Why is North Korea
willing to deal on nukes?
PYONGYANG
March 01, 2012|By
Christine Ahn, Special to CNN
The announcement
Wednesday of a diplomatic breakthrough between the United States and North
Korea is a welcome surprise at a critical time. Not only are more than 6
million North Koreans facing food shortages, but also the window is quickly
closing for the United States to have any leverage over North Korea's nuclear
program, given the changing global balance of power.
In exchange for an
initial 240,000 tons of U.S. food aid and prospects for improving bilateral
relations and returning to six-party talks, North Korea agreed to halt its
uranium enrichment program, accept monitoring by the International Atomic
Energy Agency, and stop testing its long-range missiles.
(US food aid has been conditional on denuclearization, thus
there must be consideration)
Contrary to some media
assertions that U.S. food aid has not been linked to denuclearization,
Washington has stalled for over a year on sending food to North Korea, despite
a direct appeal from Pyongyang, and after several assessments, including by the
U.N. World Food Program, the European Union, and a team of five U.S.
nongovernmental organizations, all verifying the urgent need.
So what shifted?
WH: N. Korea actions a
positive step
Deal first test of
N. Korean leadership
For Washington, (1) non-engagement proves to be of no use. Imminent collapse is unlikely.
For one, the Obama
administration appears to have concluded that the succession to Kim Jong-Un has
been a smooth transition and that the imminent collapse of the North Korean
regime is unlikely. It has likely realized that nonengagement has been a
complete failure.
(2) call for engagement
with DPRK within incumbent conservative South Korea government
South Korean President
Lee Myung-bak has refused aid, trade and talks with North Korea until Pyongyang
apologizes for its alleged sinking of
a South Korean navy ship and shelling of Yeonpyong Island. Not only has the
opposition Democratic Party in South Korea called for an end to sanctions and
closer ties with North Korea, even members of Lee's own party are calling for
more engagement.
(3) while the US is locked
in nuclear issue, China’s influence and leverage on N. Korea sharply increased
Moreover, as China's
trade and aid to North Korea have continued to grow, U.S.-led sanctions have
not had their anticipated effect of undermining the North Korean regime. To the
contrary, there are signs that Washington's ability to influence North Korea's
behavior, including its nuclear program, is on the wane.
According to Katharina
Zellweger, the former head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
who worked in North Korea for 15 years, there are rumors that China already has
or is planning to send food aid and fuel, though the amount is unclear.
"Why would [North
Korea] deal with the United States?" she said. "The train has left
the station."
(4) Washington sees
itself losing leverage across the globe
This week's diplomatic
breakthrough may indeed be one of the last opportunities Washington has to
influence Pyongyang's nuclear program. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
put it at a Senate hearing, "The world is transforming around us."
For Pyongyang (1) to lift sanction, (2) to formally end the Korean War, (3)
to join international community
Why, then, is North
Korea making concessions to the United States? North Korea still needs the
United States to lift its sanctions and to formally end the Korean War.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, the United States affirmed during
talks in Beijing that its sanctions were not intended to target the North
Korean people and that once six-party talks began, priority would be given to
lift the sanctions.
North Koreans view
resolving tensions with the United States as a crucial step to joining the
international community, including being able to access loans from international
financial institutions to recalibrate their economy.
This point was made
last year by former President Jimmy Carter, who explained, "In almost any
case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the
most and the leaders suffer least." In the case of North Korea, Carter
said that "the last 50 years of deprivation of the North Korean people of
adequate access to trade and commerce has been very damaging to their
economy."
Most Americans don't realize that underlying tensions with North Korea stem from the unresolved Korean War, which ended
not with a peace treaty, but only with a temporary armistice. We cannot lose
sight of the fact that peace is the only
solution to ending hunger in North Korea.
North Koreans need
food aid, but they also need an end to hostilities, the lifting of sanctions
and a genuine engagement plan that includes a formal resolution of the Korean
War. This week's diplomatic breakthrough brings us that much closer to
realizing peace on the Korean Peninsula and gives hope that denuclearization
there and elsewhere can be still achieved through diplomacy.
