US - North Korea
Sanctions, North Korea Talks “Mutually Reinforcing,” U.S. Says
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer
July 8, 2009
Washington — Increased sanctions on North Korea that were imposed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 are getting the international community to return to the original goal of convincing North Korea that its only option to improve its relationship with the world is to have a dialogue over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a senior State Department official says.
The official said July 8 that the overall objective of the international community is to “return to serious, meaningful discussions within the Six-Party process” on eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula. The talks involve North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States.
The concepts behind Resolution 1874 and the Six-Party Talks are “mutually reinforcing,” the official said.
The talks are the international community’s only offer to North Korea, and North Korean officials should return to them without preconditions, the official said. This will be a consistent message to Pyongyang, though the official acknowledged “it may take some time” for North Korea to respond.
The official said no one can predict what ultimately will convince North Korea that it is in its best interests to return to the multilateral discussions. The official cited recent activities such as nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by North Korea as not being “rational or productive” for the country.
Resolution 1874 will not be rescinded if North Korea agrees to return to the talks, the official said. The resolution provides new tools to help “shine a light” on North Korean nuclear and missile activities, and includes a tougher regime for inspections. The sanctions are not the focus of the Six-Party Talks, but would constitute part of the dialogue.
If properly implemented, sanctions are “one tool, among others, of getting North Korea back to the nuclear discussions,” the official said.
The State Department official’s comments came days after Ambassador Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the implementation of Resolution 1874, met with Chinese and Malaysian officials. (See “North Korea Must Stop Provocations and Return to Talks, U.S. Says.”)
The official said Goldberg visited Malaysia not only because of the country’s important role as a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but also because of its “fairly advanced financial intelligence unit,” which can inform and warn financial institutions in the region of North Korean efforts to evade sanctions through such actions as obscuring the identities of its banks.
There are concerns that countries, including Malaysia, can be used for illegal financial activities, the official said.
The senior official said there is also a heightened sense of concern in the region over North Korea’s activities and pointed to recent information sharing on a North Korean cargo ship believed to be carrying materials banned under the U.N. sanctions as a “good sign” that coordination can have an impact.
The official said the constant diplomatic activity involved in monitoring the ship may have played a role in causing it to return home in early July without unloading its cargo.
“There seemed to be no place for it to go, or wherever it was originally going was no longer an option for some reason,” the official said.