June 2004: Bush Administration Makes Overtures to North Korea

The Bush administration, pressured by increasingly harsh condemnations from the presidential campaign of Democrat John Kerry, grudgingly agrees to consider opening bilateral talks with North Korea over that country’s restarted nuclear program. Previously, the US had been one of six nations involved in such negotiations, which have gone nowhere in large part due to US intransigence (see August 2003). The Bush administration has also insisted on the importance of Chinese involvement in the talks, which serves to raise China’s profile in the region and lower the US’s. Bush officials offer North Korea a deal in which that nation would provide an accounting of all its nuclear facilities; in return the US would broker a resumption of fuel oil shipments to the North by South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, and would consider drafting security assurances (see December 12, 2003) and lifting economic sanctions. Instead of accepting, North Korea chooses to wait and see if Kerry can oust President Bush from the White House. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 242]