In Need of Good Faith

The smile campaign was in full bloom in North Korea, played out publicly with the help of CNN. A beaming and nodding Kim Il Sung was on view receiving former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on a "private visit" last week with all the ceremony and trappings appropriate to a serving head of state. More important -- since Kim knew that Carter was in touch with Washington -- they talked for six hours. Then Carter and Kim shared a hug reminiscent of the one Carter gave Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev at the SALT II signing in 1979.

Carter claimed a diplomatic breakthrough, reporting that North Korea would allow international inspectors to remain at the main nuclear installation in Yongbyon while "good-faith efforts" toward a settlement were resumed with the U.S. As the television cameras rolled, Carter told Kim the U.S. would suspend its effort to impose economic sanctions on North Korea.

Anxious onlookers were eager to conclude that the threat of war had been spiked and the tense dispute over Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program was safely back on the diplomatic track. It is too soon to reach that conclusion, and it could be mistaken. The White House quickly denied it was shutting down its sanctions campaign and asked for clarifications from North Korea. The world's hopes for a peaceful settlement are certain to rise and fall in the coming weeks as the U.S. tries to discern whether Kim is ready for serious negotiations this time or simply out to diddle the West once again.

The Administration is prepared to go back to serious talks -- if the North Koreans will first freeze their nuclear program. That means, explained Vice President Gore, they must not extract plutonium from the 8,000 fuel rods they have just removed from their 5-MW reactor at Yongbyon; they must not put new fuel rods into the reactor; they must keep the IAEA inspectors on duty "and allow them to function."

The sanctions campaign the U.S. formally launched last week was about the past rather than the future. Because Pyongyang extracted the fuel rods abruptly and made it impossible for inspectors to track the reactor's previous plutonium production, Washington is asking the U.N. Security Council to begin putting on pressure by banning North Korea's arms trade, along with an end to U.N. technical and scientific assistance. If Pyongyang continues to stonewall on inspections, the U.S. will push for tougher sanctions with a full ban on trade and financial dealings. But if the North Koreans meet Washington's requirements, the U.S. will resume the high-level talks and suspend the sanctions effort.

With Kim grinning and glad-handing on CNN, it might be tempting to assume he has finally decided to trade his nuclear program for a diplomatic and economic payoff from the West. But among Korea watchers, there are still two divergent interpretations of what Kim is really up to. One group takes the view that his nuclear program is a bargaining chip, the only aspect of North Korean society that makes it interesting to the world, and thus one to be sold at the highest possible price in recognition and aid. They argue that the U.S. should make the benefits of a deal for North Korea more explicit.