An opening to North Korea

After three days of talks in Berlin with North Korea's top negotiator on nuclear issues, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill hinted that obstacles to serious negotiations with the North may soon be removed. Hill spoke of conducting such negotiations in Beijing by the end of this month. And he said the United States is prepared "to really offer North Korea a hand" as the two sides move along a path toward "a normal relationship."

If not a breakthrough, Hill's many hours of talks in Berlin are at least a promising sign. The North Koreans would not be returning to the Beijing talks if they had not received assurances that U.S. Treasury Department banking sanctions are about to be lifted — at least on the North's legitimate funds and accounts. Treasury has completed its investigation of the North's alleged counterfeiting and money laundering operations and will be meeting next week with representatives of Pyongyang.

This could be a crucial step leading to the dismantling of its nuclear weapons program. On Sept. 15, 2005, the North signed onto a broad agreement on principles in Beijing — a road map leading to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the security assurances and economic assistance that North Korea seeks. But four days later, the deal was undercut by Treasury sanctions on a Macao bank.

The sanctions do not discriminate between North Korean funds earned from legitimate commercial transactions and those from illegal operations. Also, the sanctions have intimidated other banks into dropping the North as a client. The sanctions looked suspiciously like a ploy by U.S. hard-liners to scotch the September 2005 agreement and foreclose any possibility of a deal that would trade normalization of relations and economic aid for the North's relinquishing its nuclear program.

One hard-liner who sought to thwart meaningful negotiations with the North in the past, John Bolton, baldly stated the hawks' position Thursday in Japan. "The only answer to the North Korean nuclear program," Bolton said, "is the collapse of the North Korean regime." But refusing to make a serious offer to the North while holding out for regime change in Pyongyang has produced only a stockpile of reprocessed plutonium in the North and last October's underground nuclear test.

There is only one way to find out if North Korea is serious about honoring its 2005 pledge to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear program: Offer the North the security assurances, economic aid and normalized relations it has been asking for. Hill's talks in Berlin will have been worthwhile if they serve as a prelude to making the North an offer it will not want to refuse.