By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The U.S.-led war in Iraq and other Bush administration policies have harmed international nonproliferation efforts and increased the risk of nuclear terrorism against the United States, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said in a speech yesterday. “By encouraging new arms races, neglecting arms control, and ignoring the truly threatening nuclear weapons developments in North Korea and Iran and the loose materials that could be readily available to terrorists, President Bush’s unilateralism and irresponsibility in nuclear policy imperils America,” Kennedy said. Speaking at a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kennedy reiterated his support for Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) in this year’s presidential election. “We can’t afford four more years of a president who avoids international cooperation and accepts it only when his back is against the wall,” he said. A senior U.S. official, earlier at the conference, said the United States faces difficulties in using international institutions such as the U.N. Security Council to compel countries such as Iran to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. He said the United States and associate countries nevertheless have developed alternative means for stemming proliferation and one in particular is showing signs of bearing fruit. ‘Nuclear 9/11’ Said More LikelyKennedy said the administration’s decision to invade Iraq diverted U.S. attention and resources from combating proliferation. “While the administration has focused its attention on Iraq — a country without nuclear weapons — North Korea and Iran have continued their pursuit of these weapons, and untold amounts of nuclear materials have remained under little or no security in the nations of the former Soviet Union,” he said. The war, he added, may have made the potential for a “nuclear 9/11,” apparently meaning nuclear terrorism against the United States, “more likely, not less likely.” The administration’s nuclear weapons research and development activities also may encourage proliferation, he said. Work exploring low- and high-yield nuclear weapons capabilities “don’t strengthen our military options, they send precisely the wrong signal to the world about America’s nuclear intentions.” Kennedy criticized the administration’s negotiating approach to eliminating North Korean nuclear weapons capabilities as sporadic and “a policy failure.” He charged the administration has “not done enough to address” suspected Iranian nuclear development and “gave Pakistan a free pass” by not insisting on punishment of that country’s nuclear weapons program founder Abdul Qadeer Khan for admitted proliferation activities. Progress Under Tough Circumstances, Official SaysA senior Bush administration official, appearing on a panel at the conference earlier in the day, said the United States and other countries have made progress in combating proliferation, citing in particular the multilateral Proliferation Security Initiative for blocking WMD-related transfers at sea. “I believe we are already seeing concrete fruits of efforts undertaken to date, in that proliferators, I believe, are demonstrably finding it more difficult and considering it riskier and adjusting their behaviors,” said Christopher Ford, principal deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Verification and Compliance. Ford and other earlier panelists said countries face difficulties in using traditional mechanisms such as the U.N. Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency to compel suspected proliferators such as Iran to comply in full with international arms control requirements. Ford cited in particular the challenge of preventing nations from pursuing nuclear weapons programs when they are permitted to have extensive nuclear energy facilities. Others agreed. “It is very hard to prove” a state’s intention to acquire nuclear weapons, and the international community “has had a difficult time trying to figure out what is appropriate punishment” for apparent violations by countries such as North Korea and Iran, said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. Alternative EffortsIn light of such challenges, David Landsman, who heads the British Foreign Office counterproliferation department, said, “We need to look across the range of international fora and mechanisms for ways to strengthen the essential structure of the NPT” in anticipation of the treaty’s review conference next year. “There appears to be a growing willingness, a growing readiness to strengthen the rules for nuclear supply in order to strengthen the nonproliferation regime,” he said. Martin Briens, a counselor for politico-military affairs at the French Embassy here, proposed measures for improving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but said the international community would be unable to amend the pact to address alleged “loopholes” that allow weapons development under guise of civilian programs. “We have to find ways to complement it from the outside,” he said, saying for instance major nuclear materials suppliers should make the existence of an energy need a requirement for transferring civilian nuclear power assistance to other countries. In that vein, Ford said the United States has pursued new nonproliferation approaches to bolster traditional international mechanisms. He cited efforts to “define” proliferation-related sanctions laws, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the U.S.-proposed U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540 requiring government restrictions and regulations on weapons of mass destruction proliferation and enforcement. He said further the United States has pressed the view that the international community “should not and cannot wait for inarguable proof of weaponization” and should “act to stop illicit efforts when clouds of suspicion begin to swirl.” The United States has been helping to lead efforts through the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors to “hold Iran accountable for its violations” and “to pressure it to come clean,” Ford said. “The bottom line from the perspective of our own policy is that we aim to make it ever more costly and ever more risky to be a proliferator,” he said.
