North Korea Offers to Freeze Nuclear Development, for a Price

North Korea offered today to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for a series of diplomatic and economic concessions from the United States, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Dec. 8).

“In return for the freezing of our nuclear activities, the United States must remove our country’s name form the list of terrorism-sponsoring countries; lift its political, economic, military sanctions and blockade; and give us heavy oil, electricity and other energy assistance from the United States and neighboring countries,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

The United States has insisted on the verifiable dismantlement of Pyongyang’s nuclear program.

“Resumption of six-nation talks will entirely depend on whether there is an agreement on our proposal for these first-phase actions,” the spokesman said. “We make it clear that we will never freeze our nuclear program for nothing,” he added (Associated Press/Billings Gazette, Dec. 9).

A recent joint proposal from Japan, South Korea and the United States attempts to bring North Korea to the bargaining table, but does not specifically address how Pyongyang should dismantle its nuclear weapons program or what form security assurances would take, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck said today.

“These are matters of the biggest significance, and they are matters that should be discussed and resolved when talks resume,” Lee said. The joint proposal “contains only things that all six countries agree to” and was developed “in succinct and implicative wording aimed at avoiding disputes,” he added.

China and Russia are the other nations involved in the six-nation talks (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press, Dec. 9).

The United States said yesterday that it is prepared to attend negotiations without any concessions or steps from North Korea.

“It may be possible to hold six-party talks this month. We’ll have to see.  We are certainly ready to attend talks without any preconditions,” said U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher (U.S. State Department transcript, Dec. 8).

Some experts, however, called into question U.S. intelligence on North Korea. Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons progress has never been verified and the current negotiations could be taking place under false assumptions, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“We don’t know what they’re doing,” said Charles Pritchard, who resigned this year as the State Department’s special envoy for negotiations with North Korea.

A recently released CIA report on North Korean nuclear capabilities assessed that Pyongyang has “one or two simple fission-type nuclear weapons.”

Some analysts suggested that the assessment was not motivated by evidence only.

“Those are political judgments,” said Robert Gallucci, the top U.S. negotiator for the 1994 U.S.-North Korean Agreed Framework, the recently dissolved pact which promised North Korea nuclear energy in exchange for a halt to all other nuclear activities.

A former Bush administration official said the recent CIA assessment was “a case of pleasing the bosses by telling them what they want to hear or analysts covering their backsides” (Douglas Frantz, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 9).

An Indonesian envoy, meanwhile, is in Pyongyang today to try and defuse the current nuclear standoff.

Nana Sutresna was met at the airport in Pyongyang today by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kung Sok Ung (Agence France-Presse/Jakarta Post, Dec. 9).

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