북한의 6자회담 협상전략·전술: 평가와 전망

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze North Korea’s negotiation strategies and tactics in the Six-party Talks for settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue, and based on such analysis, to examine its special appraisal, and in future prospect on negotiating strategies and tactics of North Korea. The result of this article is as below. During the last five years North Korea had sat down with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia for dialogue to find ways to disable its nuclear facilities in exchange for economic aid and political concessions. The Talks have been stalled due to disagreement between American and North Korean officials over how to verify the North’s nuclear declaration and its nuclear dismantlement. But this paper assert that due to Kim Jong-il regime’s uncompromising negotiation strategies and tactics in the Six-party Talks, North Korea resumed operation of its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon in defiance of the 1994 Framework Agreement and extracted enough plutonium for at least four more nuclear weapons in addition to two or three in its arsenal and tested a nuclear weapon. When Pyongyang threatened to resume plutonium production in August in protest against the Bush administration’s demand for a verification process that included intrusive inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities. The Kim Jong-il regime’s officials, who emphasize direct talks and compromise with Washington, overlook the fact that North Korea violated the 1994 Geneva Agreement, the very cause of the current crisis, and try to gloss over the issue with a negotiated settlement, even by giving concessions whenever the North resorts to brinkmanship tactics. Such attitudes by the officials have led to a misconception among the people that giving concessions to the North when it resorts to brinkmanship is an engagement policy, as having a dialogue, whereas refusing to accept the North’s demands is a confrontational hard-line policy, refusing dialogue. Consequently, what is even worse is that North Koreans use such negotiation strategies and tactics in the Six-party to their advantage. It certainly makes them feel comfortable to know that they will win whenever they resort to brinkmanship. But the election of Barack Obama as the president of the United States last November 14, 2008 will certainly bring change to the nuclear negotiations between the United States and North Korea.