New U.S. Point Man on N. Korea Sees Hope
SEOUL — It will be one year in June since the last round of multinational talks aimed at pressing North Korea to stop building nuclear weapons. In that time, the communist regime has declared itself in effect a nuclear power, threatened to resume missile testing and boycott further negotiations, hardened its rhetoric and churned out a steady stream of vitriol against the United States.
To even the most casual observer, the talks are going badly indeed.
But Christopher R. Hill, the new assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, is being paid to be an optimist. So while critics of the Bush administration's approach suggest that American officials are flogging a dead horse, Hill says he is not giving up on talks involving the United States, North Korea, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea.
"I'm not quite prepared to pull the plug," said Hill in an interview Monday at the U.S. Embassy here in the South Korean capital, where he is finishing an eight-month stint as ambassador.
"I still think [the six-party process] is the best mechanism we have for dealing with it, and I would hope that the North Koreans will come around. Certainly the issue is not whether or not we are going to solve this problem
Hill, 53, is a veteran of seemingly intractable international conflicts in the Balkans. He helped draft the 1995 Dayton peace accord that ended the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and was a special envoy during the 1999 crisis in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Hill said he would like to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong Il that his regime's insistence on developing nuclear weapons is a relic of a Cold War mind-set.
"I would say, 'Let's look at the top 100 problems that North Korea faces,' " Hill said, reeling off the North's litany of disasters, from food shortages to the collapse of its medical sector. "And then I would ask how nuclear weapons could solve any of them.
"I think it should be clear to everybody, and even North Korean leaders, that international prestige is not available by pursuing nuclear weapons."
At present, it is unlikely that the U.S. will be able to convey its message except in media interviews.
For months, the North Koreans have set various conditions for returning to the talks. To the extent that there have been behind-the-scenes negotiations, they apparently have amounted to nothing more than talking about talking.
