Having missed the December 31, 2007 deadline to disable its Yongbyon nuclear complex and to declare all of its nuclear programs, North Korea seems in no hurry to fulfil what have been laid out in the Six-Party Talks February 13, 2007 action plan and the October 2007 joint statement. While last month’s meeting in Geneva between assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill, the top US negotiator to the Six-Party Talks, and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan reportedly made some headway, no breakthrough appears to be in sight.

The February 13, 2007 action plan commits North Korea to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear complex, to see a return of International Atomic Energy Agency personnel for monitoring and verification purposes, and to provide a complete declaration of its nuclear programs by December 31, 2007. In return, North Korea will receive the equivalent of one million tons heavy fuel and a bilateral discussion platform for talks between North Korea and the United States covering the removal of the DPRK from the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism, as a precusor to the normalisation of relations.

In recent months, North Korea has slowed down the pace of disablement of its Yongbyon nuclear complex, arguing that the other parties have failed to fulfil their parts of the agreement, specifically, the delivery of heavy fuel. At the same time, Pyongyang claims to have submitted a declaration, although Washington insists it has yet to receive a “complete and correct” list of North Korean nuclear programs and activities. More recently, Pyongyang has hardened its position and even threatened to bring the denuclearisation process to a complete halt if Washington continues to demand full declaration and if fuel deliveries fall behind schedule.

There could a number of reasons to explain the apparent impasse. Technically speaking, the October 3, 2007 joint statement committing North Korea to the year-end completion of the disablement and the declaration may have been too high and unrealistic a target to achieve in the first place. Nor was it any more realistic to expect the delivery of 950,000 tons of heavy fue. Indeed, the Bush administration seems less concerned with the missed deadline on disablement, than it is with Pyongyang’s failure to provide a full declaration of all its nuclear programs.

However, it is exactly on the declaration issue that the DPRK and the US appear to be deadlocked. This deadlock has more to do with substance and interpretation than timing. For Washington, North Korea must include the suspected uranium enrichment programs, nuclear weapons, facilities and materials, and clarification of any proliferation activities, presumably those involving Syria. From Pyongyang’s perspective, that is a non-starter, for it refuses to admit that it ever hosted a uranium program. Neither would it confess to any connection with Damascus, even though many suspect that an Israeli air strike against Syria last September targeted a nuclear-related facility, allegedly constructed with assistance from North Korea.

The US’ commitments to last October’s joint statement removing North Korea from the State Department’s terrorism sponsor list and terminating sanctions on the DPRK under the Trading with the Enemy Act, in parallel with the latter’s actions in denuclearization have raised expectations, false hopes, and deep concerns among various parties. Pyongyang has manipulated the ambiguity of sequencing pertaining to which should go first and who should do what. It now demands that these be fulfilled before it would proceed further on its obligations on disablement. Tokyo, meanwhile, has become increasingly worried that North Korea could be taken off the terror sponsor list prior to the resolution of the abduction issue.

Beneath the disappointment in unfulfilled promises and differences in interpretation of obligations are decades of deep mistrust between Pyongyang and Washington, which place different priorities on the drawn-out negotiation process. The US is concerned with North Korea’s nuclear programs and its proliferation activities while the latter is focused on how to best secure its interests without losing—at least not prematurely— its most attractive bargaining chips. While they both claim to agree on the ultimate goal of denuclearisation, their short to medium-term goals, and the ways by which to accomplish them, remain poles apart.

Furthermore, the state of inter-Korea relations remains volatile. The recent developments on the peninsular, including North Korea’s unveiled warnings and threats to the South, which under the conservative government of Lee Myung Bak has adopted a tougher line on the North, has cast a shadow on the denuclearisation process. Pyongyang may simply stall because it is concerned with its security given the growing uncertainty over Seoul’s apparent move away from the Sunshine policy. Or the DPRK seeks to wait out the current Bush administration in anticipation of a Democrat administration in January 2009 where it hopes to get a better deal. Either way, there are incentives for Pyongyang to hold on to its nuclear programs.

Déjà vu all over again? Clearly there are important lessons to be drawn about the Six-Party Talks. One is to be very clear and precise about the goals and commitments, and how to accomplish them. Ambiguity, unrealistic expectations, and failure to define the process and sequencing could cause problems and delays during implementation. Another is to separate, rather than bundle together, the various elements and phases of the denuclearisation process and prioritise them, or to link the nuclear issue with other issues such as the human rights situation in North Korea.

One could argue that in the North Korean case, the first step should be to completely disable and dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear complex, followed by an accurate accounting of the weapons-grade plutonium that has been accumulated since 2003. North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment programs and its proliferation would come next. This could avoid an entanglement where differences over the scope and content of North Korea’s nuclear programs has slowed down and even threatened to halt the entire process.

North Korea remains paranoid about the threat to its security and regime survival. While succumbing to Pyongyang’s unreasonable demands is tantamount to appeasement and serves no one’s interest, creating and fostering conditions that address Pyongyang’s concerns and improves its economic situation and security environment may provide incentives for it to give up its nuclear programs. If the past five years of the Six-Party Talks tell us anything, patience, diplomacy, and negotiation skills are needed on the long road to North Korea’s denuclearisation. This week’s North Korea-US talks in Singapore is unlikely to lead to any resolution, but remains one part of a jigsaw that is vital is any eventual settlement.