Is North Korea Really Ready to Abandon its Nuclear Programme?

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate life insurance for any regime. To persuade a state to give up its nuclear weapons is, therefore, like drilling a hole into a particularly thick board made of a particularly hard type of wood. So far, there has not been such a case.

It is unprecedented that a country give up nuclear weapons which it has successfully tested. Persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear programme has been particularly difficult because the country is completely cut off from the rest of the world.

In 2002, the US President George W. Bush named North Korea as part of the "axis of evil", along with Iran and Iraq. He then quickly fulfilled his plans for regime change in Iraq. Pyongyang knows very well that the US would not have done anything if Saddam Hussein really had had weapons of mass destruction.

So the signals from Geneva can be interpreted as positive -- despite the fact that, at a closer look, there is nothing very substantial. What we do have are US negotiator Christopher Hill's statements.

Hill said after the two-day long negotiations with his North Korean counterpart Kim Gye-Gwan, that North Korea wanted to suspend its nuclear programme completely by the end of the year. That would create a sensation indeed! However, even Hill did not speak about a breakthrough but merely about an important result.

Kim Gye-Gwan was even more reserved. He spoke about North Korea’s willingness to suspend its nuclear programme and to make its activities more open. Unlike Hill, however, he didn’t give a specific date. And the English-language department North Korea's Central News Agency (KCNA) did not even find the results from Geneva worth mentioning.

Nuclear negotiations are a constant, exhausting struggle for compromise. But after the devastating floods this summer and the loss of a great part of the harvest, Pyongyang may be more open to compromise, so as to receive humanitarian aid for its suffering population.

In the past, Pyongyang tended to be more interested in the continuation of its Communist dynasty than the survival of its people.

From another point of view, the bilateral talks also entail a compromise on the part of the US. For years, it hesitated to negotiate with North Korea directly, only participating in six-nation talks in Beijing. Washington changed its stance only after Pyongyang’s nuclear tests last year.

Since then, there has been some progress in the difficult matter. North Korea has already received its first delivery of fuel supplies, as well as access to frozen bank accounts. In return, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been allowed entry into the country after four and a half years. The plutonium generating reactor at Yongbyon has been disabled, but could still be reactivated any time.

Hill and Kim meet almost every fortnight. The next meeting will take place this month in Beijing as part of six-nation talks. The February agreement defined the goal -- the abandonment of the nuclear programme in return for almost one million tonnes of fuel. However, each step on this road has to be negotiated.

And North Korea wants to be paid highly for each one of these steps. In view of Iran’s nuclear programme, which is equally dangerous at least, the US cannot but accept the price.

Especially considering the no longer so remote presidential elections. And even if in the end official relations between the White House and Pyongyang are established, there will still be no guarantee ruling out all danger of military conflict.