Threat Assessment:  IAEA Director Lashes Nuclear Weapon States

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The world’s nuclear powers have failed to live up to their 30-year pledge to work toward nuclear disarmament, the head of the global nuclear watchdog said today.

Furthermore, growing reliance by those countries on nuclear weapons has eroded the ability of international organizations to control the spread of nuclear arms and other catastrophic weapons, said Mohammed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

While not naming specific countries, ElBaradei appeared to be addressing primarily the United States, which has been widely criticized for recent activities that, some have said, raise the profile of nuclear weapons and increase the likelihood of their use.

ElBaradei’s remarks reflect the views of many countries that the five declared nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States — have been slow to reduce their nuclear stockpiles as called for by the treaty, and that such delays undermine efforts to disarm other states believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction.

ElBaradei’s speech to a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace comes as U.N. weapon inspectors are poised to return to inspect and destroy suspected weapons in Iraq, the only country ever formally found to violate the NPT (see GSN, Nov. 13).  In addition, the IAEA is closely watching a revived North Korean crisis after evidence emerged that North Korea has possibly failed to dismantle its nuclear weapons development programs and is now seeking to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs (see GSN, Nov. 6).

ElBaradei said overall disarmament is hampered by adherence to nuclear weapons as a key tenet of several countries’ security policies, including the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review, which earlier this year raised the prospect of using nuclear weapons both against non-nuclear states and in pre-emptive wars against new threats from terrorists and rogue states (see GSN, Mar. 14).

“I should note that some non-nuclear weapon states are hedging on their willingness to conclude required additional protocols to their [IAEA] safeguard agreements by pointing to the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament,” ElBaradei said (see GSN, Sept. 25).

The Bush administration has indicated plans to study whether to develop a new nuclear penetrator for deeply buried targets (see GSN, Oct. 10) and whether to lift the moratorium on underground nuclear tests in the future to assure the viability of new nuclear weapon designs (see GSN, Oct. 22).

The lack of progress in nuclear disarmament “can be traced in general to the continuing reliance on the doctrine of nuclear deterrence and the lack of an overall disarmament strategy,” ElBaradei said.

In an apparent critique of the Bush administration, he added:  “Some nuclear weapon states have reversed direction, by stressing the continuing value of nuclear weapons in defense of national security interests, including discussions of the feasibility of developing new types of nuclear weapons, and scenarios for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states.”

A major theme of the NPT, opened for signature in 1968 and now encompassing 188 parties, was to bridge the divide between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, what then-U.S. president and sponsor of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty John F. Kennedy called the nuclear “haves and have-nots.”

“A key assumption at the core of the NPT was that the asymmetry between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states would gradually disappear,” ElBaradei said.  The five nuclear weapons states that signed the treaty agreed at the time “to divest themselves of those weapons through ‘good faith’ negotiations,” he said.  All other signatories committed to “not acquire nuclear weapons, and to accept IAEA verification of all their peaceful nuclear activities, in return for access to peaceful nuclear technology,” he said.

“But the record on upholding those commitments is mixed,” ElBaradei said.  Recent activities by declared nuclear states, including the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty earlier this year, threaten to broaden the divide and in the process make it more difficult to persuade states not to seek nuclear weapons or their delivery systems (see GSN, June 13).

For example, the NPT review conference in 2000 called for an “unequivocal undertaking” by nuclear weapon states to completely eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

“But a scant two years later,” according to ElBaradei, “we have moved sharply away from those commitments, with a number of the ‘13 steps’ toward nuclear disarmament — such as ‘irreversibility,’ ‘START II, START III and the ABM Treaty,’ further ‘unilateral’ reductions in nuclear arsenals, ‘increased transparency,’ ‘further reduction of nonstrategic nuclear weapons’ and ‘regular reports’ on the implementation of Article VI of the NPT — left without concrete follow-up actions and in some cases discarded.”

The setbacks include the rejection of the CTBT by the U.S. Senate in 1999, the scrapping of the ABM Treaty, as well as failure so far to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty more than seven years after agreement was reached on a mandate, he said.  He also cited faltering progress on hammering out verification procedures for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, negotiations the United States has opposed (see related GSN story, today).

“These regressions have led to stagnation in the disarmament process and have put a damper on the hopes for further progress,” ElBaradei said.

“The ability to move forward on nuclear nonproliferation, including meaningful cuts in nuclear arsenals, will depend heavily on the nuclear powers’ ability to develop alternative security strategies that do not feature nuclear deterrence,” he added.

