During the bilateral discussions, what steps should North Korea be urged to take? They should be similar to the measures Pyongyang accepted in the February 2013 “leap-day deal”—a U.S.-DPRK bilateral arrangement that fell apart when the North launched what it called a civilian space-launch vehicle, an action that U.S. negotiators warned their North Korean counterparts would be regarded as a violation of the arrangement. So North Korea should be required to suspend nuclear activities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex—including at its uranium-enrichment facility, its experimental light water reactor, and its five-megawatt plutonium-production reactor—and to permit the IAEA to return to Yongbyon to monitor the suspension. It should also adopt a moratorium on nuclear tests and on flight testing of long-range missiles.

This time around, the moratorium on long-range missile flights tests should explicitly prohibit all launches of rocket systems with a range and payload greater than agreed limits, regardless of whether the rocket systems are labeled as missiles or civilian space-launch vehicles. If it would facilitate North Korean acceptance of such a measure, North Korea could unilaterally assert a right to carry out rocket tests for peaceful purposes, as long as it clearly agreed to refrain from carrying out such tests under the moratorium.

A key question in seeking North Korean constraints is what to do about undeclared nuclear activities outside the Yongbyon complex. Ever since the North Koreans brought eminent U.S. scientist Sig Hecker to see their new uranium-enrichment facility at Yongbyon, it has been clear to any knowledgeable observer that the facility could not have been built by that time unless a variety of enrichment-related activities and facilities already existed outside Yongbyon. Indeed, it is widely assumed that there is currently an operating enrichment plant outside Yongbyon that is producing highly-enriched uranium for North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program.

While the suspension of all enrichment-related activities outside Yongbyon and the elimination of all enrichment-related facilities would be required at an early stage of denuclearization, it is exceedingly unlikely that Pyongyang would be willing in the initial days of a resumed six-party process to make those concessions. At the same time, it is inconceivable that the United States and some of its partners would agree to resume the multilateral process if North Korea persisted in denying and concealing the existence of a critical component of its nuclear-weapons program. Therefore, it is essential that, in any agreed “choreography” for the opening days of the Six Party Talks, the North Koreans acknowledge that they possess nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon, identify the numbers and kinds of facilities and their operating status, and commit to addressing those facilities in the negotiations within a reasonable period of time.

In all negotiations with the North Koreans over the last twenty years, they have insisted that any DPRK concessions be matched by reciprocal steps by the United States and the other six-party players. “Actions for actions, words for words,” they like to say. If we want the North, at the opening of a resumed six-party process, to announce the steps it is willing to take and the timeframe in which it is prepared to take them, we can expect Pyongyang to insist that the United States and its partners indicate, at the same time, what compensation they are prepared to provide.

For North Korea’s actions in the leap-day deal, nutritional assistance was the essential quid pro quo. Whether such assistance or some other step or steps would be required would be a subject for the bilateral exploratory discussions.

Another subject for those discussions would be the purpose of the resumed six-party process. While it would not be necessary to insist on North Korean implementation of agreed constraints before the commencement of the multilateral talks, it would be necessary to agree in advance on the purpose of the talks—and to make that purpose public. In particular, it would have to be agreed that the purpose, or goal, of the resumed talks is the denuclearization of North Korea—not, as Pyongyang has suggested, a discussion of limits on nuclear capabilities by states possessing nuclear weapons, including the DPRK. It must be clear that the United States and its partners in the process do not and will not accept the North as a nuclear-armed state and that the outcome of the process, however long it may take, is the complete and verifiable elimination of North Korea’s nuclear-weapons capability.

In recommitting to the goal of denuclearization, North Koreans may well be expected to assert unilaterally that their willingness ultimately to fulfill that goal will depend on the abandonment of what they call the U.S. “hostile policy” toward the DPRK regime—or some such qualification. They can say what they will, and the terms for moving forward toward denuclearization will have to be addressed in the negotiations. But from the outset, it must be clear that the process is about disarming North Korea.

Whether or not U.S.-DPRK exploratory discussions actually result in the formal return to Six Party Talks would depend on North Korea’s willingness to accept meaningful, initial constraints on its nuclear and missile programs. If the bilateral talks reveal that Pyongyang is not prepared to take reasonable steps at the outset of the multilateral process, the United States will at least have demonstrated its desire to find a diplomatic solution and the true source of the impasse will be apparent. In those circumstances, the United States would be in a stronger position to gain international support for tightening sanctions against North Korea—just as Iranian intransigence in the P5+1 talks in the 2009-2012 period facilitated efforts to toughen economic pressures against Tehran.

Indeed, in agreeing to hold exploratory discussions with the DPRK—a development the Chinese would presumably strongly support—the United States should seek an understanding with Beijing that, if Pyongyang does not agree to reasonable steps to get the multilateral talks underway, it would be time to work together to ratchet up pressures against the North. And in parallel with the U.S.-DPRK discussions, the Chinese should weigh in separately with DPRK leaders to encourage them to reach agreement with the Americans on the measures needed to resume the multilateral process.

Of course, even if North Korea commits to implementing meaningful constraints at the outset of resumed Six Party Talks—and follows through on that commitment—there is no guarantee that the process will eventually lead to the complete and verifiable elimination of Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons program, which must remain our firm goal. Indeed, we would have every reason to be highly skeptical—whatever the North may say about recommitting to denuclearization—that it would genuinely intend to get rid of its nuclear weapons and every reason to suspect that any constraint would be tactical, designed to realize near-term benefits, and would be abandoned when judged to be no longer in North Korea’s interest.

The uncertainties of such a path forward would hardly be ideal, to say the least. But they should be compared with the unsatisfactory and potentially deteriorating path on which we currently are. Monitored limits on DPRK capabilities at the outset of resumed multilateral talks could blunt the momentum of the North’s nuclear and missile programs, reduce the likelihood of dangerous provocations in the near term, and give us a better window into the behavior of Pyongyang’s mercurial and largely opaque leadership. These are not insignificant gains. And a resumed multilateral process would provide a diplomatic framework, which we could seek to structure in such a way as to give Pyongyang’s leaders continuing incentives to move step-by-step toward complete denuclearization.

Far from a sure thing, but more promising than maintaining the status quo.

 

Robert Einhorn, currently a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, was the Secretary of State’s Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control from 2009 to 2013.    

Image: Flickr/Roman Harak/CC by-sa 2.0