North Korea
May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea |
The Bush administration has wisely recognized the need to rely on diplomacy to defuse the North Korean nuclear stand-off. They deserve to be commended, and this model deserves to be applied elsewhere, notably regarding Iran.
North Korea tested a nuclear bomb on October 9, 2006. Countries around the world condemned the test. However, there was broad consensus, including in Washington, that there is no military solution to the crisis.
In February 2007, after negotiations that included direct talks between the US and North Korea, both countries accepted a deal under which North Korea will receive heavy fuel oil in exchange for a freeze on certain nuclear activities involving plutonium. The agreement lays forth a promising framework intended to arrive at a point where North Korea could give up its nuclear program. Perhaps these talks will even lead to a formal end to the Korean War.
In the recent past, North Korean officials have cited fears of an attack by the United States, which maintains a large force near North Korea, and a desire for negotations as reasons for developing a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, these negotiations may provide the kinds of assurances that will allow the North Korean government to feel secure without the bomb.
[Updated February 16, 2007]
Press Reports
N. Korea Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament
Associated Press, February 13, 2007, Filed at 1:26 p.m. ET
North Korea agreed Tuesday to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its atomic weapons program in exchange for millions of dollars in aid, just four months after the communist state shocked the world by testing a nuclear bomb.
The deal, reached after arduous talks, marks the first concrete plan for disarmament in more than three years of six-nation negotiations. The plan also could potentially herald a new era of cooperation in the region with the North’s longtime foes - the United States and Japan - also agreeing to discuss normalizing relations.
“These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea’s nuclear programs,” President Bush said in a statement read by his spokesman. “They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons.”
U.S. Flexibility Credited In Nuclear Deal With N. Korea
Glenn Kessler & Edward Cody, Washington Post, Wednesday, February 14, 2007; A11
The six-nation deal to shut down North Korea’s nuclear facility, four months after Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test, was reached yesterday largely because President Bush was willing to give U.S. negotiators new flexibility to reach an agreement, U.S. officials and Asian diplomats said yesterday.
Ever since the North Korean nuclear crisis erupted in 2002 after the discovery of a clandestine nuclear program, the Bush administration has insisted that North Korea should not be rewarded for its bad behavior - and many of the U.S. offers have required Pyongyang to give up a lot before it could receive anything in return.
Now Bush has signed off on a deal that accepts North Korea’s original position - a “freeze” of its Yongbyon nuclear facility - and requires Washington to move first by unfreezing some North Korean bank accounts. The agreement leaves until later dealing with such vexing issues as the dismantlement of the facility, North Korea’s stash of weapons-grade plutonium and even North Korea’s admission of the nuclear program that started the crisis in the first place.
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The chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, had over time been viewed with suspicion by administration hawks. But, in recent weeks, he worked closely with a White House aide, Victor Cha, who has conservative bona fides on North Korea. Informal talks Cha had with the North Koreans - including a chance encounter in the Beijing airport in December - helped lead to the unusual negotiations Hill and Cha held with North Korean counterparts in Berlin last month, officials said.
Those bilateral talks - which sketched out the parameters of the final deal - were personally approved by Bush after he had insisted for four years that he would not allow direct U.S.-North Korean negotiations.
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For its part, the United States reiterated an earlier promise to discuss normalizing relations with the Pyongyang government, a long-standing goal of North Korea.
Separately, Hill said, the United States pledged to North Korea and to China, the chair of the six-party process, that it will resolve within 30 days a dispute over U.S. charges that Banco Delta Asia in Macau has been laundering illicit money from North Korea. This represented a retreat for Washington, which had previously insisted that the banking dispute was a law-enforcement matter that should be treated separately from the nuclear diplomacy. The United States is expected to unfreeze as much as a third of $24 million in North Korean accounts, deeming that money to be legitimate, U.S. officials said.
