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--- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector-Ex US envoy to North Korea slams
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Bush refusal to hold talks with Pyongyang
09 September 2003
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/48618/1/.html
Prospects are grim for a solution to the North Korea nuclear crisis unless the United States ditches its refusal to hold one-on-one talks with Pyongyang, the just-retired US envoy to the Stalinist state said on Monday.
In his first public comments since he quit last month, Jack Pritchard criticised "drive-by meetings" between US and North Korean negotiators within the framework of multilateral forums, including one last month at six-party talks in Beijing.
"The change that has to occur is putting in the component of a true bilateral engagement between the United States and North Korea," Mr Pritchard said at the Brookings Institution, which he has just joined as an analyst.
"The prospects for success unless the format is slightly altered are very grim," Mr Pritchard said.
He said the six-party format -- including the United States, China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan and Russia -- was "the right track to take" but added: "Can we get there doing that? The answer is, 'No, we can't'."
He argued that Washington must also talk seriously to Pyongyang on a bilateral basis, while pushing forward with the six-way process.
At the Beijing talks, US and North Korean negotiators held a short bilateral meeting but in a facesaving formula for both sides, in the confines of the plenary hall where the larger talks took place.
The Bush administration has refused to hold bilateral exchanges with Pyongyang, arguing the crisis is a regional problem and so needs a multilateral solution.
It also says it is unwilling to reward the Stalinist state with a prestigious negotiating track with Washington for what it sees as "bad behavior."
But Mr Pritchard said short bilateral meetings within the context of the multilateral forum were insufficient to resolve the crisis.
"The idea that in a short period of time that you can resolve this problem, even if you have the commitment to come back in the plenary session in a couple of months, is ludicrous, it cannot happen."
Mr Pritchard argued that one-on-one talks would prepare the groundwork for a multilateral solution among all the parties in Asia.
"But it cannot occur with a sustained and serious dialogue between the United States and North Korea," he said.
"You cannot get to the point where you know who your opponent at the negotiating table is unless you have had sustained contact with them over a period of time.
"We have to get serious about this rather than the drive by meetings that occur when we roll down the window and we kind of wave to the North Koreans and move on," he said.
Mr Pritchard said the administration needed a "full-time negotiator" to coordinate with North Korea, with US allies Japan and South Korea, as well as with China and Russia to ensure a complimentary approach in the multilateral dialogue.
The State Department declined to get involved in a public debate with its former employee.
"Having just had the first set of discussions in this forum, I think we would say it's not time to junk it and try something else," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Asked whether it was appropriate for such a recently retired official to publicly criticise administration policy, Mr Boucher replied : "what can I say? It's a free country."
His remarks came two weeks after he left the US government, days before the talks in Beijing, after finding himself estranged from the center of Bush administration policymaking on the Stalinist state.
In recent months, he had been the main contact between North Korea and the United States through a channel of communication at the United Nations -- the only direct diplomatic link between the two Cold War foes.
The State Department denied his departure was a symptom of deep internal divisions on how best to address the North Korea nuclear crisis.
Copyright � 2003 MCN International Pte Ltd
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