As for the three nuclear powers that have not signed the NPT — India, Pakistan and Israel — ElBaradei said that they should be engaged rather than isolated.  “In my view, we should not continue to treat these states only as ‘outsiders,’ but rather induce them to act as partners in the global effort to consolidate the nonproliferation regime and to make progress in nuclear disarmament.”

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North Korea:  United States Permits Oil Now, Refuses Future Deliveries

The United States will allow this month’s shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea to proceed as called for under the 1994 Agreed Framework, but it will not fund future deliveries, the White House said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 13).

The United States does not plan to demand that the tanker delivering the oil, which is en route from Singapore, reverse course, the Bush administration said.  That ship is only a few days away from its destination, officials said.

After this delivery, however, the United States will no longer fund the monthly fuel oil shipments, which North Korea agreed to take in exchange for freezing any nuclear weapons efforts, the White House said.  The move is in response to recent suspicions that Pyongyang is once again trying to develop nuclear weapons.

The United States plans to present its argument against future oil shipments during a meeting in New York today of the board of the international Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which oversees the framework, according to the New York Times.  While the KEDO board also includes representatives from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, it is the United States that funds the bulk of the oil shipments, the Times reported.

KEDO does not have the necessary funds to pay for the December oil shipment, officials said.  South Korea or Japan could choose to pay for it, but both countries are expected to adopt the U.S. position, at least for the time being, U.S and Asian diplomats said.

“One of our goals here has been to present North Korea with a united front,” a senior Bush administration official said.  “We are interested in maintaining that consensus when we come out of that meeting” (James Dao, New York Times, Nov. 14).

North Korean Response

A decision by KEDO to end future oil deliveries might prompt North Korea to evict international nuclear inspectors, raising concerns that Pyongyang might expand its suspected nuclear weapons program, analysts and diplomats said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has monitored North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plants and its hundreds of on-site spent-fuel containers since 1994, the Washington Post reported.  Diplomats and analysts are concerned that without the IAEA inspections, however, the spent fuel could be used for weapons, the Post reported.

“If North Korea decides they want to really rattle sabers, they could expel the IAEA and threaten to reprocess the fuel.  That would be a very serious situation,” said Kenneth Quinones, who helped set up the inspection program in 1994.

After conducting some repairs to the Yongbyon plant, in six to eight months North Korea could begin reprocessing stored spent fuel into enough plutonium for weapons. 

“North Korea can quickly un-can the stored fuel rods to begin extracting plutonium, allowing it to build up a nuclear force far more quickly than would be possible through uranium enrichment,” said Timothy Savage, a visiting fellow at Kyungnam University in Seoul.

With a large amount of repairs, North Korea could even choose to restart the Yongbyon reactor to produce more spent fuel, according to the Post.

North Korea might also choose to expel 1,400 South Korean and Uzbek KEDO workers currently constructing a light-water nuclear reactor as called for under the Agreed Framework, the Post reported (see GSN, Sept. 13).

“If they feel the United States is going to end the fuel shipments, they would most likely respond by evicting KEDO,” Quinones said.

North Korea could even escalate tensions with the United States by choosing to test-launch a long-range ballistic missile, the Post reported (see GSN, Nov. 5).  Pyongyang indicated last week that it was considering ending a self-imposed moratorium on such tests, which has been in place since 1999.

“North Korea could test-fire long-range missiles off the coast of Washington or New York in the Atlantic Ocean, and it would be legal under international law, said Kim Myong Chol, former editor of the People’s Korea magazine in Tokyo, which often reflects North Korean positions.  “It all depends on the American response.  We’re just at the beginning of a crisis.  We’re on a threshold,” Kim added (Doug Struck, Washington Post, Nov. 14).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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United States:  New Nuclear Weapons Might Not Be Worth the Tradeoff

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

Developing nuclear weapons to destroy deeply buried weapons of mass destruction might not provide a significant military advantage to the United States and could be an “irreversible step that would weaken nonproliferation regimes,” says a report released today by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (see GSN, Oct. 10).

A small nuclear device detonated inside a facility does have the exceptional ability to take out dangerous chemical and biological agents, says the report, Fire in the Hole:  Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Options for Counterproliferation, which was written by Michael Levi, director of the Strategic Security Project at the Federation of American Scientists.  Nevertheless, the United States can still achieve its ends — destroying hard and deeply buried targets — with a more measured and accurate non-nuclear approach, the report says.

Reacting to the 2002 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review — which suggested an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon might be beneficial — Levi compared the military benefit and drawbacks of developing and potentially using small, specialized nuclear weapons.  Congress cautiously approved $15 million dollars for a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator in the 2003 defense spending bill, which would also require the Defense Department to address how the weapons would be used and whether conventional arms could achieve the same ends (see GSN, Oct. 10).

