North Korea Working Group Meeting Planned

A working group meeting on energy assistance for North Korea has been tentatively set for Aug. 7 to 8, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, July 26).

The nations participating in the six-party talks agreed to conduct working groups on several issues related to the February agreement intended to result in North Korean denuclearization.   Pyongyang would receive a total of 1 million tons of fuel oil or related assistance upon completely closing down its nuclear program.

The meeting on energy aid is expected to be held in Panmunjom, the border village where North and South Korea signed the armistice halting the Korean War.  “One or two countries” have not yet said whether they would participate, a South Korean official told AP.

The six-party nations include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and North and South Korea  (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press I/Yahoo!News, July 27).

A team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors stopped in Beijing today on their way to North Korea, AP reported.  It is set to take over from the first team assigned to monitor the closing of the Yongbyon nuclear facility under the February deal.

“I am leading the second verification mission to the D.P.R.K.,” said team leader Ryszard Zarucki.  “We will travel tomorrow to Pyongyang and will continue activities as stated in the [agency] board documents.”

The team is scheduled to arrive in North Korea tomorrow and remain there for roughly two weeks.  Its job would include placing seals on closed sections of the Yongbyon site and oversee deployment of surveillance cameras (Associated Press II/Yahoo!News, July 27).

Meanwhile, observers and officials are considering the future of North Korean nuclear scientists who could be left at loose ends if the nation follows through in shuttering its weapons complex, Reuters reported today.

“This becomes relevant at the dismantlement phase, not the current freeze phase which will take us through the end of 2007, early 2008, assuming the best,” said Peter Hayes of the Nautilus Institute.

“Yes, there are proliferation risks from footloose experts, defectors or refugees from the D.P.R.K.  Yes, there are people worrying about this in the U.S. and other governments.”

Intelligence sources say up to 2,000 scientists and personnel have worked at Yongbyon.  While they are not at the top of their profession, there are fears that disaffected nuclear staffers might become a proliferation threat akin to the network once operated by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, which supplied nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

North Korea might also throw a wrench into the disarmament process if it does not receive assurances regarding the future of its scientists, Reuters reported.

“These guys aren’t a proliferation risk per se unless North Korea collapses,” said former U.S. State Department disarmament expert Joel Wit.  “But the real concern is that in the context of the agreement the North Koreans are going to turn to us and ask, ‘What do we do with these guys?’  Solving that is going to be an absolute requirement from the North Korean side.”

One option is to connect the scientists with civilian commercial work, said Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  That type of cooperation could also provide insight into the North Korean nuclear program and potential holes in disarmament oversight, he said.

China and South Korea are both watching this issue closely, Reuters reported.  “The South Koreans are so anxious in fact that they want to do this own their own,” Wolfsthal said (Chris Buckley, Reuters/Washington Post, July 27).

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