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The price of
negotiating with North Korea
By Victor Cha, Ellen
Kim and Marie DuMond, Special to CNN
Fri March 2, 2012
Editor's note: Victor Cha is former director of
Asian Affairs at the National Security Council and author of "The Impossible State: North Korea's Past and Future"
(Ecco, April 2012). Ellen Kim is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Marie
DuMond is a research associate at the institute.
It's uncertain how
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will work with the international community.
(CNN) -- Albert Einstein once said that the
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results.
(DO - The opening
paragraph got me to think that … you know, maybe I can see what he gonna say
without further reading. But chose to give the author the benefit of doubt)
Following a third
exploratory round of bilateral talks between the United States and North Korea
held in Beijing last week, Washington looks as though it is walking into yet
another goodies-for-nuclear freeze deal with the reclusive North Koreans. The State Department
announced Wednesday that the United States would provide food aid to North
Korea in return for Pyongyang's promise to implement a moratorium on long-range
missile launches, nuclear tests and its plutonium and uranium enrichment activities.
North Korea also agreed to allow the return of inspectors from the
International Atomic Energy Agency to verify and monitor the moratorium.
Einstein, if he cared
about the issue, would probably roll over in his grave. Why are we doing this?
(DO- Einstein, if realized
the absurdity of this analogy, would probably roll over in his grave.)
We have seen this
playbook several times before in our 25-plus year history of trying to
denuclearize North Korea. The United States gets pulled into providing food
or energy indefinitely to maintain the nuclear freeze. The North Koreans
eventually cheat on the freeze and undertake augmentation of their nuclear
weapons at other undisclosed facilities. We stop providing the assistance. A
hair-raising crisis ensues that is ultimately resolved through another
assistance-for-freeze agreement. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Clinton sees ‘modest
step forward’
What the US gets out of the deal
Political types might
condemn it as insanity, naiveté or both. But there may be some common-sensical
reasons for doing this. Practically speaking, the achievement of a
nuclear and missile-testing moratorium, as well as the reintroduction of the
U.N. nuclear-watchdog agency inspectors into Yongbyon, is a useful step.
The uranium enrichment
program currently meets the definition of a runaway nuclear program. It has
gone unabated now for at least five years, if not longer. Getting eyes on the
ground again, as in 1994 to 2002 and 2007 to 2008, is a welcome development.
What DPRK gets out of the deal
For North Korea, the
young Kim Jong Un may want to demonstrate a continuity of leadership after the
sudden death of his father nine weeks ago, and the regime wants food in
preparation for its April 15 celebrations of the 100th birthday of the first
leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung.
However, beyond these
tactical solutions are longer-term
strategic challenges.
First, North Korea may temporarily halt their
program, but the grim reality is that it will not part with it.
Second, the IAEA inspectors will go into the
facilities without a supporting U.N. Security Council resolution declaring that
the uranium program is in violation of standing denuclearization agreements.
(China opposed this.) So while the United States will see this move as
monitoring a freeze, North Korea will see it as validating to the international
community that it only has peaceful intentions with its uranium
program.
(DO- which agreement?
UNSC is a party to the agreement? On what basis UNSC? Based on UN Charter art.
39?)
Third, it is too soon to tell whether this
agreement means the junior Kim is turning over a new leaf and seeking to make
nice with the world.
Fourth, the slightest opening up of this brittle
dictatorship under the untested son will ensure that it comes crumbling down --
something for which the United States, China and South Korea are wholly
unprepared.
(SO- seriously? Please,
back your argument)
Fifth, a nuclear freeze is a long way from the
denuclearization objectives sought in the 2005 agreement at the so-called
Six-Party Talks. Indeed, one of the unmet U.S. "pre-steps" for
returning to the Six-Party Talks was a commitment by the North to refrain from
further provocations such as the 2010 submarining of a South Korean navy ship
and artillery shelling of a South Korean island. The North made no such
commitments outside of a vague reference to supporting the 1953 armistice
agreement that ceased Korean War hostilities. Finally, nongovermental and
humanitarian groups probably chafe at the explicit linking of food assistance
to the nuclear freeze. The United States would claim that the North insisted on
the linkage. But it takes two to tango.
Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton correctly characterized the agreement as a "modest step
forward." This may not be insanity, but it is distasteful given the nature
of the regime, its human rights violations and its blatant willingness to
engage in renegade nuclear activities. Unfortunately, that's the price one pays
when negotiating with North Korea.
(DO- what is the price
of N. Korea policy dominated by hard liners who put Korean Peninsula at risk in
the name of denuclearization?)
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Dealing with the Kims
By Joel Wit and Jenny
Town On February 24, 2012
This article
originally appeared on www.foreignpolicy.com [1], and has been reprinted with
permission. The original can be found here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/nuclear_north?page=full
[2]
The US diplomacy with
North Korea has served American interests well in the past
This week’s meeting
between U.S. Special Envoy Glyn Davies and North Korean First Vice Foreign
Minister Kim Gye Gwan will be the first official encounter between the United
States and North Korea since the death of Kim Jong Il two months ago. After endless
speculation by the press and experts about the future of North Korea, this
meeting will be an important reality check: an opportunity to take the pulse
of the new management in Pyongyang, and particularly to discern changes
or continuity in its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction.
Even on a good day, of
course, we underestimate the difficulties of dealing with North Korea at our
peril. Korea specialists are fond of calling it the “land of no good options”
(although that is probably true for many foreign-policy challenges facing the
United States today). The North remains the poster child for rogue states
because of 60 years of bad behavior, including its more recent nuclear and
missile tests in 2006 and 2009 and conventional military attacks on South Korea
in 2010. If there is anyone who knows that, it’s those of us who have had
direct experience dealing with North Koreans at the negotiating table, on the
ground, or conducting any other business face-to-face with them.
(I will never forget
one of my first visits as a U.S. government official to the Yongbyon nuclear
facility in 1996, when I was harangued by a senior North Korean engineer who
complained bitterly about the United States and its treatment of his country
for what felt like hours. I let him speak his peace, though I considered an
equally nasty response that would have made my friends from New York proud. In
the end, I responded in true State Department fashion that I would tell my
superiors about his concerns and suggested we get down to business. He rapidly
shifted gears and our talks were successful.)
At the same time, what
is striking about the discourse in Washington these days is that we seem to
have bought into myths that make Pyongyang appear 10 feet tall. The most
egregious has to do with negotiating with North Korea. For the past three
years, the Obama administration has harped on the dangers of talking to the
North Koreans, emitting a steady stream of platitudes such as not “buying the
same horse twice,” or “talking for talk’s sake” that make it sound like they
have taken us to the cleaners more than once in the past.
When I was in the
State Department, we use to joke that the North Koreans and the Israelis would
be quite a matchup in the “World Series” of negotiators. The North Koreans are
tough customers. But a myth-free examination of the past two decades reveals a
reality Americans for some reason refuse to recognize — the United States has done very well negotiating with Pyongyang.
[3] Take the 1994
U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework that provided for the eventual
dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program. In return, the North was to
receive two new light-water reactors as well as heavy fuel oil. Moreover,
because of the better political relationships that followed with the United
States, Japan, and South Korea, food and other forms of assistance were
provided to the North that might not have been forthcoming under more difficult
circumstances.
[4] The 1994
agreement has been subjected to a lot of criticism as appeasement of
North Korea. But for the
people who worked on it, there was one stark reality that almost all the
pundits neglect. In 1993, secret
American intelligence estimates projected that North Korea could have enough
fissile material — plutonium — for a stockpile approaching anywhere from 60-100
nuclear weapons by the year 2000. Unlike
the later case of Iraq, those estimates were largely based on satellite
photography of Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities, not on information provided by
some top-secret source like the infamous “Curveball.” A North Korea armed to
the teeth with so many nuclear weapons was viewed, to put it mildly, as a
serious threat.
