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Bolton Says U.S. Won’t be “Fooled Again” by N. Korea
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said today that North Korea should follow the Libyan model of fully eliminating its nuclear programs and that the United States would not be “fooled again” by the offer of a nuclear freeze (see GSN, July 20). The Bush administration would not negotiate a “band-aid solution” that would allow North Korea to someday “flip a switch and unfreeze its programs,” Bolton said. “We are interested in a lasting and meaningful solution to the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program,” he said. “This was the fundamental failing of the 1994 Agreed Framework and it will not be replicated by the Bush administration,” he added. “We will not be fooled again,” he said. Bolton also ruled out rewarding North Korea for a freeze of its nuclear programs and said instead that Pyongyang should look to Libya’s disarmament as a model. Libya has begun to re-enter the international community after leader Col. Muammar Qadhafi pledged to end all WMD efforts (see GSN, June 29). “Our experience with Libya shows that a freeze is unnecessary, and moreover, would simply delay the time when the people of North Korea could reap the benefits of rejoining the international community,” said Bolton. “The United States and the United Kingdom did not offer specific promises or rewards to the Libyans,” he went on. “Rather, we held out the most attractive incentive available: the ability to naturally reap the benefits that comes from participating fully in the community of nations. … Economic and security benefits have been the natural and inevitable result,” he added. The United States appeared to soften its stance toward North Korea during six-party negotiations in Beijing last month, presenting a plan in which North Korea would be compensated by other negotiating partners for a freeze of its nuclear programs (see GSN, July 13). However, Bolton said the United States would offer no specific rewards to North Korea for complete dismantlement of all nuclear programs, as the U.S. continues to demand. “The principle of not rewarding outlaw regimes merely for coming back into compliance with their past obligations is an important one for the United States to uphold,” he said. “It is not only anathema to our values — it is a bad policy. It will encourage further violations not only with the state in question, but other rogue states as well,” he added (Marina Malenic, Global Security Newswire, July 21). Meanwhile, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations Gil Yon Park said yesterday at a one-day visit to the U.S. Senate that his country is prepared to freeze its nuclear development in exchange for “reward,” Asia Africa Intelligence Wire reported. “A freeze is a first step in the dismantlement of the nuclear weapons program and it should come together with rewards,” said Park. Those rewards must include lifting of U.S. economic sanctions and energy aid of 2 million kilowatts of power, he added. Park said there are positive aspects to the U.S. offer presented at the last round of six-party talks, but that it also contains “regrettable elements.” “That is a road map for disarming the D.P.R.K. in stages,” he said. “In other words, it calls for the D.P.R.K. to scrap all its nuclear programs first before our demands can be considered,” he added. Park said the U.S. demand that Pyongyang provide a comprehensive list of its nuclear facilities and disable them within three months was “unscientific” and unrealistic.” “The Korean Peninsula is technically in a state of war and therefore, it is an unreasonable argument to demand the D.P.R.K. disarm first,” Park said (Asia Africa Intelligence Wire/BBC Monitoring, July 21). During Park’s visit, some U.S. lawmakers urged greater efforts in finding a solution to the standoff, Agence France-Presse reported. Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, told Park that his country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability destabilizes the region and is politically and economically self-defeating. “The North’s nuclear program is a giant albatross around your neck, in my view,” Biden told Park. “It’s a waste of resources (and) strains relations with your neighbors,” he went on, adding that nuclear weapons lulled North Korea into a “false sense of security.” “We seek permanent verifiable elimination of all of North Korea’s weapons,” Biden said, adding that both Washington and Pyongyang would reap benefits from such a move. “This is not a zero-sum game,” he said. Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) added that “there’s no more important issue that confronts the world” than convincing North Korea to dismantle its nuclear programs (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 20).
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