By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States is working with Pakistan to improve its national export control system to prevent future transfers of Pakistani nuclear technology abroad, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca said yesterday (see GSN, June 7). In testimony before a House International Relations subcommittee, Rocca praised export control legislation recently introduced in the Pakistani Parliament that she said “would go a long way towards meeting the standards that we are encouraging them to reach.” The legislation would reportedly impose penalties of up to 14 years in prison, a fine of more than $85,000 and seizure of all assets and property of any nuclear scientist found guilty of conducting illegal exports. Rocca told the Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee that progress is being made in rolling up the international nuclear network revealed earlier this year by top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has confessed to having provided Iran, Libya and North Korea with nuclear technologies. Pakistan has provided “very good cooperation” in dismantling the network, she said. “The public exposure of A.Q. Khan’s activities and investigations by various governments has disrupted his black market proliferation network. It’s now in the process of being dismantled, and Pakistan is taking these investigations seriously,” she said (see GSN, June 22). Under questioning from lawmakers, though, Rocca said that Pakistan had not provided either the United States or the International Atomic Energy Agency with direct access to Khan to aid their respective investigations into the nuclear network. During a nonproliferation conference held Monday in Washington, Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Ashraf Jehangir Qazi said that Pakistan is providing the agency with information it learns through its own investigation into the network. Representative Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) criticized Pakistan for failing to make Khan available. “Despite Pakistan’s claims to the contrary and our apparent acquiescence, this is not an internal Pakistani matter. Once Pakistan decided to sell its wares internationally, it became a matter for the international community and for us,” he said during yesterday’s hearing. Ackerman and other Democratic subcommittee members criticized the Bush administration for failing to hold Pakistan responsible for Khan’s nuclear proliferation activities. “The administration is making a very bad bargain with Pakistan. In exchange for perceived cooperation on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the administration is giving Pakistan a pass on nuclear proliferation issues,” Ackerman said. Delegate Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) called for conditions to be placed on a five-year, $3 billion aid package to Pakistan set to take effect in fiscal 2005. The economic and security assistance package was announced last year following a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf at the Camp David U.S. presidential retreat. “I would like to clearly state that I do not believe we will see an end to terrorism or nuclear proliferation until the U.S. Congress imposes restrictions on U.S. aid to Pakistan,” Faleomavaega said. Rocca, however, rejected the idea of placing conditions on the planned aid package. “There has been no cause at all for us to have second thoughts about providing that assistance to Pakistan, which, as I mentioned in my statement, continues to be very cooperative on all the fronts of … vital national interest to the United States,” she told the subcommittee.
