North Korea is Asking for Too Much in the Nuclear Crisis—Or is It?

By Anthony DiFilippo, Foreign Policy in Focus,, 15 November 2002

Pyongyang is now asking Washington to drop its hostile and aggressive approach toward North Korea, to recognize its sovereignty and to not impede the development of its economy.

Pyongyang is especially interested in signing a non-aggression treaty with Washington. This is very a small price to pay to keep North Korea as a party to the Agreed Framework and ultimately to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The last thing that the world needs now is another country with nuclear weapons. Since no one outside of North Korea knows for sure whether or not it has nuclear weapons and because the current crisis is linked directly to a bilateral agreement that both Pyongyang and Washington still want to preserve, despite departures from it on both sides, a commitment by the United States to a non-hostile and non-aggressive policy brings reasoned equanimity to the bargaining table and minimizes the prospects that another Iraqi-like crisis will emerge. There is a big difference between principled diplomacy that genuinely seeks a peaceful resolution to ensure a non-nuclear North Korea and a policy that is perceived as hubristic and hostile—one that sparks reaction and unnecessarily increases the risks of war.