THE UNITED STATES AND PEACE-BUILDING ON THE KOREA PENINSULA Leon V. Sigal Public Forum on Peace/Prosperity in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia The Korean American National Coordinating Council Englewood, New Jersey January 23, 2010 If denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is ever to become a reality, mutual reconciliation and engagement with North Korea are essential. The U.S. policy of isolation and containment concedes not only that North Korea remains nuclear-armed, but also that its weapons programs run free. Disengagement also misses an opportunity to encourage positive internal change during the leadership transition now underway in Pyongyang. The best path to reconciliation is a robust peace process to end the state of war in Korea. That is the best way to build trust between the two sides. It also satisfies a long-standing North Korean demand that the United States put an end to what Pyongyang calls its “hostile policy” toward the D.P.R.K. It is inconceivable that North Korea or any other country would give up the means to make nuclear arms, never mind the nuclear arms it has made, so long as a powerful foe makes it feel insecure. If the North Korea’s demand for a peace treaty is reasonable, however, its notion of sequencing is not. On January 11 the North said that “if confidence is to be built between the D.P.R.K. and the U.S., it is essential to conclude a peace treaty for terminating the state of war, a root cause of the hostile relations, to begin with.” It proposed “to the parties to the Armistice Agreement an early start of the talks for replacing the AA by the peace treaty this year” and added that talks “may be held either at a separate forum as laid down in the September 19 Joint Statement or in the framework of the six-party talks.” Before it returns to six-party talks, however, it says it wants sanctions removed. The United States and South Korea have expressed reluctance to begin the peace process or to relax U.N. sanctions until six-party talks resume and make progress on denuclearization, as stipulated in Security Council Resolution 1874. It is one thing to keep sanctions in place, and quite another to think they will compel the North to become more pliable, as a South Korean foreign ministry official claimed this week. Far from “breaking” North Korea’s pattern of brinkmanship, pressure will only reinforce that pattern. The North can restart its reactor at Yongbyon to generate more plutonium-laden spent fuel, test-launch more missiles, and conduct another nuclear test. More bilateral talks within the six-party framework seem necessary to break the deadlock over timing. The United States has not ruled out such talks. The North’s demand that peace talks take priority over denuclearization is inconsistent with the six-party principles of “commitment for commitment” and “action for action.” It is also at odds with what has been agreed in six-party talks. In the September 2005 Joint Statement, the six parties agreed, "The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum." Note that it says “peace regime,” not a peace treaty. That was elaborated at the October 2007 North-South summit meeting, where the Koreas shared a commitment to "terminate the existing armistice regime and to build a permanent peace regime." A four-party working group chaired by China was supposed to commence work soon afterwards, perhaps kicked off by a meeting of the six-party foreign ministers. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill put it just right when he told reporters in Seoul on November 2, 2007, “Our position, which we´ve had for a long time and continue to have, is that upon substantial disablement ... we would hope we could begin a peace negotiation process that would conclude, and that we could reach a final peace arrangement when the North finally abandons its nuclear weapons and nuclear programs pursuant to the September 2005 agreement." Instead, South Korea, Japan and the United States reneged on their commitments under the October 2007 six-party joint statement on second-phase implementation and North Korea retaliated with missile and nuclear tests. It is not beyond the wit of diplomats to devise a face-saving solution to sequencing the start of six-party talks and a peace process if all parties are willing to negotiate in good faith. The North’s demand for a peace treaty by year’s end also needs careful reconsideration. If such a peace treaty is to be meaningful, it requires reconciliation between the warring parties. Yet an end to enmity will take time – a lot longer than a year, even if it began soon. And so will engagement – political, economic, cultural and scientific. A peace treaty, if it is to more than a scrap of paper, will have to address tough issues like permanent borders between North and South and territorial waters, and the disposition of forces on both sides of the DMZ. More fundamentally, the United States and South Korea would also benefit from a peace process that reduced the risk of inadvertent war. That risk was palpable in 1994 when the United States and South Korea almost stumbled into a war with North Korea that neither side wanted after the North abruptly unloaded plutonium-laden spent fuel from its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Yet proposals to thin out or pull back deployments of troops or tanks are of little military utility. The only step that would significantly reduce the risk of inadvertent war is elimination of the North´s forward-deployed artillery and short-range missiles or their redeployment well to the rear, out of range of Seoul. That in turn would require building confidence in the North that no attack was impending by sharing real-time intelligence with the North, which lacks satellites of its own or by launching satellites for it. Such far-reaching steps to reduce the risk of unintended war as well as settle border issues require a fundamental improvement in the political relationship among the parties. That is why a peace treaty will be the culmination of a peace process, not come at the start. As steps to a peace treaty, a series of interim peace agreements, though militarily less meaningful, could be politically useful as stepping-stones to a treaty formally ending the Korean War. For North Korea to move further toward nuclear elimination, it wants a fundamentally new relationship with the United States – political, economic and strategic. That includes diplomatic recognition. But U.S. policy dating back to the Clinton administration conditions that on resolution of other issues, among them the North´s missile programs and human rights. In the meantime, formal agreements between Pyongyang and Washington in a Korean peace process would constitute a token recognition of its sovereignty. A series of such agreements — which Seoul and Beijing could also sign — will not end the toe-to-toe military standoff along the DMZ, but they would be steps toward U.S.-North Korean political normalization that Pyongyang would take seriously. A first step could be what former President Roh Moo-hyun has called a “peace declaration.” Such a peace declaration could reiterate the language of the October 12, 2000 joint communiqué stating, “Neither government would have hostile intent toward the other” and confirming “the commitment of both governments to make every effort in the future to build a new relationship free from past enmity.” It could also reaffirm the pledge in the first-ever joint statement of June 1993 to respect each other’s sovereignty. Such a declaration would inaugurate a four-party peace process and commit the parties to sign a peace treaty at the end of that process. Such a declaration could be issued at a foreign ministers´ meeting, once denuclearization resumed. A summit meeting between President Barack Obama Kim Jong-il could follow as denuclearization proceeded. Another agreement long sought by Pyongyang would be to establish a "peace mechanism" to replace the Military Armistice Commission set up to monitor the cease-fire at the end of the Korean War. Such a peace mechanism would include the United States, South Korea, and North Korea -- the three parties with forces on the ground in Korea. China, which would be a signatory to any peace treaty, may want to participate as well. This peace mechanism could be a forum for resolving disputes like the 1996 shooting down of a U.S. reconnaissance helicopter that strayed across the DMZ or incursions by North Korean spy submarines. To avoid a recurrence of inadvertent clashes, the parties could use the new forum to negotiate confidence-building measures, such as hot lines to link military or naval commands, advance notification of military exercises, and an "open-skies" arrangement to allow reconnaissance flights across the DMZ. These CBMs could be the subject of subsequent peace agreements. The 2007 North-South summit creatively linked one such measure to the North´s economic prosperity by agreeing to establish a joint fishing area. Crabbing boats from both North and South have strayed across the Northern Limit Line, occasionally provoking an exchange of fire between naval patrols. Incidents like the one last November 10 may be averted by new arrangements including naval "rules of the road" and a navy-to-navy hot line that could involve the U.S. Navy as well. Each of these steps – a peace declaration, establishment of the peace mechanism, a series of peace agreements, and a formal peace treaty – would be linked to North Korean steps to cap and then eliminate its nuclear weapons program. Such a peace process, accompanied by deepening engagement, could promote the reconciliation and trust essential for permanent peace in Korea.