“New weapons might require nuclear testing, which would break America’s self-imposed testing moratorium and weaken international norms against the testing of nuclear weapons,” Levi wrote (see GSN, Oct. 22).  “Many argue that the military advantages to be gained by building new nuclear weapons outweigh these liabilities,” he added.

Nuclear vs. Conventional Weapons

The destructive power of large nuclear weapons is “unmatched by even the most advanced non-nuclear weapons,” the report says.  Conventional weapons, however, may match the effectiveness of smaller nuclear weapons, it says.

Many underground facilities cannot be destroyed by current or prospective nuclear weapons, either because a weapon detonated near an urban center would cause widespread civilian deaths or because the radiation from a nuclear explosion in an isolated area could hinder the movement of friendly troops, according to the report.

Nuclear weapons can neutralize chemical and biological weapons even if they are detonated outside some facilities, the report says.  It is unclear, however, whether civilians in the area would suffer less from nuclear fallout or from biological and chemical agents that escape a facility.

Conventional weapons can effectively destroy biological agents, but might not be as effective against tougher chemical agents, according to the report.  A small nuclear device that explodes within a facility has “unique capabilities for simultaneous neutralization of chemical and biological agents” and at the same time can “avoid spreading substantial nuclear fallout,” the report says.

Increase Effectiveness of Conventional Weapons

Conventional weapons become dramatically more effective with a focus on increased intelligence, and nuclear weapons become much less effective without it, the report says.

“Even the most powerful nuclear weapons cannot destroy bunkers tunneled under just 400 meters of granite,” the report says.  “A focus on intelligence, particularly in identifying targets and localizing their entrances, will be more difficult to counter,” it adds.

Levi also noted that what nuclear weapons can destroy in one strike, conventional weapons can wipe out with many air attacks — a luxury that U.S. air superiority allows.  He faulted the goal of finding a weapon to defeat chemical and biological weapons simultaneously.

“Because chemical weapons are much more difficult to destroy than biological agents, the requirement for a universal weapon undermines the pursuit of approaches that might succeed against biological agents,” Levi wrote.  The United States should focus on destroying biological agents such as smallpox because the “potential for collateral damage from dispersal of chemical weapons is much lower than that from biological weapons,” he added.

The report cautions that conventional weapons can be critically evaluated in war games and exercises, but nuclear weapons are only supported based on their theoretical benefits.

“The valuable taboo against the use of nuclear weapons perversely shields these weapons from the same examination during their development that all other weapons receive,” the report says.  “If civilian leaders decide to consider pursuit of new nuclear weapons, uniformed military must subject these weapons concepts to the same scrutiny they apply to other weapons systems,” it says.

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Pakistan:  United States Declines to Punish Possible North Korea Transfers

The United States will not impose sanctions on Pakistan over suspected transfers of nuclear technology to North Korea, the Bush administration said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 13).

Under U.S. law, countries found to have transferred nuclear technologies without international safeguards can face economic and military sanctions.  Such sanctions were imposed on Pakistan in 1979, but lifted last year due to Pakistan’s assistance in the U.S. war on terrorism, according to United Press International.

The president is allowed to waive sanctions if such a move is believed to be in the best interests of U.S. national security, according to UPI.  The United States plans to issue such waivers if a determination is made that would trigger the sanctions in regard to any Pakistani nuclear transfers to North Korea made prior to last month, when Islamabad assured Secretary of State Colin Powell that such assistance had ended, State spokesman Richard Boucher said (see GSN, Oct. 21).

“I think we’ll follow the laws as appropriate, including using any particular waivers that might exist,” Boucher said (Iqbal/Waterman, United Press International, Nov. 13).

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India:  Joint Panel Seeks to Accelerate U.S. Technology Transfers

The United States and India plan to create a joint panel to encourage the sale of complex U.S. technology — including material that can be used for nuclear and space programs — to the South Asian state, the two countries said yesterday (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2001).

“The group would expeditiously work toward developing a new statement of principles governing bilateral cooperation in high-technology trade … including ways to increase trade in dual use goods and technologies,” the countries said in a joint statement.

Officials agreed to the panel after two days of discussions between U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce Kenneth Juster and Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal.  Transfer of advanced U.S. technologies to India was banned until last year, when India became one of the first countries to support the U.S. war on terrorism (Reuters/CNN.com, Nov. 14).

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North Korea I:  Pakistan Probably Gave Nuclear Aid Recently, Officials Say

The Bush administration has evidence that Pakistan aided North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program as recently as three months ago, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Oct. 21).