By Chris Schneidmiller
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The world is at greater risk of a nuclear attack now than it has been for three decades as terrorists continue to seek nuclear material and security measures remain inadequate to block their efforts, a nonproliferation expert said yesterday. There are four major opportunities for nuclear terrorism, William Potter said: terrorist acquisition of an intact nuclear weapon, theft of fissile material that could be used to develop a crude bomb, an attack on a nuclear installation and use of a radiological “dirty bomb.” “All of these nuclear threats are real. All deserve the attention of the international community,” said Potter, director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Potter is a lead author of the center’s new book, The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism, and he discussed the two-year study’s warning during a panel discussion on nuclear terrorism at a nonproliferation conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The heightened danger of a nuclear attack comes from terrorists’ willingness to use a nuclear weapon and the likelihood that some organizations could develop a radiological device if they obtained the right material, according to the book. Potter said the study calls on world governments to reduce the potential for an attack of the highest consequences — one using an actual nuclear weapon. Recommendations include accelerating the securing and elimination of highly enriched uranium that could be used to develop a nuclear weapon; reducing risks in Central and South Asia that Islamic terrorists will acquire atomic arms; and safeguarding vulnerable Russian nuclear weapons. “Failure to act swiftly will ensure that terrorists will win what [former U.S. Senator] Sam Nunn has called the race between cooperation and catastrophe,” Potter said. The United States also must prepare for the aftermath of the most likely nuclear terrorist threat — use of a device that combines radioactive material and a conventional explosive, the book states. While the explosion of a dirty bomb could cause casualties, the released low-level radiation is unlikely to kill anyone, said panel speaker Michael May, a Stanford University professor and former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. However, the radiation would force the evacuation and subsequent decontamination of an area of up to several city blocks, May said. There are tens of millions of radioactive material items today in the world, used everywhere from hospitals to industrial sites, May said. Hundreds of thousands could be dangerous, and thousands go missing each year, he said. “There’s a fairly good possibility of use [of a dirty bomb] unlike, we hope, a nuclear weapon,” May said. Tighter regulations must be established on licensing and accounting for radioactive material, and options must be expanded for proper disposing of items, he said. May also called for stronger preparations for the aftermath of a radiological attack, including setting standards for the evacuation of an attack area and for the eventual repopulation of the area, better decontamination methods and equipment and training for first responders who would be called to the attack site. While Potter and May focused on the danger of a terrorist nuclear attack, the final two speakers at the panel discussed what has already been done to meet that threat. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation’s commercial nuclear power reactors, has revised its threat assessments of terrorist attacks and increased cooperation with other government agencies, said Carnegie Institution President Richard Meserve, former NRC chairman. The commission has also beefed up inspections and pressed the private facilities to strengthen security, Meserve said. Each reactor has “concentric circles” of security that include fencing, full vehicle searches at gates, access control systems, intrusion detectors reinforced concrete walls, steel barriers, and a trained and well-armed security force. “Anyone who tells you a facility can’t be attacked is wrong,” Meserve said. However, “The capacity of [security] is very significant and I believe it’s far higher than people in the public realize,” he added. The General Accounting Office stated in a report last year that the commission played down the significance of security problems at civilian reactors and operated flawed exercises on terrorist attacks. Critics in Congress have accused the agency with making insufficient security upgrades since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (see GSN, June 4). Meanwhile, a GAO study issued yesterday called on the U.S. Energy Department to prepare plans to meet heightened threat assessments by the end of fiscal 2006 at five DOE facilities that contain plutonium and highly enriched uranium that could be used for a crude nuclear weapon. The U.S. government is also continuing to work with other countries to block diversion of fissile material, said panel speaker Paul Longsworth, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration. There are dozens of facilities in dozens of countries “where security is probably not what it should be,” Longsworth said. The international effort is focused on securing fissile material, border interdiction of material and reducing civilian uses of the substances, he said. “Once you get the fissile material it’s probably easier than we would like” to use,” Longsworth said. Longsworth pointed to a recently announced U.S. plan, called the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, as one aspect of U.S. work to secure fissile material. The Energy Department effort includes repatriating spent nuclear fuel and highly enriched uranium fuel to the United States and Russia, and converting civilian nuclear reactors from using highly enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium, which would be extremely difficult to use in a weapon. The United States is also equipping borders, seaports and airports with detection equipment and training personnel to identify dual-use technology and other materials, Longsworth said. Longsworth and Meserve were grilled during a question-and-answer session by some audience members who questioned reactors’ security against an airplane attack and the continued use of plutonium at two U.S. facilities, among other topics. Both men acknowledged that protection efforts are works in progress. “It will never be fast enough until we are done with this work,” Longsworth said. “And I want to reassure you we’re working to get that work done,” he added.
