FACT SHEET: Nuclear North Korea and Six Party Multilateral Negotiation

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), otherwise known to the world as North Korea has indicated its willingness to go to the fifth round of the six-party multilateral nuclear talks in Beijing in November 2005 as it had promised. However, the green signal came with a accusation that the United States has been using words and deeds contrary to the joint statement issued in September this year. The United States and North Korea have since disagreed over when to discuss giving the Stalinist Regime a light-water civilian nuclear reactor while Washington administration reiterated that discussions about a reactor deal should only come after inspectors verify Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

Historically speaking, North Korea is the United States’ longest-standing adversary. After the division of Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, the two countries have always found themselves at the loggerheads. Relations between the two countries was at the lowest ebb in the early 1990s when North Korea expanded its nuclear program and the US considered bombing North’s suspected weapons development facilities.

The nuclear standoff between US and North Korea has many repercussions than one to the world. The severity of this imbroglio has put the whole world in tenterhooks and certainly looks ominous when the US has already brandished North Korea as a part of the ‘Axis of Evils’ along with Iran and pre-invasion Iraq. All eyes are now set for a positive outcome to come from the ongoing six-party talks involving the US, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and Japan. So far four rounds of talks have been taken place. A new round of this multilateral parley on nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is expected to open before mid-November where participants would discuss issues that include the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, economic aid and normalization of diplomatic relations, and the construction of new light-water reactors in North Korea.[Full Text]