Thai Paper Urges ASEAN to Encourage North Korea to Abandon Nuclear Weapons

Text of report in English by Thai newspaper Bangkok Post website on 8 April

[Editorial: "Asean linked to Korea talks"]

The high-level talks in Singapore today between the top US and North Korean nuclear negotiators deserve both close attention and strong support.

Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will hold the talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-Gwan. These are crucial talks, but today’s meeting also is urgent.

North Korea is far behind its own schedule to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. By bringing this vital negotiation into the Asean region, all parties are properly showing that peace and a nuclear- free Korea have implications that go far beyond Northeast Asia.

It is encouraging that Pyongyang has agreed to send its top negotiator to Singapore for today’s meeting. However, North Korea has often shown there is a big difference between talking and doing. Last year, Kim Jong-Il agreed to a series of steps which would end his regime’s dangerous and aggressive nuclear weapons programme, as well as all trade in nuclear and missile information and hardware. As part of the agreement, Pyongyang agreed to turn over details of nuclear weapons development to the US and its other partners at the six-party talks -South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.

But New Year’s Eve came and went without the declaration. Pyongyang has claimed that the other five countries also have not met their commitments under the six-party agreement.

The Singapore meeting will allow both sides to try to clear up this dispute and move along. It must be hoped that North Korea renews the spirit it showed last year in agreeing to end its nuclear programme. Both the nation and people of North Korea stand to gain. In contrast, Pyongyang stands to lose if it remains stubborn. Its five partners have plainly told North Korea it will get international respect and aid only if the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula continues. Singapore and Asean are in a strong position in this matter. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been only an observer to the six-party talks, but has a close interest. Any tension, particularly nuclear tension in Northeast Asia, has direct bearing on our region. That is why Thailand worked so hard in 2000 to bring North Korea directly into the Asean Regional Forum. The Forum aims to encourage openness about defence policy among nations. Now, eight years later, Asean is directly encouraging North Korea to come clean about its nuclear programmes at the Singapore talks.

The fate of the six-party agreement now rests entirely on disclosure. North Korea clearly is fudging on handing over details of its nuclear programme as a form of blackmail to get more aid, particularly heavy fuel oil. Its negotiating partners, particularly the new South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, are not disposed to giving in to this petty demand.

But more is at stake than a few hundred tonnes of aid. Pyongyang should see that its real interest lies far beyond such a taciturn demand. North Korea can only get the respect it wants, and the prosperity its people deserve, by looking far past today’s meeting. The job of all Asean, including Singapore, is to encourage North Korea to come clean on its nuclear programme. Pyongyang has to abandon nuclear weapons completely, join the world community, and move ahead.

Originally published by Bangkok Post website, Bangkok, in English 8 Apr 08.

(c) 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.