter into bilateral negotiations, the prospect of South Korean interests may be diminished in light of bringing the nuclear issue to an end.^[9] But in the midst of the provocative behavior of North Korea, South Korea began intense diplomatic relations with countries such as the US, China, Japan, and Russia to push for the notion of multilateral talks and increased international pressure. Their security depends on the success of diplomatic relations and international pressure could aid in the denuclearization process, and so they welcomed the Six Party Talks;

            “The South Korean government designated making a breakthrough in the North Korean nuclear issue through the six-party talks as the core task of its security policy.”^[10]

            Deadlocks between the talks have been increasingly dissolved by countries (such as South Korea, Russia, and China) stepping in to aid North Korea with its oil, monetary, and electricity needs and progress of denuclearization has aided in the normalization of relations between the United States, Japan, and North Korea. Although relations were in the process of reconciliation, the increasing inconsistency of North Korean behavior and added informative rumors of underground nuclear facilities in North Korea and expanded nuclear proliferation to Syria by North Korea has once again darkened the Six Party Talks.^[11]

            Although South Korea had once saw cooperation and economic aid as the main tools of diplomatic relations, they have lost their patience and wish to see international pressure increase to speed up the negotiation process and break through the deadlock. An adoption of a hard line toward North Korea has become a clear policy of the South, which should be translated into a hard line by the international community to sustain global and especially regional security.

3.         The United States and South Korea have had similar and conflicting views about policies toward North Korea for some time. Under the Sunshine Policy, South Korea had pushed the United States to adopt a more soft line policy towards North Korea by eliminating them from the terrorism list so they were capable of accessing aid from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. South Korea and the United States have also had their own negotiations to aid in the increasing conflict between the establishment of 37,500 American troops in South Korea and problems arising from public opinion that they should evacuate or be under South Korean Military Control in the time of war. Although South Korea never publicly denounced America for not fulfilling its end of the agreement of producing more fuel and the delayed construction of two light water reactors, they were in the process of giving North Korea the electricity promised by the United States, which gave rise to more controversy between the United States and South Korea, with the United States stating that they were breaking the incentives for the progression of a denuclearized North Korea. South Korea never reached an agreement with North Korea and the electricity was not delivered.^[12]

            I suppose the greatest necessity South Korea foresees to bring peace is aid to North Korea in the form of electricity and humanitarian aid (food). The consistent need to bring humanitarian aid and electricity to the country is a central and vital issue, for many of the family members of the South remain in the North and under very poor conditions. Although the South may develop a harder line towards the North, they will never stop the sending of aid to their family members and would publicly critique anyone who would, including the United States.^[13]

4.         As stated before the goals of South Korea consist of denuclearizing North Korea, stabilizing the KoreanPeninsula, and gaining progress towards a unified (democratic) Korea. Therefore, South Korea would be satisfied with the implementation of the February 13, 2007 agreement which includes;

“Within 60 days, the D.P.R.K. will:

·         Shut down and seal for the purposes of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility;

·         Invite back the IAEA to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications;

·         Discuss with the other parties a list of all its nuclear programs, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods, that would be abandoned pursuant to the Joint Statement.

The Parties agreed to provide emergency energy assistance to North Korea in the initial phase. The initial shipment of emergency energy assistance equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil (HFO) will commence within the first 60 days of the agreement.” (Permanent denuclearization implementation to be clarified and also numbers of economic and humanitarian aid)^[14]

            With the added notion that all of their plutonium plants and uranium enrichment plants are shut down, they remain transparent in their denuclearization process and resist proliferating technology to other countries, and stop aiding terrorist organizations, then sanctions against North Korea may be lifted and America has agreed to take them off of the state sponsored terrorism list, which was a goal of South Korea from the beginning.[15] After the North Korean nuclearization issue is resolved, South Korea would like to once again reinstate bilateral talks to increase cooperative relations and interaction with North Korea so they may begin to address the short term goal of peace, economic development, and reunification of families, and the long term goal of reunification of Korea as a whole.^[16]

5. Bilateral and Multilateral negotiations both have their strengths and weaknesses, but one cannot blindly compare the two without considering the situation at hand. The right tactic to use is derived from analyzing the situation and understanding both the benefits and consequences of each type of negotiation.

Bilateral negotiations have several benefits such as opportunity to clarify disputed claims, the possibility of a speedy resolution and direct communication allows for confidence and trust building. Although bilateral negotiations have its various benefits, it also has its weaknesses and it is only appropriate to use when the conditions are right. In a negotiation it is important to change attitudes and not just stakes to bring a long lasting resolution, and sometimes it is not appropriate to have bilateral talks when attitudes are not seemingly going to change. We can look at the Israeli-Palestinian issue and see that it would was best for a mediator and shuttle diplomacy to be involved due to the fact that religious competition and deep historical violence toward each other would make face to face contact less productive. Another weakness of bilateral talks is that a resolution is believed to be an outcome of the negotiations and if it fails, belief in a future resolution diminishes, halting the desire and belief in diplomatic negotiation.

On the other hand Multilateral negotiations has many benefits as well, such as providing political cover for negotiations that otherwise may not be feasibly held bilaterally for some political reason, for instance in the case of the six party talks, it allowed for America to negotiate with North Korea indirectly, so as not to portray the vision of America negotiating with a partner of the “Axis of Evil.” This arrangement also aids in the spreading of blame if talks fail and it allows for other countries to share the burden of bringing up stakes so that intentions cannot be blamed on just one country like North Korea has blamed the United States for trying to undermine their government. It also creates a situation in which groups may form to add pressure to bring about a common goal, which is exactly what the six party talks did when collectively the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea “ganged up” on North Korea to denuclearize and to stay true to their promises; “Having these partners participating ensures that this approach is more robust -- because it provides both stronger incentives and stronger leverage for fulfillment of North Korea's commitments.”[17] Another benefit not usually recognized is that of relationship building between parties that are involved in the negotiations (directly and indirectly), for example our relationship with China has developed in a positive manner and also stabilization of the region with normalization of Japanese and North Korean relations was an added benefit.[18]

Yet with all of its benefits, it has many consequences as well. For one, multilateral talks means more people and more people means there being less of a chance that everyone reaches an agreement, and given that there are several parties multilateral talks are known to take longer and may even have several rounds (as seen in the six party talks). Another problem that arises from there being too many actors is that success is usually seen to come in the form of a signed resolution and not a successful implementation, for the implantation is much harder to achieve given that all of the different parties may have different expectations of the manner to implement or of the agreement itself.

In the end I think that certain situations call for certain types of negotiations and in the case of North Korean nuclear crises, it was important to have regional actors involved. I think that a mixture of both bilateral and multilateral talks are productive, yet we must once again be sure that the conditions are right for such negotiations to take place, for even a mixture can have devastating consequences if not tackled correctly.