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U.S. Plays Down North Korea Reactor Demand
The North Korean demand for a light-water nuclear reactor before disarmament can be seen as a negotiating tactic by Pyongyang ahead of the next round of talks, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 20). “I think we will not get hung up on this statement,” said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “We will stick to the text of the Beijing statement, and I believe that we can make progress if everybody sticks to what was actually agreed to,” Rice said. One State Department official said there was nothing new in Pyongyang’s demand, according to Agence France-Presse. “This is simply the North Koreans starting the negotiations early,” he said. “As far as we are concerned, there has been no indication from the government of North Korea that it has suddenly decided to change its mind.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also played down the North’s demand. “I think we shouldn’t rely on oral statements which in fact could be interpreted differently, but we need the text of the agreement itself,” Lavrov said (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 20). Pyongyang today accused Washington of plotting to disarm North Korea before attacking it with nuclear weapons, the Associated Press reported. “The ulterior intention of the United States talking about resolving the nuclear issue under the signboard of the six-party talks is as clear as daylight,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary. “In a word, it intends to disarm and crush us to death with nuclear weapons,” it said (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/Baltimore Sun, Sept. 21). Rodong added that North Korea was prepared to retaliate in the wake of a nuclear strike, AFP reported. Pyongyang is ready to “decisively control a pre-emptive nuclear attack with a strong retaliatory blow even if the U.S. commits it any moment,” it said (Agence France-Presse II/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 21). North Korea’s demand for a reactor less than a day after it signed a multilateral nuclear deal fits Pyongyang’s pattern of breaking agreements, some analysts said. The North Koreans are known for using heated rhetoric to achieve their ends, according to AFP. Pyongyang’s most severe critics said it is always looking for an out to any agreement. “It goes without saying that we should never trust North Korea to keep its side of the bargain,” the Nautilus Institute said in a 2003 report. They “make a deal, break the deal, then demand a new deal for more, issuing threats until you get what you want,” Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute said in a commentary. Other experts said North Korea tends to interpret agreements narrowly. Pyongyang does keep agreements, according to Scott Snyder, senior associate of the Asia Foundation, but “obligations are interpreted by the North Korean side as narrowly as possible ... adhering to the letter of the law and otherwise challenging both the spirit and terms of implementation of specific agreements” (Agence France-Presse III/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 21).
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