APNewsBreak: US aid a step toward Korea nuke talks

In this Sat­ur­day, Oct. 8, 2011 photo, farm­ers stand in a field out­side the east­ern coastal city of Won­san, North Korea. In a land­mark shift after three years of ten­sions, the United States is poised to announce in the com­ing days its first sig­nif­i­cant dona­tion of food aid to North Korea _ a small but sym­bolic offer that is expected to pave the way for long-stalled dis­cus­sions on dis­man­tling Pyongyang’s nuclear pro­gram. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

JEAN H. LEE

Asso­ci­ated Press

The United States is poised to announce a sig­nif­i­cant dona­tion of food aid to North Korea this week, the first con­crete accom­plish­ment after months of behind-the-scenes diplo­matic con­tacts between the two wartime ene­mies. An agree­ment by North Korea to sus­pend its con­tro­ver­sial ura­nium enrich­ment pro­gram will likely fol­low within days.

A broad out­line of the emerg­ing agree­ment has been made known to The Asso­ci­ated Press by peo­ple close to the negotiations.

Dis­cus­sions have been tak­ing place since sum­mer in New York, Geneva and Bei­jing. They already have yielded agree­ments by North Korea to sus­pend nuclear and bal­lis­tic mis­sile test­ing, read­mit inter­na­tional nuclear inspec­tors expelled in 2009, and resume a dia­logue between North Korea and South Korea, accord­ing to the peo­ple, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because of sen­si­tiv­ity of the negotiations.

Sus­pen­sion of ura­nium enrich­ment by North Korea had been a key out­stand­ing demand from both the U.S. and South Korea of the North, which has tested two atomic devices in the past five years. Food talks in Bei­jing yielded a break­through on ura­nium enrich­ment, they said.

The announce­ment of the food aid, expected to take place as early as Mon­day in Wash­ing­ton, not only would be wel­come news for North Korea, but also pave the way for another cru­cial U.S.-North Korea meet­ing in Bei­jing on Thurs­day. That meet­ing in turn could lead within weeks to the resump­tion of nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment talks that would also include China, Japan, Rus­sia and South Korea.

The so-called six-party talks were last held three years ago, and resum­ing them would amount to a for­eign pol­icy coup for the Obama administration.

The U.S. would pro­vide 240,000 tons of high-protein bis­cuits and vit­a­mins — 20,000 tons a month for a year — but not much-wanted rice, accord­ing to reports in the South Korean media. It would be the first food aid from the U.S. in nearly three years.

Nego­tia­tors have sought for two decades to con­vince North Korea to dis­man­tle its plutonium-producing nuclear reac­tor at Yong­byon, which the gov­ern­ment insists exists to gen­er­ate much-needed power. But plu­to­nium can be used to make atomic bombs, and North Korea also stands by its right to develop mis­siles to defend itself against the nuclear-armed United States.

In 2009, North Korea tested a mis­sile capa­ble of reach­ing U.S. shores, earn­ing wide­spread con­dem­na­tion and strength­ened U.N. sanc­tions. An incensed North Korea, which insisted the rocket launch was designed to send a satel­lite into space, walked away from ongo­ing nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment talks in protest.

In the weeks that fol­lowed, North Korea tested a nuclear device and announced it would begin enrich­ing ura­nium, which would give it a sec­ond way to make atomic weapons.

“North Korea’s dis­clo­sure of a ura­nium enrich­ment pro­gram was bait” for nego­ti­a­tions and aid, said Jeung Young-tae, an ana­lyst with the Korea Insti­tute for National Uni­fi­ca­tion in Seoul. “And the United States grabbed that bait.”

With lit­tle arable land and out­dated agri­cul­tural prac­tices, North Korea has long strug­gled to feed its peo­ple. Flood­ing and a harsh win­ter fur­ther destroyed crops. The World Food Pro­gram issued a plea ear­lier this year for $218 mil­lion in human­i­tar­ian help to feed the most vulnerable.

As dona­tions trick­led in, Wash­ing­ton delib­er­ated for months on whether to con­tribute food aid.

Then, in July, U.S. and North Korean nego­tia­tors met in New York, and again in Geneva in Novem­ber. Two days of dis­cus­sion on food aid in Bei­jing led to this week’s expected announce­ment of a food-aid package.

This diplo­matic dance has unfolded as North Korea pre­pares for two mile­stone events for its cit­i­zens: the 100th anniver­sary of the April 1912 birth of Pres­i­dent Kim Il Sung, who is offi­cially regarded as the nation’s “eter­nal pres­i­dent” long after his death, and a move­ment to pre­pare Kim Jong Un, son of cur­rent leader Kim Jong Il, to become the next ruler.

A peace treaty with the U.S. to for­mally end the Korean War and ensure sta­bil­ity on the Korean penin­sula has remained a key goal for the North Korean lead­er­ship. The war that erupted in 1950 was sus­pended with an armistice in 1953, but ten­sions on the Korean penin­sula have remained high ever since.

A tech­ni­cal state of war remains, and the U.S. main­tains a gar­ri­son of 28,500 troops in South Korea to pro­tect its ally against aggression.

More recently, the deadly March 2010 sink­ing of a South Korean war­ship and a Novem­ber 2010 artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island pop­u­lated by civil­ians only deep­ened ten­sions between North Korea and the West.

Besides a food aid deal, another tan­gi­ble sign of diplo­matic progress has been North Korea’s recent will­ing­ness to dis­cuss let­ting U.S. mil­i­tary offi­cials into North Korea to recover remains of U.S. ser­vice­men killed — a project sus­pended by Wash­ing­ton in 2005. North Korea has agreed to allow a first U.S. team into the coun­try in the spring, offi­cials said.

But over­ly­ing all of this is a desire by the U.S. and its allies to restart nuclear dis­ar­ma­ment negotiations.

In Wash­ing­ton, State Depart­ment spokes­woman Vic­to­ria Nuland said Fri­day that there was no announce­ment yet on food aid or fur­ther U.S. talks with North Korea.

How­ever, those with knowl­edge of the nego­ti­a­tions told the AP an announce­ment was expected as soon as Mon­day, and would include a pro­vi­sion for bet­ter mon­i­tor­ing of food dis­tri­b­u­tion to allay con­cerns that aid meant for the most needy is diverted to North Korea’s pow­er­ful military.

Nuland, who has said the gov­ern­ment wants to ensure the food goes to the needy, “not to the regime, and not to go locked up in store­houses,” has said the food in ques­tion is bet­ter char­ac­ter­ized as “nutri­tional assistance.”

“When you think about food, you think about sacks of rice, cans of food, things that might eas­ily be diverted to the wrong pur­pose,” she said Thursday.

“When you talk about nutri­tional assis­tance, it could be that, but it could also be things like vit­a­min sup­ple­ments to pop­u­la­tions in need, like women and chil­dren; it could be high pro­tein bis­cuits or other things.” The con­cern, she said, is that items intended for starv­ing women and chil­dren “not find them­selves on some leader’s ban­quet table.”

Posted by AP News on Dec 18 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.