Seize this opportunity to achieve a peaceful and diplomatic solution -- Akahata editorial, August 23Representatives of six countries - North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia - will meet in Beijing to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons development program.
North Korea's nuclear development program not only affects the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia but has a serious bearing on world peace.
China and other countries have acted as intermediaries to end the stalemate between North Korea insisting on bilateral North Korea-U.S. talks and the United States rejecting this idea. The task is for the six-nation talks to use peaceful and diplomatic means to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons development program.
Development of nuclear weapons does not help achieve peace
In a published statement on August 13, a North Korean spokesman stated: "It is clear that as long as the U.S. insists on its hostile policy toward the DPRK, the latter will not abandon its nuclear deterrent force." This shows that North Korea still maintains brinkmanship diplomacy that uses the issue of nuclear development while continuing developing nuclear weapons to become a nuclear weapon state.
North Korea joined the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1985 and accepted International Atomic Energy Agency inspections in 1992. It signed with South Korea a joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in January 1992. It also promised it would not develop nuclear weapons in the 1994 agreed framework with the United States.
In their September 2002 "Pyongyang Declaration", North Korea and Japan stated, "Both sides confirmed that, for an overall resolution of the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula, they would comply with all related international agreements.
Nuclear weapons development by North Korea contravenes all these international agreements.
The international community does not allow North Korea to unilaterally break its promise and seek to become a nuclear weapon state. By acquiring nuclear weapons, North Korea will run the risk of compromising its own security.
North Korea maintains that a strong military deterrent will guarantee its national security. But the international community will not buy any argument that calls for security to be maintained by possessing nuclear weapons.
North Korean statements and activities relating to nuclear weapons development are threatening peace and security in Northeast Asia. Threats from North Korea are used extensively as the pretext for arms buildup. The U.S. Bush administration would use this to justify its preemptive attack strategy. The Japanese government is using developments relating to North Korea to invoke the war-contingency laws.
Earn international trust to lay foundations for security
The lack of "military deterrent" is not the major problem facing North Korea. The real problem for North Korea is its isolation from the international community and its failure to earn international trust.
North Korea can obtain its security only by respecting international agreements and by becoming a responsive member of the international community. By so doing it will be possible to get broad international support.
If North Korea is to win trust as a responsive member of the international community, it must settle all lawless activities it carried out in the past.
For example, North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens, which was confirmed at the Japan-North Korea summit meeting in September last year, is an international crime.
The settlement of this problem will give North Korea an opportunity to show its willingness to settle all its lawless activities in international relations. The need now is also to begin making progress in the settlement of the abduction problem along with other pending issues in negotiations between Japan and North Korea.
The U.S. Bush administration is outspoken in expressing its willingness to invoke the preemptive attack strategy, citing North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran.
North Korea's nuclear program can lead to an escalation of military confrontation, which makes neighboring South Korea and China as well as the rest of the world deeply apprehensive. That's why these countries have repeatedly called for a peaceful diplomatic resolution of the problem.
It is important for the coming six-way talks to provide a way to a peaceful diplomatic solution to the problem without breaking down. (end)