MADELEINE BRAND, host:
China's neighbor, North Korea, has a famously difficult relationship with the United States. There was some unexpected progress this week in that relationship. Unexpected because the top U.S. negotiator held several days of direct talks with his North Korean counterpart in Berlin. Those talks were kept secret until after they happened. Perhaps even more surprising was what the U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said after the talks.
Hill said the Bush administration would be willing to sit down with North Korea in an effort to develop a normal relationship, only if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons program.
NPR's Mike Shuster joins us now. Welcome to the program.
MIKE SHUSTER: Hi, Madeleine.
BRAND: Well, this sounds like quite a turnaround for the Bush administration. Is it?
SHUSTER: It is, in fact. Christopher Hill's statement, the implicit offer that he made, was as clear as the Bush administration has offered to North Korea since, well, in the past six years. Members of the Bush administration will deny that this is new. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said, well, we've suggested this in the past. But the explicitness of the statement really jumps out at you.
What's ironic, though, about this offer is that it's essentially the same offer that the Clinton administration was negotiating with North Korea in 1999 and 2000, which was political recognition, diplomatic recognition, economic help for the North Koreans if they give up their nuclear weapons program. And that was what the Clinton administration delivered to the Bush administration, but the Bush administration had nothing with it until now.
BRAND: Okay, so why the turnaround?
SHUSTER: It seems first off that nothing else has worked. The Bush administration has tried this rubric of the six-party talks involving China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States and North Korea. They've been intermittent talks and they haven't gotten very far. In the meantime, the North Koreans have developed further their nuclear weapons program. They've processed more plutonium. They've made more bombs, and of course they exploded a nuclear bomb in October.
So at the current moment the White House, being somewhat beleaguered, facing the Democratic Congress now and not seeing much success in its diplomatic efforts around the world, may be somewhat desperate for a success. And perhaps North Korea could provide it, perhaps.
BRAND: So there's a window, there's an opening. How might the North Koreans respond?
SHUSTER: Well, the North Koreans have said all along for many years, this is the deal they want. They've suggested that they are willing to give their nuclear weapons program if they get political and diplomatic recognition from the United States, a normalize relationship, and some kind of economic help. However, that was years ago. Now, because they've exploded a bomb, because they have a larger nuclear arsenal, they may be seeing the weakness of the Bush White House and they may be much more reluctant to do what the United States wants them to do, which is to give up the nuclear weapons program completely, irreversibly, and verifiably. And the Bush administration wants them to do that first, before any of the benefits to North Korea come. And it's almost certain that the North Koreans won't be happy with that kind of sequence and timing of the way that an agreement might be reached.
BRAND: Okay, Mike, what does this say about the inner workings of the Bush administration? Famous hardliners like Vice President Dick Cheney had long argued not to negotiate with the North Koreans.
SHUSTER: That's right. So this suggests that Vice President Cheney, at least on this issue, seems weakened, that those in the State Department who wanted all along to engage diplomatically and directly with the North Koreans may have the upper hand.
It doesn't count Vice President Cheney out altogether. What the administration will be watching is that if there's any progress on the North Korean side, if there is, that will strengthen those who want to engage. If there isn't it, it will probably again strengthen the hardliners.
MONTAGNE: NPR's Mike Shuster, thank you. You're welcome, Madeleine. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