Publicly, the United States has said that while Pakistan aided North Korea’s nuclear weapons efforts in the past, it had cut off assistance after the Sept. 11 attacks.  The White House believes, however, that Pakistan continued to exchange technical nuclear information, and possibly materials, in exchange for missile components until this summer, White House and congressional sources said.

White House officials refused to comment on the evidence.

“Let’s put it this way:  There were still shenanigans going on three months ago,” a Bush administration official said.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has provided assurances that he is ending all suspicious trade with North Korea, and U.S. officials believe he wants to stop the nuclear aid, according to the Post.  The U.S. officials said they question, however, how much control Musharraf has over the Pakistani entities doing business with Pyongyang.

“In the end, we may find he is only partially truthful,” an official said.

Pakistan’s suspected involvement in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program could put the Bush administration, which considers Islamabad an ally, in a difficult position, the Post reported.  Under U.S. law, if the president determines that a country has provided nuclear enrichment equipment, materials or technologies without international safeguards, the United States must impose sanctions, accordin to the Post.  The United States imposed such sanctions on Pakistan in 1979, but U.S. President George W. Bush waived them last year after Pakistan agreed to aid the war on terrorism (see GSN, Oct. 30, 2001).

Instead of calling on Pakistan to provide full information on its transactions with North Korea, U.S. officials said they have noted the new evidence, according to the Post.  They believe Pakistan understands that future violations will not be tolerated, the Post reported.

It will be difficult for the United States to understand the scope of North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons program without knowing what kind of aid Pakistan might have provided, several experts said.

“We have asked North Korea to verifiably dismantle its nuclear enrichment program,” said Robert Einhorn, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation in the Clinton and Bush administrations.  “How will we know if North Korea has done that unless we know precisely what Pakistan has transferred to North Korea?” he added (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Nov. 13).

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North Korea II:  Tanker Awaits KEDO Meeting Tomorrow

International officials are expected to decide tomorrow whether to allow a tanker traveling from Singapore to deliver its oil shipment to North Korea as called for under the 1994 Agreed Framework (see GSN, Nov. 12).

In the meantime, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which oversees international energy assistance to North Korea, has ordered the Sun River, a naval tanker loaded with 47,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, to travel at slower speeds, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“The ship is sailing at a very slow speed in the international sea awaiting further instructions,” Koo Byong-sam, a Seoul-based KEDO official said yesterday.

Representatives from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union are expected to decide on the fuel shipment during a meeting tomorrow in New York.  The United States funds the oil shipments while South Korea and Japan fund the construction of two light-water nuclear reactors, which KEDO agreed to build in exchange for a freeze on North Korean nuclear activities.  The three countries are expected to have an equal say at tomorrow’s meeting, the Times reported.

“There is no vote,” said South Korea’s KEDO representative Chang Sun-sup.  “We will make a decision by consensus,” Chang said.

South Korean officials said they expect the United States to ultimately permit this month’s fuel oil shipment to be delivered, postponing a decision on whether to continue further energy assistance for at least another month.  If the oil is not delivered, however, Pyongyang could interpret the move as a provocation, said Lee Jong-seok, a North Korean specialist at the South Korean Sejong Institute.

“If the ship is stopped, it will cause huge damage.  We are entering winter, and the North Koreans need the oil desperately,” Lee said.  “They will interpret the decision as meaning that the United States is bent on destroying North Korea.  It will escalate the risk of military confrontation,” he added (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 13).

North Korean Threats

North Korea has threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to expel international nuclear inspectors if the United States decides to end the fuel oil shipments, diplomatic sources close to Pyongyang said.

North Korea “would prepare to ditch the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if oil shipments were halted,” said one source.  “If the delivery of fuel oil was halted then Pyongyang would most likely remove or expel International Atomic Energy Agency monitors from the nuclear complex at Yongbyon,” the source added (Khang Hyun-sung, South China Morning Post, Nov. 13).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

NPT Text

States Parties to the NPT (U.N.)

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International Response:  IAEA Chief Discusses Iraq, North Korea, Nuclear Terrorism

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

UNITED NATIONS — International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei yesterday said that nuclear nonproliferation concerns are broader than Iraq and North Korea, and include nuclear terrorism and the need to secure nuclear weapon-grade materials.

Speaking to the U.N. General Assembly as it took up the IAEA’s annual report, ElBaradei said the new inspection regime for Iraq — adopted Friday when the Security Council approved Resolution 1441 — depends on “five interrelated prerequisites” (see GSN, Nov. 8).  These include “full and explicit authority for inspection, with immediate and unfettered access to any location or site in Iraq;” access to all sources of information, from Iraq and other countries; “unified and full support” from the Security Council; “the preservation of integrity and impartiality” of inspections; and “active cooperation from Iraq.”

