Beijing – Make outlandish demands. Appear unyielding. Threaten to bolt at the slightest provocation.
These vintage tactics are once again on display as North Korea, this time a nuclear power, sits down for international talks over its nuclear program.
Observers say that although North Korean negotiators can appear erratic and unpredictable, they generally stick to calibrated patterns of brinksmanship. These include escalating a mood of crisis, demanding last-minute concessions and unilaterally reinterpreting past accords.
“There’s a tendency toward bluff, bluster, threats, (and) taking maximal positions, particularly in the public portion of the negotiations,” said Scott Snyder, a Washington-based Korea expert and the author of “Negotiating on the Edge: North Korea Negotiating Behavior.”
The open-ended six-nation talks that got under way in the Chinese capital on Monday follow North Korea’s Oct. 9 nuclear test and appear to be the last hope for a diplomatic resolution to the Korean Peninsula nuclear crisis. North Korea, the world’s most rigid totalitarian state, is believed to have as many as 10 nuclear weapons.
U.S. negotiators have been haggling with North Korea since the early 1990s, so experiences are rich – but success is not.
“Nobody has ever effectively countered their negotiating style. That’s why we’re in the mess we’re in,” said Ralph A. Cossa, head of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy institute.
China, as host of the on-again, off-again talks, which began in 2003, is trying to mediate between the United States and North Korea. Russia, Japan and South Korea are also participants.
Sticking to past pattern, North Korea’s chief envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, began the talks Monday with sweeping demands that all international sanctions be lifted against his nation before there could be any discussion of nuclear disarmament.
“They basically demand everything but the kitchen sink, and they are not offering much in return so far,” Snyder said. “It helps to shape the field of negotiation to their advantage.”
Experts say it’s important to distinguish between public and private sessions and different stages of negotiation. Sensitive to any appearance of weakness, North Koreans signal possible compromise only behind closed doors and well into the talks.
“A lot of times, the North Koreans will be very demanding at the outset, then negotiating seriously at the middle stage,” said Wade Huntley, an expert on nuclear proliferation at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
“Then at the last stage, they’ll come to the table with a fresh set of demands, with hope that the other side will be so ready for an agreement that they’ll make new concessions.”
On Wednesday, North Korea was still refusing to back down from its demand that U.S. financial restrictions be lifted before it dismantles its nuclear program, delegates said.
U.S. and North Korean experts discussed the U.S. financial restrictions for five hours Wednesday.
