[Editorial] Back to 6-party talks

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has called for an early resumption of the stalled six-party talks. According to Xinhua News Agency, Kim expressed his view that “the six-party talks should be resumed at an early date” during his summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing on Wednesday.

Kim, who returned home Friday wrapping up his eight-day visit to China, was also quoted as saying that “the North, as always, sincerely hopes relations between the two Koreas could be improved.”

Kim’s positive stance on resuming the multilateral talks is welcome. His conciliatory gesture toward the South is also encouraging. Yet we should not read too much into his words. What matters is, after all, not nice words but specific deeds.

The North Korean leader was expected to express a willingness to restart the six-nation talks during this trip to China, his third in a year. His visit was focused on obtaining urgently needed economic aid and securing Chinese leaders’ support for his heir and third son, Jong-un. To get what he wanted, Kim was expected to offer in return what China wanted from him ― getting the six-party process rolling again.

To reopen the six-nation talks, however, the North should first talk with the South, as China proposed earlier this year a three-step formula: inter-Korean talks, Pyongyang-Washington talks, then six-party talks.

Under this plan, Seoul proposed inter-Korean talks in January. Therefore, the next step the North should take, if it is committed to reactivating the six-party process, is to respond to Seoul’s offer for bilateral talks. And it needs to remember that it still owes the South an apology for the cruelties it committed last year.

Pyongyang has long sought bilateral talks with Washington. But it cannot move to that stage if it fails to convince Seoul that it is serious about dismantling its nuclear programs.

If Kim thinks that he would be able to have Washington and Seoul resume economic and food aid to the North by simply restarting the six-way process, he is totally mistaken. The two allies have declared they would never buy the same horse twice.

While restarting the six-party talks is necessary, it means little unless North Korea shows a genuine commitment to denuclearization. This means Kim needs to make a strategic decision on the North’s nuclear programs before coming to the dialogue table.

Given the worsening economic and political problems in the North, Kim needs to make a choice between the two options without further delay ― receiving full-fledged support from the international community by giving up on nuclear weapons or face regime collapse under the weight of economic difficulties and political instability.

Kim may think that he would be able to overcome economic problems by strengthening cooperation with China. But his strategy of establishing small free economic zones at border areas would not work because the North Korean economy needs reform from the ground up.