North Korea threatened Saturday to resume ballistic missile tests, the Washington Post reported (see GSN, Jan. 10).

In announcing the potential lifting of its missile test moratorium, North Korea’s ambassador to China said the isolated nation has the right to maintain “devices to save us from a nuclear attack” and that the United States has “hostile policies” (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2002).

“The development, test, deployment and export of our missiles entirely belong to our sovereignty,” Choe Jin Su said during a press conference in Beijing.  “Because all agreements have been nullified by the United States’ side, we believe we cannot go along with the self-imposed missile moratorium any longer,” he added (Goodman/Pan, Washington Post, Jan. 12).

Analysts do not know if North Korea has any missiles ready to test, but observers say it is working on a Taepodong 2 missile that could reach the United States (Demick/Richter, Los Angeles Times, Jan. 12).

Choe hinted that a resumption of missile tests is contingent on U.S. actions.

“Whatever we do in the future depends on the United States,” he said.  “If the United States fails to change its attitude, this issue may be complicated,” he added (Goodman/Pan, Washington Post, Jan. 12).

North Koreans in New Mexico

North Korean diplomats traveled to Santa Fe last week to meet with New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and said they had been seeking dialogue with Bush administration officials for weeks, according to the Post.

Han Song Ryol, North Korea’s deputy U.N. ambassador, asked Richardson to arrange meetings with the White House to discuss the nuclear crisis.  Richardson relayed the request for talks to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, the Post reported (Goodman/Pan, Washington Post).

“They don’t negotiate like others — quid pro quos.  They have their standards, and you have to just work (with) that.  It’s almost an art form to talk with them,” Richardson said.  “This is almost negotiating in a bazaar atmosphere, in a totally different environment,” he added (CNN.com, Jan. 11).

“I think what now needs to happen is that the governments need to talk to each other,” Richardson said.  The governor also said that his talks, which were not on behalf of the White House, “eased tensions a bit.”

During the talks, Han said “that North Korea has no intentions of building nuclear weapons,” according to Richardson.  He did not say, however, if Han or his colleague Mun Jong Chol had explained why their country threatened to resume missile tests (Weisman/Eckholm, New York Times, Jan. 12).

Richardson said that he expects low-level talks at the United Nations between the two countries (Seth Mydans, New York Times, Jan. 13).  U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said, however, that the New Mexico talks were “a little bit disappointing.”

“We really didn’t hear anything from the North Koreans speaking to him that we hadn’t heard in their public pronouncements,” Kelly said (Peter Goodman, Washington Post, Jan. 13).

Fears of an Arms Race

The missile test announcement fueled fears of weapons proliferation in Northeast Asia, with Japan and South Korea developing missile programs to counter North Korea and China stepping up its development efforts to counter its eastern neighbors, the Post reported.

“The obvious picture here would be a massive arms race,” said Ryoo Kihl-jae, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

“It could be a very serious mess,” said Qi Baoliang, a specialist on Korean issues at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.  “We don’t want things to develop as they did in India and Pakistan,” he added (Goodman/Pan, Washington Post).

A North Korean diplomat in Vienna also said that his country might be able to reactivate a nuclear reactor in a matter of weeks, making spent fuel rods available for nuclear weapons sooner than expected, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Assistant Secretary Kelly is in Seoul today to meet with South Korean officials on the issue, but the flurry of North Korean announcements may be hampering a coordinated response, according to a South Korean official.

“It’s shocking how fast they are going.  It’s too much, we can’t deal effectively like this,” said the official.

Analysts said that Pyongyang is negotiating with the only assets it has left.

“North Korea is a country which is literally bankrupt, which has lost the capacity to pull itself out of the economic quagmire through normal means.  The nuclear card is the only card that North Korea has at its disposal,” said Lee Dong-bok, a former South Korean intelligence official (Demick/Richter, Los Angeles Times).

U.S. Energy Help Possible

Kelly said that after the nuclear issue is solved the United States might be willing to assist with North Korea’s energy problems.

“We know there are energy problems in North Korea.  Once we get beyond the nuclear problems, there may be an opportunity with the United States, with private investors, or with other countries to help North Korea in the energy area,” Kelly said (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 13).

Analysts said that the statement reflects an apparent opening in a hard line U.S. stance.

“It is a concession, a change of position,” said Lee Chung-min, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University.  “It’s an indication of the Bush administration really wanting to settle this diplomatically and probably under a lot of pressure to do so,” he said (Goodman, Washington Post).

Pyongyang Denies Admitting Nuclear Development

North Korea denied that it admitted a nuclear weapons development program during October talks with Kelly in Pyongyang, the New York Times reported (see GSN, Nov. 15, 2002).

“The claim that we admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the United States with sinister intentions,” North Korean official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said yesterday.  “If the United States evades its responsibility and challenges us, we will turn the citadel of imperialists into a sea of fire,” the newspaper added (Mydans, New York Times).

Powell, however, discounted the North Korean statement.  In October, the North Koreans denied the allegations during a first day of talks and then agreed to them on the second day, Powell said (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002).

“It took them overnight to evaluate the situation and have their principals meeting,” he said.  “The next morning, they came back and essentially said to [Assistant Secretary] Jim [Kelly], ‘Yes.’  Now they dissembled a little bit since, but we had three interpreters there, especially at the time because (Korean) is a very different language — a lot of nuances — and there is no doubt in our mind that they acknowledged it, that they were agreeing to it.  And that’s what Jim reported,” he added (Goodman, Washington Post).

IAEA Chief Urges Reconsideration

The International Atomic Energy Agency Friday called on North Korea to reconsider its recent decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

“I strongly urge the D.P.R.K. to reverse its decision and to seek instead a diplomatic solution,” said IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei.  “This is the only way to address the D.P.R.K.’s security and other concerns,” he added.

ElBaradei said the North Korean withdrawl was “a continuation of a policy of defiance and was counterproductive to ongoing efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula (IAEA release, Jan. 10).”

White House Blames Clinton

Meanwhile, a senior Bush administration official blamed the crisis on the 1994 Agreed Framework, which was signed during the Clinton administration.

That agreement “frontloaded all the benefits and left the difficult things to the end,” the senior official said.

The White House has faced recent accusations that President George W. Bush spurred the North Korean crisis by including that country in his “axis of evil” along with Iraq and Iran, the Post reported.

The “idea that the Agreed Framework was going along just fine,” was incorrect, the senior official said.  “We were getting to a crisis very quickly,” the official added.

North Korean officials feel as if the Bush administration began to shut off diplomatic contacts before the crisis began, the Post reported.

“They think the Bush people have closed the door on them just because Clinton had opened it,” said a person involved in the New Mexico talks (DeYoung/Reid, Washington Post, Jan. 12).

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