By Marina Malenic
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The United States should present Iran with unambiguous consequences for violating its nuclear agreements, as well as potential rewards for compliance, experts said yesterday at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nonproliferation conference (see GSN, June 22). The United States should “signal to the Iranians what the structured choice is,” said Philippe Errera of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adding that confusion surrounds U.S. policy toward the Islamic republic. “We can’t figure out what the U.S. policy is,” said Errera, noting that U.S. calls for “regime change” and democratic reform throughout the Middle East have become conflated with concerns over Iran’s nuclear violations. “Is the issue what Iran is or what Iran does?” Errera said. In addition, the United States and the European Union should “prepare for the worst — Iran’s withdrawal from the [Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty],” said Errera, and should explicitly state the consequences now for such a move. The United States should make its policy of what would trigger “regime change” less ambiguous, agreed Hadi Semati, a visiting scholar from Iran at the Carnegie Endowment. He added that there is a “threshold” beyond which pressure on Tehran is unlikely to yield results. “If the heart of the problem is regime legitimacy for the U.S., there is no point for those in power in Iran to engage,” Semati said. “The worst-case scenario would be Iraq,” he added, referring to the U.S. toppling of the government there, “and there are some people in Iran ready to pay that cost” in defiance of U.S. pressure and demands, he said. Iran should be presented with a clear choice, agreed Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Iran can be a pariah with nuclear weapons, or it can choose to become a respected, integrated member of the international community,” he said. Iran has “not been forced to choose yet,” Einhorn added. In addition, the United States and the European Union should “change roles” in their diplomatic efforts with Iran, Einhorn suggested. Thus far, the European Union had played “good cop,” while the United States had played “bad cop,” he said. “These are evidently roles both sides are comfortable playing,” he added. The Europeans should present Iran with “redlines” for its nuclear work, the crossing of which would ultimately lead to a referral to the U.N. Security Council, Einhorn said. Meanwhile, the United States “must signal it is prepared to re-engage bilaterally at some point,” he added. Ultimately, Iran does not desire international isolation, in Einhorn’s view. “Iran is not North Korea,” he said. “The North Korean regime may want isolation,” he added.
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — Participants at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference yesterday resisted calls for discouraging nuclear proliferation through a temporary worldwide halt to uranium enrichment and reprocessing (see GSN, June 22). In a detailed panel discussion on how to limit access to sensitive aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, experts and officials largely endorsed placing new constraints on the transfer of uranium enrichment and plutonium separation technologies while creating international facilities for producing nuclear fuel and managing the fuel when spent. The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency are among those that have expressed support for such measures. Several panelists and attendees balked, however, at the Carnegie Endowment’s suggestion in a new report that countries initiate a multiyear “pause” in production of weapon-usable uranium and plutonium for nuclear energy purposes (see GSN, June 18). “It’s basically the wrong thing for the right reason,” said Senior Vice President Philip Sewell of USEC, the sole U.S. firm selling enriched uranium for nuclear power plants. Carnegie Endowment nonproliferation experts wrote in the report that “nuclear-capable states” should temporarily shut down facilities that can produce highly enriched uranium or weapon-usable plutonium. “There are sufficient stocks of enriched uranium to fuel existing nuclear reactors for several years,” according to the report. The report’s authors said Russian and U.S. stocks of highly enriched uranium (HEU) could be blended down to a less proliferation-sensitive low-enriched form to continue supplying uranium-based energy facilities, making a uranium-enrichment moratorium “feasible for at least three to five years, if not more.” Fuel supply to plutonium-based facilities, they said, could continue for “several decades” using existing stocks of separated plutonium. The think-tank said the move would be designed to buy time for the development of “proliferation-resistant” technology, adding “the demand for LEU fuel is established and will require resumed production” ― possibly