North Korea, the world’s most reclusive state and one that prides itself on its communist ideals, plans to apply to the World Trade Organisation for observer status, according to a European Parliament delegation that visited Pyongyang this week.
News of the plan, the first step down the long road to joining the free trade body, is likely to be met by the outside world with bewilderment, optimism and opposition in equal measure.
While it suggests Kim Jong-il’s regime might be willing to open its doors ajar, the rogue state remains one of the countries with the remotest chance of meeting WTO requirements. The US in particular is highly unlikely to accept any move to allow it into the international community while the Stalinist state continues to pursue nuclear weapons.
“North Korea says it has been in contact with the WTO secretariat about observer status,” Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament, said after the delegation for relations with the Korean peninsula met high-level North Korean officials. “Iraq also applied so if one horse can get through the door, maybe two can.”
Observer countries are allowed to participate in meetings but not be involved in the decision making process.
Post-Saddam Iraq was granted the right to attend meetings and hold talks with WTO member countries in February last year. The US had vigorously opposed attempts by Iran, which it also accuses of secretly developing nuclear weapons, to gain observer status but in May agreed to allow Iran to start the membership process.
The WTO on Friday said it had not received any application from North Korea.
Underlining the challenges facing North Korea, the European delegation cast doubt on the prospects for concrete progress at the next round of six-party talks this month, suggesting Pyongyang expected Washington to significantly soften its position.
The MEPs were in Pyongyang while Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, visited Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul discussing how to proceed when the long-awaited fourth round of six-party talks takes place at the end of this month.
Ursula Stenzel, the head of the EU delegation, quoted Kim Gye-gwan, North Korea's vice foreign minister and chief negotiator at the talks, as saying he wanted “substantial, not ceremonial” talks.
“As there is still hostility between the DPRK and the US, they want to have simultaneous steps. They want to have a package deal, with confidence building measures first,” Ms Stenzel said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
But suggesting the two antagonists will run into trouble when the talks begin, Mr Kim reportedly said Pyongyang had agreed to return because of a change in the US’s approach.
“He made it clear that it was the US that changed its position, not the DPRK,” Ms Stenzel said.
The talks stalled in June last year after Pyongyang rejected Washington’s proposal for energy assistance and economic aid after it froze its nuclear programmes and allowed the return of international inspectors. Ms Rice said there had been no change in the US’s stance since that round.
