New peace plan was pre-empted by North Korean test
Washington was just hours away from approving a new proposal to North Korea when the communist regime announced it had conducted a nuclear test, pre-empting the US push to resolve a nearly year-old deadlock at international arms talks, South Korea’s nuclear envoy said today.
Chun Yung-woo said the US had been ready on Monday to sign off “at the highest levels” on a joint proposal with South Korea in an effort to persuade the North to return to the nuclear negotiations. But while it was still late Sunday in Washington, the North announced its first-ever nuclear test.
“I tried to pre-empt North Korea with a proposal for a peaceful diplomatic resolution before they went ahead with a test, but when I was about to finalise it, when we were only hours away from presenting such a proposal, they went ahead with a test, or what they claim was a nuclear test,” Chun said.
“If we had acted a little earlier, I think that maybe we could have avoided that kind of disaster,” he said.
Chun declined to give details of the proposal, but said it would have addressed “North Korea’s concerns” with US law that has affected the regime, and that it took into account Pyongyang’s conditions to return to the nuclear talks it has refused to attend since November.
The North has demanded that the US back down from a campaign to sever it from the international financial system for alleged complicity in counterfeiting and money laundering to sell weapons of mass destruction.
China had been briefed on details of the proposal just the week before the test, and Chun said the North itself likely only knew in general that such a US-South Korean project was under way – but wasn’t yet informed of the specifics.
The offer hasn’t been rendered invalid by the test, but Chun said it would have to be modified and he didn’t expect immediate movement because of pending action against North Korea at the UN Security Council.
“Once the current situation has run its course, when the dust and fallout of North Korea’s test – whatever it was – settles down, then I think that is the best time to revive diplomacy,” he said.
Chun said the test hadn’t yet been confirmed as a nuclear explosion, adding that South Korean scientists said the small size of the blast made it difficult to distinguish whether it was a nuclear or conventional detonation.
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