in international facilities ― “after the recommended pause.” The report also includes a call for broadening the stalled Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty to prohibit production of weapon-usable fissile material for any purpose, instead of just material intended for use in weapons (see GSN, Feb. 26). During yesterday’s discussion, some participants said the proposals raise concerns about the future of nuclear power and that the moratorium could backfire by encouraging proliferation. “No enrichment facility has ever been stopped and then restarted,” said Sewell, predicting “anxiety” about the electricity supply that could ultimately encourage proliferation. Instead, he said, countries should develop international guidelines that commercial suppliers would implement. Former U.S. National Security Council nonproliferation chief Daniel Poneman expressed concern about excessive government interference in nuclear energy, calling the Carnegie proposals at times too “dirigistes.” “In some points, it puts nuclear energy and the nuclear-energy industry and nonproliferation at odds,” said Poneman of the approach. Instead, he said, policy-makers should seek “some consensual win-win formula.” International Atomic Energy Agency verification and security policy coordinator Tariq Rauf endorsed government-business cooperation in nonproliferation reform but also echoed parts of the Carnegie report. Rauf pointed to enriched uranium resulting from disarmament as a potential major source of reactor fuel. He did not comment directly on the production-moratorium proposal. IAEA, Nuclear Suppliers Seek Consensus on ReformsA new IAEA expert group on multinationalizing the fuel cycle and the 40-country Nuclear Suppliers Group are expected to grapple with fuel-cycle reforms in coming discussions. The expert group is to issue a report in March 2005, Rauf said, for eventual submission later that year as a working paper to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference. “What we need in this expert group that the director general has appointed is new thinking for new times … an approach that transcends national sovereignty when it comes to the nuclear fuel cycle,” Rauf said. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has since last year proposed a package of reforms that Rauf said have at times been misunderstood. Rauf said ElBaradei’s proposal for multinational fuel-cycle control would not, as some have feared, provide a vehicle for countries without sensitive nuclear technologies to obtain them. The director general is advocating only guaranteeing countries a supply of nuclear fuel and arranging for them to dispose of spent fuel abroad. The top nuclear-energy official in the U.S. State Department Nonproliferation Bureau, Richard Stratford, said the Nuclear Suppliers Group is moving toward measures such as the denial of nuclear supply to countries without Additional Protocols to their IAEA safeguards agreements, the denial of enrichment and reprocessing technology to all countries that do not yet have such capabilities and guarantees of supply to countries that forgo enrichment and reprocessing. Stratford, who sits on the IAEA expert panel, said the suppliers group is also considering linking supply to good standing with the U.N. agency. A finding by the IAEA Board of Governors that a country is in noncompliance with its nuclear obligations, Stratford said, would automatically trigger a Nuclear Suppliers Group supply cutoff under the proposal. When the Nuclear Suppliers Group next meets in November, it should seek to “operationalize the words of the Sea Island summit statement,” Stratford said, referring to a nonproliferation action plan approved this month by the Group of Eight at a meeting in the U.S. state of Georgia (see GSN, June 10). The countries pledged in the action plan to seek “new measures so that sensitive nuclear items with proliferation potential will not be exported to states that may seek to use them for weapons purposes or allow them to fall into terrorist hands.” Stratford opposed allowing countries’ right to nuclear energy under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to impede fuel-cycle reforms. Since it is not possible to “rewrite the NPT” to restrict fuel-cycle activities to international facilities, he said, what is needed is “a new norm that says, ‘No, you don’t get to do that, regardless of Article IV of the NPT.” Progress toward international spent-fuel management could be slower than in other areas, panelists said. Spent fuel is the “third rail” of reform, said Stratford, since “nobody wants the finger pointed at them as the country that’s going to have to take someone else’s waste.” Poneman advocated Russia as the location for a center for “back-end” fuel-cycle activities involving materials from around the world. “Spent fuel is the great unresolved problem … but if we are to have nuclear energy at all, anywhere, it’s got to be solved,” he said.
