MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - Washington has capitulated at the six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear problem in Beijing, an outcome that has been expected since the beginning of the crisis in 2002.
The world waited for the Bush administration to admit its failure or pass the difficult task to the next president.
The current U.S. administration, which needs good news now more than any other government, has agreed to defreeze North Korea's $24-million account with a Macao bank despite its previous accusations of Pyongyang printing counterfeit U.S. dollars.
There are PR experts who can present Washington's diplomatic capitulation as its victory and Pyongyang's defeat. This can be done because few people now remember that the conflict began with unsubstantiated U.S. accusations, or know about the situation in North Korea at that time.
They would be surprised to learn that the situation in that Far Eastern country has not changed since the beginning of the crisis. Pyongyang has again agreed to shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in return for international aid, and to grant IAEA inspectors access to it.
In other words, North Korea has resumed the obligations it honored before the Bush administration, which had not had the benefit of the Iraqi experience at the time, opted for a new policy towards North Korea aimed at changing the regime.
According to the agreement signed in Beijing, North Korea will receive one million metric tons of fuel oil in energy aid annually after it opens up and disables all its nuclear installations.
That clause fits the spirit, if not the letter, of the 1994 agreements with the Clinton administration, under which Pyongyang abandoned its nuclear plans to receive fuel oil until the construction of a light-water nuclear reactor according to the KEDO (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) specifications is completed.
In short, the North Korean crisis has evaporated, and its last wisps should be cleared at the final round of talks in March, unless Pyongyang or Washington choose to strain everyone's patience again.
The new agreement lacks several points, though, such as mention of the resumed construction of the North Korean nuclear reactor. But they can be addressed later.
A new element of the agreement is the transformation of the six-nation talks into an international organization for the development of North Korea, just as I had predicted.
Negotiators will set up five working groups to help the parties along the way toward implementing the September 2005 agreement, notably a group on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, two groups on North Korea's bilateral problems with the U.S. and Japan, a group on economic and energy aid to North Korea, and a group on designing a security mechanism for Northeast Asia.
Taken together, these elements amount to an East Asian version of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which can become more efficient than the OSCE.
Russia, the U.S., China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan addressed the North Korean problem because of its importance for their economic development and security.
Japan has so far distanced itself from contributing to plans for the peninsula's future.
Washington is choosing between signing a peace treaty, which the sides have not had since the Korean War of the 1950s, and putting the issue on ice.
South Korea will continue to target economic projects for North Korea with an active contribution by China and Russia.
Russia has used its last trump card at the talks - a promise to write off the $8-billion North Korean debt to the former Soviet Union.
It is not surprising that the U.S. has joined the group of countries promising to provide aid to North Korea. Washington remembers only too well how its positions in East Asia strengthened under President Clinton, when the U.S. pushed Russia out of North Korean nuclear programs and delivered the first batch of Coca-Cola to Pyongyang.
The six years of quiet but persistent contribution to the settlement of the North Korean crisis have restored the positions Russia lost in 1994. However, the Pacific region also needs the powerful U.S. economy, as well as the rising Chinese economy, for its development. All countries concerned recognize Washington's legitimate interests in that region, and therefore the negotiators will do their best to forget the blunder the Bush administration made by accusing Pyongyang of secret nuclear programs, which it failed to prove.
There is one question that bothers me: Will North Korea become a nuclear power or not?
Experts discarded Pyongyang's attempt to threaten its negotiating partners with a nuclear bomb, because its nuclear missile tests showed that it did not have the nuclear capability. On the other hand, nuclear proliferation is prohibited, whereas creating one's own nuclear weapons is not, as India and Pakistan have proved convincingly.
Pyongyang does not now have the capability to create its own nuclear bomb, but it can obtain it in the future.
Many countries closely watched developments on the Korean Peninsula. What conclusions have they, as well as the Pyongyang leaders, made from the six-year crisis and the efforts of neighboring countries (China, Russia and South Korea) to settle it?
Have they decided that it is better to have good friends, rather than the Bomb? Or that it is still better to have both?
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent the opinions of the editorial board.