ElBaradei said that before the inspections ended in late 1998, the IAEA “had successfully thwarted Iraq’s efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program by destroying, removing or rendering harmless all of Iraq’s facilities … relevant to nuclear weapons production.”  Since the inspectors left, he said, “We have continued to use satellite monitoring and conduct other analytical work.  However, no remote analysis can enable us to reach conclusions without thorough on-site inspections.”

No Progress on Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone

Not only Iraq, but the whole of the Middle East is on the IAEA’s agenda.  ElBaradei said the agency’s General Conference gave him the mandate to consult with nations in the region “on the application of full-scope safeguards to all nuclear activities in the Middle East … that would contribute to the establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone in that region” (see GSN, Sept. 25).  He added, “I regret to report that I have not been in a position to make progress in the implementation of this important mandate of direct relevance to security in the Middle East.”

The General Assembly was debating a draft resolution welcoming the IAEA’s report.  The report covers calendar year 2001 and was published in August 2002, thus it does not include the latest revelations about North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs or recent developments on weapons inspections for Iraq.

The Iraq section of the report simply says the IAEA has been “unable to implement its inspection program as mandated by [Security Council] resolutions.”  The IAEA has conducted inspections in Iraq under the more limited provisions of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — only a few sites are subject to NPT safeguards — and reported that none of the nuclear material under safeguards has been diverted (see GSN, Jan. 31).  NPT inspections “do not serve as a substitute for the verification activities required by the relevant resolutions of the Security Council, nor do they provide the assurances sought by the council,” the report says.

On North Korea, the report says the IAEA is “unable to verify the correctness and completeness” of North Korea’s declarations of its stock of weapons-grade nuclear materials, therefore the country “remains in noncompliance with its safeguards agreement.”  ElBaradei added, “Our estimation is that the work required to verify the correctness and completeness of [North Korea’s] declaration could take up to three or four years.”

Nuclear Terrorism

ElBaradei said his agency has stepped up efforts to counter nuclear terrorism.  After Sept. 11, he said, ”the IAEA moved swiftly to conduct a thorough review of its programs related to preventing acts of nuclear and radiological terrorism, and to develop a comprehensive plan for upgrading nuclear security worldwide.”  The plan includes physical protection of material and facilities and “the detection of malicious activities involving nuclear and other radioactive materials, such as illicit trafficking across borders.”  The report details the agency’s effort to assist states in securing nuclear material against theft and, failing that, setting up a system to detect nuclear material being taken illegally across international borders (see GSN, Mar. 20).

Monitoring the weapons-capable programs of other countries is also part of the IAEA mandate.  After Iraqi evasions came to light in the mid-1990s, “the international community committed itself to provide assurance not only that declared nuclear material has not been diverted for nonpeaceful purposes, but equally important, that no undeclared nuclear material or activities exist,” said ElBaradei. 

The broader authority is in new safeguard agreements the agency concludes with the 188 parties to the NPT.  However, he said, only 28 such agreements have entered into force (see GSN, Sept. 25).  “This is clearly not a satisfactory situation … The agency can only provide the required assurances if we are given the corresponding authority,” he added.

Voting 138-1, the General Assembly adopted the resolution endorsing the report.  North Korea voted against the resolution, and Angola and Vietnam abstained.  Iraq cannot vote in the assembly because it is more than two years behind in its dues to the United Nations.  The resolution asks governments to enter into safeguards agreements on their nuclear weapons-capable facilities with the IAEA, to improve nuclear safety, to fully fund the IAEA and commends the agency’s efforts to monitor the Iraq’s and North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.

It has been a routine matter over the last several years for Iraq and North Korea to object to how they are portrayed in the report and the resolution.  In recent years, when the resolution accepting the report has been debated, Iraq wanted the resolution changed to acknowledge its cooperation with the agency.  Rather than vote down the amendments, opponents of the Iraqi proposals vote not to take action on them.

This year, the paragraph on Iraq noted “the increasing concern” that inspectors have been out of the country for nearly four years and that the longer they are out, “the more difficult it will be to re-establish a level of knowledge of the status of Iraq’s nuclear-related assets.”  The paragraph also notes Iraq’s September decision to readmit inspectors.  Iraq wanted to replace that wording with its own that would welcome the September decision to allow the return of inspectors “without conditions” and quoted Secretary General Kofi Annan’s remark at the time that the move was “the indispensable first step towards an assurance that Iraq” has no weapons of mass destruction and “towards a comprehensive solution that includes the suspension and eventual ending of the sanctions.”  Iraq’s representative, Mohammad Salman, called this a “factual text” that provided “needed balance.”  The sponsors of the resolution, led by Kuwait, the current chair of the IAEA’s Board of Governors, won on a vote not to consider the amendment, 86-11, with 26 abstentions.

