by Pino Cazzaniga

North Korea is issuing signals of detente, but also threats, hoping that the United States can assist in a transformation of the country, in the grip of economic collapse and the crisis of its ailing leader. Remarks come as Clinton visits Japan, South Korea, and China.

Tokyo (AsiaNews) - Last February 15, Kim Yong-nam, the second in command of the Pyongyang government, said that North Korea is ready to improve its relations with nations that demonstrate a friendly disposition. "We will develop relations with countries that treat us kindly," the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly said during a national gathering to celebrate the 67th birthday of supreme leader Kim Jong-il.

According to analysts, the remarks of the (ceremonial) "head of state" of the communist nation could be the offering of an olive branch to Washington, made just before the first diplomatic visit of Hillary Clinton, the new United States secretary of state, to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China.

But during the same national assembly, Kim also said: "All Koreans in the North, the South, and abroad should rise up to strike with an iron hammer the anti-unification forces in South Korea that are leading them toward the catastrophe of a nuclear war."

The ailing Kim Jong wants to negotiate

The apparent offering of the olive branch to the "countries that treat us kindly" and the stark warmongering threats to the government of South Korea are aspects of a single strategy aimed at addressing the two great challenges that the regime of Pyongyang can no longer put off: the stalemate in the nuclear question, and the revitalization of an economy in tatters.

"Some of the recent moves by the North demonstrate the impatience of Kim Jong-il," says Kim Yong Hyun, an expert from North Korea at Dongguk University in Seoul. The facts are well known, and concern the leader's health.

United States and South Korean intelligence have verified that Kim Jong-il underwent surgery in August, after a serious heart attack. He disappeared from view for five months, and reappeared in in January, on the occasion of a visit from a high-level Chinese government official. Toward the end of last year, according to the KCNA (the Korean Central News Agency), Kim said during a visit to a steel mill: "We have only four more years to open the door to a great, prosperous, and powerful nation." The span of "four years" leads up to 2012, the end of Obama's first term as president.

Pyongyang seems unable to return to its delay tactics. After fifteen years in power, Kim has little to be proud of. Even his nuclear ambitions, to which he has devoted both money and brainpower, have had the effect of increasing the country's international isolation.

The old strategy of calculated risk

It is the habit of the Pyongyang government to resort to threats when it is on the ropes. Now the threat is the preparation of an experimental launch of a long-range missile, which could reach America. But this time as well the strategy of calculated risk seems mistaken from the outset, because world opinion has been thoroughly informed.

This is what led to the awkward, angry reaction expressed through the KCNA. "Recently," says a dispatch from the agency, "the United States and a few other nations have claimed that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is preparing the launch of a long-range missile. This is a dirty trick aimed at stopping not only the capacity of self defense, but also scientific research for peaceful purposes."

The launch, it is claimed, is part of the development of space technology. This is the same excuse used in 1998 to justify the launching of a missile that, after flying over Japan, landed in the Pacific off the shores of Hawaii.

The reaction of the United States

Washington has also extended an olive branch. On February 13, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, said that her government was ready to normalize relations with North Korea, and replace the armistice on the peninsula with a peace treaty if the communist country would abandon its nuclear ambitions.

But the U.S. has also reacted to the strategy of threats, warning North Korea "to avoid any act of provocation and useless rhetoric." If the offering of an olive branch by Pyongyang was intended to separate Washington from Seoul and Tokyo, Clinton's first diplomatic visit - for talks with the governments of Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing - unequivocally emphasizes that the solution of the North Korean nuclear problem is a priority for the Obama administration as well, and can only take place in the context of "six-party talks."

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