TOKYO - The United States and Japan opened the door Sunday to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the country lowered tensions and honored past agreements, even as the North rejected South Korea’s latest offer of dialogue as a “crafty trick.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Tokyo that North Korea would find “ready partners” in the United States if it began abandoning its nuclear program.
While he did not say specifically what steps would be needed, according to the long-standing U.S. position they might include a public commitment to denuclearization and such measures as halting the production of nuclear material, refraining from testing missiles and ceasing threats to attack its neighbors.
Japan’s foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, also demanded a resolution to a dispute concerning Japanese citizens abducted decades ago by North Korean officials.
The diplomats seemed to point the way for a possible revival of the six-nation talks that have been suspended for four years.
China long has pushed for the process to resume without conditions. But the U.S. and allies South Korea and Japan fear rewarding North Korea for its belligerence and endless repetition of a cycle of tensions and failed talks that have prolonged the crisis.
Kerry’s message of openness to diplomacy was clear, however unlikely the chances appeared that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s government would meet the American’s conditions.
“I’m not going to be so stuck in the mud that an opportunity to actually get something done is flagrantly wasted because of a kind of predetermined stubbornness,” he told U.S.-based journalists.
Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula for months, with North Korea testing a nuclear device and its intercontinental ballistic missile technology.
The reclusive communist state hasn’t stopped there. It has issued almost daily threats that have included possible nuclear strikes against the United States. Analysts and foreign officials say that is still beyond the North Koreans’ capability.
While many threats have been dismissed as bluster, diplomats are now focused on whether the communist regime will commemorate today - the 101st anniversary of state founder Kim Il Sung’s birth - with the test-launch of a missile that may be a potential threat to Japan or even Guam.
Japan is the last stop on a 10-day trip overseas for Kerry, who also visited Seoul and Beijing.
In South Korea, he strongly warned North Korea not to launch a missile and he reaffirmed U.S. defense of its allies in the region. In China, he secured a public pledge from Beijing, the lone government with significant influence over North Korea, to rid the North of nuclear weapons.
Looking to put a show of unity on display, Kerry stood next to China’s foreign policy chief, Yang Jiechi, as the men pledged to work together to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear pursuits. China’s unusual decision to have a top official seen speaking publicly next to a U.S. official was read by Kerry as a sign China is frustrated with an erratic Communist ally.
Some China specialists in the U.S. government are less than optimistic about China’s readiness to pressure a longtime ally to abandon its nuclear weapons program without substantial American concessions, such as agreeing not to position nuclear weapons-capable ships or planes within range of North Korea. The specialists spoke on the condition of anonymity because they have access to classified materials.
If such conditions are how China sees “denuclearization,” one official said, it’s hard to see any path toward an agreement because the U.S. is capable of hitting North Korea with submarines, and with bombers based as far away as Missouri.
Before returning to the United States, Kerry planned a speech today in Japan on the Asia policy of President Barack Obama’s administration.
At each stop along his trip, Kerry stressed that the United States wanted a peaceful resolution of the North Korea situation six decades after a cease-fire halted the Korean War.
But North Korea on Sunday served a reminder of the difficult task ahead. Its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said the government had no intention of talking with Seoul unless the South abandons its confrontational posture, as the North called it.
Seoul had pressed North Korea to discuss restarting operations at a joint factory park on the border and President Park Geun-hye has stressed peace opportunities after taking power from her more hard-line predecessor, Lee Myung-bak. The presidency expressed regret with North Korea’s rebuttal Sunday.
At a news conference in Tokyo, Kerry stressed that gaining China’s commitment to a denuclearized North Korea was no small matter given its historically strong military and economic ties to North Korea.
But he refused to say what the Chinese were offering to do concretely to pressure the North into abiding by some of the conditions it agreed to in a 2005 deal that required it to abandon its nuclear program.
In remarks to U.S. journalists, Kerry said that under the right circumstances, he even would consider making a grand overture to North Korea’s leader, such as an offer of direct talks with the U.S.
“We’re prepared to reach out,” he said. Diplomacy, he added, required risk-taking and secrecy such as when President Richard Nixon engaged China in the 1970s or U.S. back-channel talks were able to end the Cuban missile crisis a decade earlier.
Given their proximity and decades of hostility and distrust, Japan and South Korea have the most to fear from the North’s unpredictable actions.
Kerry clarified a statement he made Saturday in Beijing, when he told reporters the U.S. could scale back its missile-defense posture in the region if North Korea goes nuclear-free.
It appeared to be a sweetener to coax tougher action from a Chinese government that has eyed the increased U.S. military presence in its backyard warily, but has done little over the years to snuff out funding and support for North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program.
Kerry said America’s basic force posture wasn’t open to debate. “There is no discussion that I know of to change that,” he said.
But he said it was logical that additional missile-defense elements, deployed specifically in response to the Korean threat, could be reversed if that threat no longer existed.
Despite North Korea’s warnings that the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula is so high it cannot guarantee the safety of foreign residents, it literally trotted out athletes from around the world on Sunday for a marathon through the streets of its capital - suggesting its concerns of an imminent military crisis might not be as dire as its official pronouncements proclaim.
Pyongyang crowds lined the streets to watch athletes from 16 nations compete in the 26th Mangyongdae Prize Marathon in the morning and then filled a performance hall for a gala concert featuring ethnic Korean performers brought in from China, Russia and Japan as part of a slew of a events culminating in Kim Il Sung’s birthday - called the “Day of the Sun.”
After racing through the capital, the foreign athletes and hundreds of North Korean runners were cheered into Kim Il Sung Stadium by tens of thousands of North Korean spectators. North Korea’s official media said the marathon was larger than previous years and that enthusiasm was “high among local marathoners and their coaches as never before.”
Showing off foreign athletes and performers as part of the birthday celebrations has a propaganda value that is part of Pyongyang’s motivation for highlighting the events to its public, even as it rattles its sabers to the outside world. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has said it could not vouch for the safety of foreigners, indicated embassies consider evacuation plans and urged foreigners residing in South Korea to get out as well.
Also on Sunday, the United States said it’s committed to defending Japan and opposes any coercive action by China to seize territory under Japanese control in the East China Sea.
Kerry said the U.S. isn’t taking a position in the dispute over the islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.
Japan and China have sparred over the uninhabited islands in recent years.
Information for this article was contributed by Bradley Klapper and Eric Talmadge of The Associated Press; by Flavia Krause-Jackson, John Walcott and Rose Kim of Bloomberg News; and by Michael R. Gordon, Martin Fackler, and Choe Sanghun of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/15/2013