T he crisis over North Korea's attempted acquisition by stealth of a nuclear capability through enriched uranium processing provides a golden opportunity for institutionalizing a process of concerted multilateral diplomacy.
Last week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Los Cabos, Mexico, the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea formally adopted a full court press against Pyongyang, demanding that it take immediate steps to dismantle its newly-disclosed secret nuclear program in a verifiable manner.
For its part, North Korea has called for negotiations with the U.S. on the subject, an approach the U.S. has rejected in favor of a multilateral effort to convince North Korea to comply with the terms of the existing Agreed Framework, Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and Declaration of Denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula as well as the spirit of the 2000 Pyongyang summit. For the moment, however, diplomacy is being pursued ad hoc and bilaterally.