Conservatives Assail North Korea Accord
Deal Could Get Nation off Terrorism List
Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Thursday, February 15, 2007; A01
The White House yesterday found itself fending off a conservative revolt over the North Korea nuclear deal, even scrambling to mollify one of its own top officials who expressed sharp disagreement with a provision that could spring Pyongyang from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser, fired off e-mails expressing bewilderment over the agreement and demanding to know why North Korea would not have to first prove it had stopped sponsoring terrorism before being rewarded with removal from the list, according to officials who reviewed the messages.
John R. Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, called the agreement - in which North Korea would freeze its main nuclear facility in exchange for an initial supply of fuel oil - “a bad deal” that violated principles that were closely held in the beginning of the Bush administration.
And the National Review, a conservative bastion, yesterday slammed the agreement as essentially the same one negotiated by President Bill Clinton in 1994 - a charge the Bush administration rejects. “When exactly did Kim Jong Il become trustworthy?” the magazine’s editors asked. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, normally a Bush supporter, also condemned the accord yesterday as “faith-based nonproliferation.”
Bolton’s comments, the barbs from conservative publications and the Abrams e-mails reflected deep concerns among conservatives that the agreement could turn out to be an important and troubling turning point. Current and former Bush officials said they fear that after six years they are losing control of foreign policy to more pragmatic forces. The shift, they said, has become especially apparent with the departure of Donald H. Rumsfeld, who as defense secretary was often seen as a counterweight to State.
More specifically, conservatives said, they worry that the administration’s willingness to bend on North Korea does not bode well for hard-line policies toward Iran, the Palestinians or other issues. Indeed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov yesterday called on the United States to demonstrate “the same flexibility, a sensible flexibility” toward Iran’s nuclear program.
Solving the Korean Stalemate, One Step at a Time
Jimmy Carter, New York Times, October 11, 2006
Excerpted: " One option, the most likely one, is to try to force Pyongyang’s leaders to abandon their nuclear program with military threats and a further tightening of the embargoes, increasing the suffering of its already starving people. Two important facts must be faced: Kim Jong-il and his military leaders have proven themselves almost impervious to outside pressure, and both China and South Korea have shown that they are reluctant to destabilize the regime. This approach is also more likely to stimulate further nuclear weapons activity.
"The other option is to make an effort to put into effect the September denuclearization agreement, which the North Koreans still maintain is feasible. The simple framework for a step-by-step agreement exists, with the US giving a firm and direct statement of no hostile intent, and moving toward normal relations if North Korea forgoes any further nuclear weapons program and remains at peace with its neighbors. Each element would have to be confirmed by mutual actions combined with unimpeded international inspections.
"It is unlikely that the North Koreans will back down unless the United States meets this basic demand. Washington’s pledge of no direct talks could be finessed through secret discussions with a trusted emissary like former Secretary of State Jim Baker, who earlier this week said, 'It’s not appeasement to talk to your enemies.'"
Deep Insecurity Led Kim to Build Nuclear Program, Experts Say
Donald Greenlees, International Herald Tribune, October 10, 2006
According to South Korean and Western experts, if a conventional war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, the best the North Korean military could manage would be to fight to a bloody stalemate. It is deep insecurity, the experts say, and not any desire to grab attention or gain leverage, that drove President Kim Jong-il’s decision to defy international warnings and declare his country had tested a nuclear weapon.
"I think North Korea wants an effective deterrent against the U.S. in case of war on the Korean peninsula," said Park Yong Ok, a former lieutenant general in the South Korean army who served as vice minister for defense in the late 1990’s. "Kim Jong Il wants a nuclear weapon at hand. It’s not a bargaining chip."
The North's poor and outdated equipment and huge difficulties in maintaining combat readiness mean it is outgunned by the smaller forces of South Korea and the US troops stationed in the South. Until now, North Korea’s main deterrent against attack has been the 8,000 artillery pieces and 2,000 tanks it has positioned close to the demilitarized zone that separates North and South. Many of the guns have ranges long enough to reach Seoul, a city of 10.3 million people.
But military officials and analysts said the North closely watched conflicts elsewhere, particularly the invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and saw masses of tanks and artillery could be neutralized with ease by superior American military technology. So, the regime sought a new trump card to maintain the security standoff on the peninsula.
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