By Marina Malenic
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — The possibility that North Korea could transfer fissile materials or nuclear weapons to a third party is the greatest threat the United States faces from the Stalinist state, military and diplomatic experts said yesterday at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace nonproliferation conference (see GSN, April 1; GSN, May 24). “The North Koreans could be driven to transfer nuclear weapons,” said Robert Gallucci, dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. “I do believe that is the greatest problem we face,” he added, noting that the United States is not in a position to “count on North Korean constraint,” given Pyongyang’s history of ballistic missile sales (see GSN, April 9). Despite concerns over North Korea’s development of longer-range ballistic missiles, some perhaps capable of reliably reaching U.S. shores (see GSN, June 10), Gallucci said the “No. 1 concern is the transferring of fissile materials or nuclear weapons to terrorists.” Kurt Campbell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies concurred, adding that U.S. military retaliation would be the appropriate response to such action. “Transfer of fissile material should be an act of war,” Campbell said. However, panelists agreed that the United States has limited ways to take military action in Northeast Asia. “The military option looks even worse than it did 10 years ago,” Gallucci said. Any U.S. military strike against North Korean nuclear installations would necessarily entail a “fairly substantial” or “huge” war, according to Campbell. “Surgical strikes would no longer work,” given North Korea’s substantial army and conventional arms buildup within the past 10 years, he said. Military action would require support from North Korea’s neighbors, particularly U.S. allies South Korea and Japan, Campbell said. “For an all-out war, we must have the support of our allies in the region, all of which want to avoid war at all costs,” Campbell said, “even at the cost of a nuclear North Korea,” he added. He also noted that U.S. forces may be spread too thin to make military action in Asia feasible as the result of continuing operations in the Middle East. U.S. troops have already been withdrawn from South Korea to fortify forces in Iraq. A weakening U.S. relationship with South Korea makes support for a military operation in Asia even less likely, said Scott Snyder of the Asia Foundation. Panelists also said China is a significant third party in the standoff between the United States and North Korea. “The Bush administration is relying on China to constrain North Korea,” Snyder said. While China shares the U.S. desire to prevent Pyongyang from developing nuclear weapons, according to Snyder, Beijing may also be worried that the Iraq war sets a “regime change” precedent that the United States could seek to apply in North Korea. “They know regime change would mean overwhelming refugee flows from North Korea,” he said. At the same time, as Beijing steps up diplomacy and pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, it may be cultivating military and institutional contacts in North Korea in case Kim proves unwilling to yield to pressure, said Snyder. However, the impact of the war on Northeast Asia may be fading, according to Campbell. While there was hope within the Bush administration that “the fear instilled in China by the Iraq situation” could lead to progress on the North Korea standoff, “that moment is now over,” Campbell said.
U.S. negotiators at the third round of high-level talks on North Korea’s nuclear program that began today were expected to offer Pyongyang a set of incentives to relinquish its suspected weapons program, the New York Times reported (see GSN, June 22). The proposal allows for China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to begin sending tens of thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea every month, in exchange for a commitment by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to dismantle his plutonium and uranium weapons programs. In addition, the United States would offer a “provisional” guarantee not to invade North Korea or to seek “regime change,” according to U.S. officials who outlined the plan Tuesday evening. The United States would also begin bilateral discussions with North Korea for the potential lifting of U.S. economic sanctions that have been in place for more than 50 years, providing longer-term energy aid and retraining of North Korean nuclear scientists, according to the Times. Kim would have only three months to agree to the plan, what U.S. officials called a “preparatory period of dismantlement” to shut down his nuclear facilities. That is similar to the deal Libya assented to last year to dispose of its WMD programs. Subsequent aid would hinge on Pyongyang following a set schedule to open its suspected nuclear sites to international inspectors; disclose, disable and dismantle nuclear sites; and finally ship them out of the country. “Our allies have been telling us that they think Kim Jong Il is ready for a test of his intentions,” one of Bush’s senior national security aides said yesterday. “So we are prepared to offer them a strategic choice,” the aide added. “They may say no — and in that case they will have failed the test,” another Bush aide added. North Korean diplomats are expected to take offers to Pyongyang after the Beijing session, and it could take weeks or longer for a response from the leadership, U.S. officials said. Asian officials welcomed the Bush proposal. However, they speculated that it might not be enough to induce Kim to give up the only thing that gives him leverage over his neighbors. “They probably would reject even a better offer, figuring that after the election they have a chance of dealing with someone other than George Bush,” said one senior Asian official. “And, of course, they can use the extra time to work on making more bomb fuel, if they haven’t finished that process already,” the official added. Several experts said Kim now thinks he has an advantage in the negotiations because he has made headway in talks with his Asian neighbors. “The North Koreans don’t feel under any pressure to make concessions right now because they feel the United States is not in a position to take military action, and not in a position to walk away,” said Gary Samore of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “They are in a strange position; they are being paid by the Chinese to talk,” he added (David Sanger, New York Times, June 23).
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