The two countries held a number of meetings to resolve their differences. Heads of their delegations to the six-party talks met in Singapore on April 8 and reached consensus on some major issues concerning the implementation of the Joint Statement. According to South Korean and Japanese media reports, North Korea and the United States might have reached a compromise, under which the latter agreed that the former could make separate reports on controversial issues. In other words, it could file an annex or a secret memo on U.S. suspicions over its uranium enrichment and nuclear proliferation in addition to a public report on its plutonium extraction. The public report should be submitted to China, the host of the six-party talks, while the United States would keep the annex to itself and orally brief the other parties about it. In May, North Korea turned over 18,000 pages of documents related to its plutonium program to the United States. Shortly after, the United States announced that it would provide North Korea with 500,000 tons of food aid.

While the two countries maintained good communication, the parties concerned redoubled their efforts to conduct other negotiations to enhance mutual trust. The six parties to the North Korean nuclear talks held a group meeting on economy and energy cooperation in Panmoonjeom on June 11. At the meeting, they discussed offering economic and energy assistance to North Korea and reached consensus on stepping up assistance efforts. On the same day, representatives from North Korea and Japan held an intergovernmental work conference in Beijing. According to the agreement reached at the conference, North Korea would reinvestigate its abductions of Japanese citizens some 30 years ago, whereas Japan would partially lift its economic sanctions on North Korea.

No more enemy

Washington's decision to remove the designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and stop applying the Trading With the Enemy Act is a crucial procedure for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsular.

In essence, the North Korean nuclear issue is not an issue of nuclear proliferation but comes down to the political antagonism between the United States and North Korea. The United States has two options to neutralize its enemy. It can either force North Korea to surrender with its military clout, or persuade it to lay down its arms by offering peace guarantees. Their contention over the past years provides evidence that the first option does not work. As it turns to the second option, the United States has to lift its economic embargo on North Korea, replace the two countries' armistice with a peace agreement and normalize their bilateral relations.