[5]The heart of
Pyongyang’s program was three nuclear reactors, along with a football
field-long plant intended to separate the plutonium produced from other waste
products. The smallest, the five megawatt reactor, was completed in 1986 and
could produce enough plutonium for approximately one nuclear bomb every
year. The two much larger facilities
were slated for completion during the 1990s — a 50 MW reactor by mid-decade
that could produce enough plutonium for 8-10 bombs per year and a 200 MW
facility by the end of the decade that seemed intended to produce electricity
but might also have churned out bomb-making material.
Fast forward to 2002,
when the Agreed Framework collapsed. North Korea was left with enough fissile
material for only a handful of nuclear weapons, far short of the
original estimates in 1993. Moreover, the North Koreans had not even
bothered to maintain some of these important facilities over the lifetime of
the agreement. For example, when Siegfried Hecker [6], the former head of the
Los Alamos National Laboratory, visited the 50 MW reactor in 2004, he found the
building in a “terrible state of repair” resembling a “deserted structure.” As
a result, when the framework collapsed, the North Koreans were left with piles
of unsalvageable junk — not the best return on a decades-long effort to build
nuclear weapons that cost them billions if not tens of billions of dollars they
could scarcely afford.
[7]The North Koreans,
of course, did get something in return. They received 500,000 metric tons of
heavy fuel oil per year for almost eight years as well as other types of
indirect assistance provided outside of the framework agreement. But today,
their only lasting monuments to that deal are two concrete-filled holes in the
ground where the light-water reactors promised them were never completed. That’s no accident: American
negotiators were smart enough to structure a step-by-step arrangement. If the North Koreans didn’t perform in meeting
our denuclearization demands — and they didn’t — the project would halt.
Moreover, almost all of the $2 billion spent on those reactors went to overseas
companies, not to the North Koreans.
Which country ended up
with the better deal? It’s pretty clear — the
United States. Since 2002, the North Koreans have been playing catch-up
ball. They have conducted two nuclear tests, produced what little plutonium
they could from remaining facilities, and tried to get a uranium enrichment
program off the ground. They now have a small arsenal estimated at up
to 8 weapons that may gradually grow over the rest of the decade if their
program to produce highly enriched uranium progresses. But that’s a far cry
from what U.S. intelligence projected for the beginning of this decade and the
almost 200 weapons they would have today without the Agreed Framework.
Of course, there are
other reasons why the Obama administration has shied away from negotiations
with Pyongyang. Aside from North Korea’s bad behavior, Washington has felt a
strong need to stick very close to a conservative South Korean ally that,
rather than talking to the North, believed pressure and isolation was the
best course of action to extract concessions from Pyongyang. That view
has proved wrong; Pyongyang has continued down the WMD path and even
launched conventional military strikes against the South in 2010. Shying away
from negotiations has also protected the administration from the inevitable
Republican criticism but has denied us a valuable tool in stopping the North
Korean threat.
Nobody is under the
illusion that negotiating with Pyongyang is easy. But with the resumption of
U.S.-North Korean talks in Beijing, hopefully leading to new sessions of the
six-party denuclearization negotiations, Washington needs to put aside its
myths. Yes, the United States has to be very careful when it talks to
Pyongyang. And yes, there have been instances when our negotiators were not
careful enough. But the reality is that diplomacy with North Korea has
served American interests well in the past and can do so again in the
future.
Article printed from
38 North: Informed Analysis of North Korea: http://38north.org
URL to article:
http://38north.org/2012/02/wit-town022412/
URLs in this post:
[1]
www.foreignpolicy.com: http://www.foreignpolicy.com
[2]
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/nuclear_north?page=full:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/21/nuclear_north?page=full
[3] Image:
http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/120222_wit1.jpg
[4] Image:
http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/120222_wit2.jpg
[5] Image:
http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/120222_wit3.jpg
[6] Siegfried Hecker:
http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/23035/heckeryongbyon.pdf
[7] Image:
http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/120222_wit4.jpg