The IAEA report also covers nuclear power, safe disposal of radioactive waste and the use of nuclear technology in agriculture and medicine.

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North Korea:  United States Must Abide by Agreed Framework, East Asian Diplomats Say

The United States’ two main East Asian allies, Japan and South Korea, yesterday increased pressure on Washington to continue to provide energy assistance to North Korea as agreed to under the 1994 Agreed Framework (see GSN, Nov. 6).

During a meeting in Seoul, Japanese and South Korean Foreign Ministers Yoriko Kawaguchi and Choi Sung-hong agreed that the framework has been “effective” in slowing North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to the Financial Times.  The officials also agreed that the framework has effectively prevented North Korea from developing plutonium-based weapons, and that a way must be found to prevent enriched uranium weapons, a Japanese official said.

Critics of the framework have said that shipments of fuel oil to North Korea and the planned construction of two light-water nuclear reactors — all of which has been provided to North Korea under the framework in exchange for a freeze on any nuclear development — should be stopped because of suspicions that Pyongyang has restarted its weapons program.

Japan and South Korea have claimed, however, that stopping energy assistance to North Korea would seriously damage U.S.-North Korean relations and threaten the collapse of the North Korean economy, according to the Times.  The United States, South Korea and Japan are expected to make a decision on the future implementation of the framework during a meeting scheduled for Thursday in New York (Ward/Ibison, Financial Times, Nov. 12).

China

Meanwhile, China today also called on the United States to continue implementing the framework (see GSN, Nov. 8).

“It is our view that the parties concerned should continue earnestly to implement the framework document,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said.

The two countries should attempt to resolve concerns over the nuclear issue through dialogue, Kong said.

“The nuclear question on the Korean peninsula is of major concern,” he said.  “We hold that dialogue, consultations and peaceful means should be resorted to for the settlement of the issue,” he added.

The framework has had a positive impact on U.S.-North Korean relations, Kong said.

“We believe that such a document [the framework] has played an important role in relaxing the tensions between the two parties,” he said.  “It has not come easily,” he added.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly has arrived in Beijing for a meeting tomorrow with Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Wang Yi to discuss North Korea and other issues, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse, Nov. 12).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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North Korea:  Bush in No Hurry to Resolve Nuclear Weapons Crisis

By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The United States has few quick diplomatic solutions to deal with the latest North Korean nuclear crisis and the Bush administration is likely to put off resolving it at least until next year, according to U.S. officials and experts.  In the meantime, Washington will seek to further isolate the North Korean regime and force its hand, they predicted (see GSN, Nov. 6).

U.S. allies in the region and critics of the Bush approach, however, have warned that a policy that is too confrontational and chooses isolation over engagement is likely to backfire, prompting Pyongyang to continue its nuclear developments and in the process threaten stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region.

U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith held meetings with counterparts in South Korea and Japan this week, saying North Korea’s reported admission last month that it is seeking to enrich uranium does not lend itself to simple diplomacy.

“This is an authentically difficult subject,” Feith told reporters in Seoul Wednesday.  “It is not a problem that presents an easy and obvious solution.  There are debates about the best way to proceed and how to make diplomacy effective.”

A Range of Options

A variety of proposals have been floated in recent weeks for how to respond to North Korea’s revelations, which came when Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted North Korean officials with new U.S. intelligence pointing to a covert uranium enrichment program, according to published reports (see GSN, Oct. 17).

Some are calling for isolating the regime entirely — including freezing diplomatic talks, a 1994 nuclear agreement and all but critical humanitarian aid — to force it to disarm.  South Korean and Japanese officials, however, have warned the Bush administration that doing so could be a dangerous move given North Korea’s unpredictability.  Japan, seeking to keep dialogue open with the North, went ahead with normalization talks this week.

Others support immediate negotiations with Pyongyang to resolve not only the nuclear issue but also other long-standing disagreements dating back to the Korean War.  Still others are calling for a combination of negotiation, diplomatic pressure and the threat of credible military force to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear program once and for all in return for Western aid and acceptance.

According to U.S. officials and a variety of North Korea experts, however, the Bush administration is unlikely to seek a resolution in the coming months, as it concentrates on a possible military campaign in Iraq and awaits scheduled January elections in South Korea in the hopes that a more conservative government will replace the administration of Kim Dae-jung and be more supportive of a confrontational policy toward the North.

U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday reiterated his long-held view that North Korea poses a serious national security threat the United States, but indicated that Washington will play for time while it decides what it wants to do in the longer term.

