Nuclear non-proliferation expert and Scowcroft Group Principal, Dan Poneman, interviewed on North Korea

Pragmatic Approach Needed to Strike Agreement on NK Nukes: US Expert By Reuben Staines, Staff Reporter

The six nations participating in the newly resumed talks aimed at convincing North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program should not expect quick results, a former U.S. official advised on Thursday.

Daniel Poneman, who was involved in negotiations to end the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1994 as a member of the National Security Council, said a patient and pragmatic approach is needed to forge an agreement on this ``very tough problem.’’

``I think it is appropriate to be cautious and keep people from an unhealthy ramping up of expectations,’’ he said in a telephone interview from Washington. ``Experience instructs us that there will be no quick deal because of the deep mistrust that exists between the parties.’’

 The talks in Beijing, which reconvened Tuesday to end a 13-month boycott by Pyongyang, entered their third day yesterday amid signs of wide differences in opinion between the United States and North Korea.

However, Poneman, co-author of ``Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis,’’ believed all involved nations appeared to have entered this week’s nuclear negotiations with a genuine desire to resolve the issue. ``From what I have seen, all sides are getting down to serious talks this time,’’ he said.

A top nonproliferation advisor under former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Poneman last year urged the current U.S. administration to separate the issues of North Korea’s admitted plutonium program and the highly enriched uranium program which it denies.

``If, instead, we defer tackling the plutonium threat while waiting for the North Koreans to admit to the world that they have been lying about their uranium program, the odds are that we will confront tragedy before we receive truth,’’ he wrote in a contribution to a U.S. daily.

But speaking with The Korea Times, Poneman said Washington should seek a comprehensive deal on both programs first, and change focus to securing just the plutonium if there is ``no other option.’’

Asked if convincing the communist North to denuclearize will be more difficult than it was in 1994, Poneman said North Korea will drive a ``very hard bargain.’’

In the first standoff, North Korea’s nuclear weapons development was in its initial stages, but now experts estimate it possesses as many as eight bombs.

Poneman said that in general ``the more capabilities they’ve got, the more concessions they will expect.’’ But he believed other changes in the circumstances surrounding the Korean Peninsula will also be factored into the North’s nuclear calculations.