The Myth of "Progress"

According to the South Korean government the US nuclear negotiators have offered the North Koreans a deal:

The United States offered to remove North Korea from Washington’s list of states sponsoring terrorism if the communist regime dismantles its atomic weapons program South Korea’s main nuclear envoy said Tuesday. 

The proposal was just one of the incentives the U.S. spelled out last week at six-nation nuclear disarmament talks with the North, along with offers of security guarantees, a peace treaty and normalization of relations, Chun Yung-woo said.

"The point of the proposal is that everything is possible if North Korea denuclearizes and nothing is possible if it refuses," Chun told news cable channel YTN.

It appears that the South Korean government is making a big deal out of this as some kind of sign of "progress" on the North Korean nuclear issue.  I have said it once and I will say it again, North Korea has no intention of giving up it’s nukes and the US negotiators probably understand that, thus they make proposals for grand deals that they know will never happen just to show that the US government is doing everything possible to denuclearize North Korea. 

While these negotiations go on and on the South Korean government can continue to claim that "progress" is being made while the status quo continues on.  Keeping the status quo is what is important to both Koreas and the Chinese.  The Chinese don’t want any instability in North Korea that could lead to a collapse and refugee crisis, the South Koreans do not want a expensive reunification that would destroy their economy, and the North Koreans just want to continue to have time to further develop their nuclear program and missile systems in order to secure their own regime’s security against a US attack to over throw a regime.  So expect these talks to continue to drag off and on just like they have these past few years and the South Korean government claiming "progress".