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Japan changes tack on North Korea

By Shigemi Sato

Analysts say what they see happening is a very subtle shift in power in northeast Asia. The United States is no more the dominant power

Japan, a key US ally, has taken on a delicate diplomatic role that could stimulate or stall Washington’s drive to end North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, according to analysts.

Tokyo changed its approach in the six-nation nuclear crisis talks, which ended here on Saturday after Washington and Pyongyang tabled proposals without major compromises, they say.

Despite its ban on full-scale economic aid to the impoverished Stalinist state, Japan has offered to join China, South Korea and Russia in giving heavy fuel to the North in exchange for a freeze on its nuclear programmes. “In the North’s view, this meant a shift to five-on-one,” Young C. Kim, from George Washington University, said. “North Korea’s insistence on compensation for a freeze has been recognised. It is a major diplomatic victory for it,” the Korean-born professor told AFP.

In the previous two rounds of six-nation talks, Japan resisted such energy aid while it pushed its own separate agenda — the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean spies in the 1970s.

But the softening of Japan’s stance came after its prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, met North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in Pyongyang last month for the second time in 20 months.

Kim granted leave for the families of Japanese kidnap victims who returned home after his first summit with Koizumi to rejoin their families in Japan.

In return, Japan gave 250,000 tonnes of food aid and 10 million dollars’ worth of medical supplies.

“The United States has not appreciated such a ransom because it wants to use economic pressure together with Japan as leverage in the nuclear crisis,” the academic said. Chief Japanese delegate to the talks, Mitoji Yabunaka, said Japan’s energy aid would be strictly conditioned to an end to “all nuclear programmes” including a suspected uranium-enrichment scheme which Pyongyang says does not exist.

“It is aimed at steering the six-way talks in the right direction.”

At the talks, the United States proposed a three-month grace period for scrapping North Korea’s nuclear programmes. It offered incentives — energy aid by the four other countries and a “provisional” multinational security guarantee — if Pyongyang commits to “comprehensive” denuclearisation.

North Korea promised to freeze its nuclear facilities and reprocessed plutonium if Washington joins other countries in providing North Korea with 2,000 megawatts worth of energy aid, remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and lift economic sanctions. “Washington sanctioned Seoul and Tokyo’s strategy of offering concessions to Pyongyang in exchange for its promises,” Kenneth Quinones, a senior analyst at the Washington-based think tank International Action, said.

Quinones, a former US diplomat who was involved in the first Korean nuclear stand-off in 1993-1994, said’ “Koizumi’s visit (to Pyongyang) simply was consistent with what Beijing and Seoul have been doing engaging Pyongyang economically, diplomatically.”

“What I see happening is a very subtle shift in power in northeast Asia. The United States is no more the dominant power,” he said. “There is some rivalry going on, primarily between Japan and China, and South Korea in there.”

During the talks, Japan played up the significance of the Koizumi-Kim summit at which the North Korean dictator reaffirmed that a nuclear freeze, backed by inspections, is a step toward his own goal of creating a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. “Japan’s own approach to the North shows that it has finally joined international discussions on nuclear and security issues, apart from the abduction issue,” added Hideshi Takesada, a professor at Tokyo’s National Institute for Defence Studies. afp

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