“As I said from the beginning of this new war in the 21^st century, we’ll deal with each threat differently,” he told a news conference.  “Each threat requires a different type of response.  You’ve heard my strategy on Iraq.  With North Korea we’re taking a different strategy initially.”

North Korea’s Suspected  Nuclear Capabilities

One reason for the slower approach is that very little is known about the North Korean uranium enrichment program, according to U.S. officials, including how advanced it is or where North Korea’s covert facilities are located inside the largely closed society.  

“There is much about the program that we don’t know,” Feith said.  “I cannot answer with precision exactly what they have accomplished with their uranium enrichment program to date.”

Intelligence officials assert that while they lack conclusive evidence, they believe it is unlikely that the uranium enrichment effort has reached a level at which the North Koreans have produced nuclear weapons using the enrichment method.

“It takes a very long time to produce a weapon based on that system,” said a U.S. intelligence official.  “And there would be more fingerprints.”

U.S. intelligence, which has long suspected North Korea of secretly developing nuclear weapons, discovered in August of this year that North Korea was attempting to acquire large quantities of high-strength aluminum, which could be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium.  Meanwhile, construction activity appearing to be related to a uranium enrichment facility was also detected by U.S. intelligence agencies, officials said.

“The fact that the North Koreans are seeking a production-scale capability to produce weapons-grade uranium is a cause of grave concern to us, to the states of the region, and to the world as a whole,” Undersecretary of State John Bolton said last week.

The new intelligence, combined with Kelly’s report that Pyongyang surprisingly admitted to seeking to develop nuclear weapons, pointed to a clear violation — in spirit if not in letter — of the 1994 Agreed Framework, in which North Korea agreed to forgo its plutonium production capability in return for two modern light-water nuclear power reactors.

Under the agreement, North Korea is storing spent nuclear reactor fuel rods containing enough plutonium to make up to five nuclear bombs.  Those fuel rods have been monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency under the 1994 agreement.  This material is in addition to a plutonium stockpile North Korea had previously separated from spent fuel.

“North Korea has produced enough plutonium for at least one, and possibly two, nuclear weapons,” Bolton said, not including the material now in storage.  Others, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have said that North Korea already has manufactured two nuclear bombs with the material not covered by the 1994 agreement.

“Ours is very much keeping with the Rumsfeld view,” said a U.S. intelligence official.  In other words, Pyongyang is believed to already have at least two plutonium-based nuclear weapons.  Moreover, without a diplomatic solution to the current standoff, it could build more with the additional material it has, while also proceeding with its uranium enrichment program, the official said.

Data Collection Intensifying

Meanwhile, the new revelations about uranium enrichment have spurred U.S. intelligence agencies and others to increase efforts to collect information about North Korea’s efforts and intentions.

An estimated 200 U.S. reconnaissance flights were flown over North Korea last month, 20 more than in September, according to North Korea’s government-run news services.  A variety of aircraft are being utilized, including U-2s, RC-135s, E-3s and the RC-12, the reports said.

Other information has also contributed to the U.S. monitoring of the North’s activities.  For example, satellite images taken by the private firm Space Imaging in October of 2000, released this week, shows a sprawling group of buildings surrounding the entrance to a large underground facility in the Myohyang Mountains. 

South Korea’s Atomic Energy Institute has concluded the complex houses an underground nuclear reactor, a reprocessing facility, a storage facility and a high explosive test site, according to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  U.S. officials, however, doubt that assessment, according to a Nov. 1 report by InsideDefense.com.

Nuclear Negotiation

Despite the covert nature of the program, many North Korea watchers believe Pyongyang’s reported admission was an attempt to bring the United States — which has labeled it a member of the “axis of evil” — and its regional allies to the bargaining table for one last effort to resolve their long-standing differences.

“I think they would like the U.S. to give them some assurances that we do not intend to blow them out of the water,” said Donald Gregg, former U.S. ambassador to South Korea.  Gregg returned this week from North Korea, where he met with Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok.

“The danger has increased but the opportunity is still there if we are willing and able to take it,” Gregg added.  “Talking and discussion is the only way out of what is a very delicate situation at the moment.”

Others say those negotiations should build on the 1994 agreement.  “I think the main point is that we were able to freeze the operation of the plutonium-producing reactor and put the fuel rods in storage and they have been under inspection,” said Selig Harrison, a North Korea expert at the Center for International Policy.  “They have enough to make five more bombs.  These fuel rods are its card.”

Preventing North Korea from using those fuel rods should be paramount, Harrison believes.  “What is important that they don’t feel pushed into in a corner and will use those fuel rods,” he added. “Japan and South Korea are saying ‘don’t let the agreement lapse,’” Harrison said.

