Hopes are growing for a restart of six-nation negotiations to denuclearize North Korea as the South, the U.S. and China strive to close the gap over the preconditions for what would be the first gathering in nearly five years.

Cho Tae-yong, Seoul’s special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, is in Washington for talks with his U.S. counterpart Glyn Davies, special representative for North Korea policy. His five-day stay includes a trilateral consultation with Junichi Ihara, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs at the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

The meeting comes less than a week after Davies hosted Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs. Cho also plans to travel to Beijing shortly for discussions with Wu, who met with Pyongyang and Moscow’s chief nuclear envoys, Kim Kye-gwan and Igor Morgulov, respectively in September and October. North Korean Vice Foreign Minster Kim Hyong-jun also had a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Liu Zhenmin last Tuesday.

Beijing, Pyongyang’s staunch backer and the host of the six-nation forum, appears to be playing mediator in drawing up a “roadmap” to a fresh round of talks. Wu’s latest trips, as well as those by Cho and Ihara, were likely aimed at fine-tuning each other’s positions accordingly.

After his visit to Davies, Wu said the two sides were working to “make a path” and “common denominator” for a return to the negotiating table, according to news reports.

Turnaround?

The mood for dialogue had been chilly ever since the wayward Kim Jong-un regime reneged on its Feb. 29, 2012 agreement with the U.S. by firing a long-range rocket less than two months later and then staged a third nuclear test in February this year in breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Then in recent months Pyongyang has been seeking to reconcile with its longtime foes, calling for high-level dialogue with Washington and a new round of the six-party talks.

State media and senior Pyongyang officials stressed the late leaders’ wish for denuclearization and the incumbent’s resolve to focus on perking up the economy. The inter-Korean factory park in Gaeseong reopened after a five-month freeze, where South Korean lawmakers were allowed to visit last week. The regime also returned home six South Koreans who were detained there for as long as four years.

Another booster could be a perceived thaw in relations between the U.S. and Iran. As talks with six world powers continue, Tehran officials expressed optimism that a deal may be conceivable within six months to one year.

With frustration lingering around Washington and advocates for dialogue evaporating, however, the South and the U.S. have made clear that any future talks with the North must be “authentic and credible.”

They demand that before going back to the negotiating table the unruly state prove its commitment to denuclearization by taking necessary steps such as those enshrined in the now-defunct 2012 agreement.

Under the so-called Leap Day deal, the North was supposed to put a moratorium on its nuclear program, halt atomic and missile tests and let in IAEA inspectors in return for 240,000 tons of food aid from the U.S.

“Given the missile launch, third nuclear test and all that ever since, we can’t just go back to where we were in February last year as if nothing’s happened,” a Seoul official said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

But Pyongyang rejected any conditional dialogue, though it signaled its willingness to discuss denuclearization once talks reopen.

“The fact that the U.S. insists on demands it knows we would never accept as preconditions for reopening the six-party talks is itself a ploy to block the talks while shirking responsibility,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said last Thursday.

“We will never take a single step forward for a resumption of talks unless (the U.S.) demonstrates its intention to abandon the hostile policy against us through action.”

Road map to dialogue

Former U.S. administration officials said Pyongyang envoys such as Vice Foreign Ministers Kim Kye-gwan and Ri Yong-ho presented their own version of a multi-phase approach to the six-party talks during recent forums in London and Berlin.

The process, which would start with a freeze of the North’s nuclear program and end with denuclearization, envisioned a peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the Korean War, and the lifting of economic sanctions imposed on the North by the U.S., they said.

“We stressed that Pyongyang needs to indicate clearly the concrete steps it would take both before and immediately after a return to the negotiating table,” said Stephen Bosworth and Robert Gallucci, who took part in the meetings, in an op-ed last week to The New York Times.

“The North Koreans told us that they were prepared to enter talks without preconditions and would consider some confidence-building measures once talks begin.”

Kim Jang-soo, head of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, said that a roadmap has been under development since Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in September in Washington.

During talks with Kerry on Sept. 19, Wang said that he was “confident that we will be able to reach a new, important agreement.”

“In the past, North Korea enhanced its nuclear capability during the negotiation period. There need to be preemptive measures to prevent that,” Kim told reporters in Washington on Oct. 25.

“There should be sufficient advance consultations so that we could achieve progress on denuclearization in a short time once negotiations with North Korea begin. That way safe, verifiable denuclearization can be ensured.”

Seoul, for its part, has displayed a somewhat flexible stance and more openness toward the six-way talks.

At a meeting with Kerry in Brunei last month, President Park Geun-hye raised the need for “authentic dialogue at a six-party level to break the vicious circle of North Korea’s provocations and rewards,” without mentioning any presteps.

Ju Chul-ki, Park’s chief secretary for foreign and security affairs, reaffirmed at a forum in Seoul last week that the six-party process will “continue to be pursued under constant consultations with relevant nations.”

Yet officials warned against over-interpreting their every word, saying any breakthrough remains remote.

Even if the six countries manage to reach a general compromise on the conditions for talks, the way ahead would be strewn with sources of contention; from space launches to on-site inspections and sampling to clandestine uranium enrich programs, they added.

“Our position on this hasn’t changed. We believe that the ball is in North Korea’s court. They need to take steps, including abiding by the September 2005 joint statement,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters Friday.

“Those steps, obviously, haven’t been taken.”

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)