The Bush administration, however, has so far ruled out negotiations until North Korea opens the uranium enrichment program to international scrutiny and dismantles it.

“We’re happy to undertake the negotiations, but first North Korea has to dismantle, and do so rather promptly, this program that they have, which is in clear violation of the previous agreements we’ve had in some three other international agreements,” Kelly said this week.  “This is not an unsolvable problem but it is clearly one that there’s really nothing to negotiate, at least at this time.”

Meanwhile, the Bush administration has all but declared the 1994 agreement dead.  “It’s going to be something that’s going to be very difficult for us to continue,” Kelly said. 

Nuclear Isolation

Other experts agree with the Bush administration and say that the 1994 agreement is a failure and warn against any further concessions to Pyongyang.

“First, our continued payment of nuclear blackmail has got to stop,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. 

“Our diplomats have all but turned North Korea’s nuclear cheating into a recreational diplomatic drug,” he said.  “Breaking the habit won’t be easy, but continuing it is a one-way ticket to nuclear chaos.  It will not only increase proliferators’ contempt for U.S. and allied pleas for restraint, it will teach the world that a tyrannical state that succeeds in acquiring nuclear weapons will then get its way,” he said.

Sokolski is calling for a complete withdrawal by the United States from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which, along with South Korea, Japan and the European Union, oversees the 1994 agreement.

“At a minimum, the United States and its allies have to end their transfer of nuclear technology and fuel oil to Pyongyang,” Sokolski said.  “We must also figure out some way to penalize Kim Jong Il’s regime for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  Certainly, North Korea is not going to self-disarm,” he added.

The U.S. negotiators of the 1994 agreement partially agree.  “We should, first, persuade out allies to suspend economic and political engagement with the North, except for vital food aid,” wrote Anthony Lake, former national security adviser, and Robert Gallucci, former ambassador-at-large, in Wednesday’s Washington Post.

“Second, we should suspend our own performance under the Agreed Framework until the North shows us the destruction of its uranium enrichment facilities,” they said.

Unlike Sokolski, however, they believe the 1994 agreement, which in part successfully addressed North Korea’s plutonium, should be salvaged.  “Some changes to the agreement are needed in light of the North’s clandestine activities:  immediate initiation of full-scope inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency; prompt removal of the stored spent fuel out of North Korea; and agreement by the North to accept any future requests from the IAEA for special inspections.”

The threat of force is also necessary, they said.  “A powerful military reaction to any North Korean provocation should be on the table, too, as was the case in 1994, while also reserving the possibility of a pre-emptive strike.”  However,  “an ideological disdain for negotiating with our adversaries seldom serves our interests, and in this case could be highly dangerous,” Lake and Gallucci said.

Harrison agreed, saying, “It is critically important for the United States to pursue a dialogue with Pyongyang to keep the key provisions of the 1994 agreement in force, while renegotiating the rest of the accord to settle the nuclear issue once and for all.”

Biding Time

Whatever diplomatic or military approach Washington ultimately chooses, the Bush administration will likely bide its time, according to knowledgeable sources.

“There are lots of good reasons to resolve this,” said Joshua Handler, a Princeton University nuclear expert.  “But you have to appreciate the conservatives in each country, the United States and North Korea, have little incentive to change things.”

“The White House wants some sort of punitive approach,” Harrison added.  “At the moment, the Bush administration will be stalling until January, hoping to get a more conservative government in South Korea.  And they don’t want North Korea to take away from Iraq.”

Handler added: “My impression is that the Pentagon and the national security community never thought the Korean standoff was going to end.  If we have a breakthrough it will have significant implications,” for missile defense, for U.S. military force structure and a variety of other strategic factors, he said.  The lack of urgency in resolving the crisis, he said, is understandable in such a context.

Events to closely watch, experts say, include the KEDO meeting next week, at which board members will decide whether to continue shipments of fuel oil to North Korea, as called for by the 1994 agreement.  A new shipment left Singapore Tuesday, headed to North Korea and takes an estimated 10 to 12 days to arrive (see GSN, Nov. 5).

“There’s a board meeting next Monday that’s going to decide whether that one goes ahead,” Kelly said.  Feith, in Japan today, discussed cutting off the shipments and halting construction of the two U.S.-built nuclear power plants, as a way to pressure Pyongyang.

At the same time, North Korea this week warned that if relations are not normalized with Japan soon, it may lift its moratorium on live missile tests. Should Pyongyang make such a move, the region would find itself in further turmoil, experts said (see GSN, Nov. 5).

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