North Korea I:  KEDO Suspends Fuel Oil Shipments

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization decided yesterday to suspend future heavy fuel oil shipments to North Korea beginning next month (see GSN, Nov. 14).

KEDO oversees international energy assistance to North Korea, which Pyongyang has accepted in exchange for a freeze on any nuclear activities under the 1994 Agreed Framework.

“Future shipments will depend on North Korea’s concrete and credible actions to dismantle completely its highly enriched uranium program,” the KEDO executive board, consisting of the United States, European Union, South Korea and Japan, said in a press statement released after a meeting in New York.

The KEDO executive board again condemned North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons efforts, which it said violates Pyongyang’s international obligations under several agreements, and called on North Korea to “eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a visible and verifiable manner” (see related GSN story, today).

“North Korea’s future relations and interaction with KEDO and the members of its executive board hinge on the complete and permanent elimination of its nuclear weapons program,” the board said (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization release, Nov. 14).

For further information, see:

Agreed Framework Text

KEDO

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North Korea II:  Pyongyang Never Admitted Nuclear Program, Expert Says

By Anne Marie Pecha
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — North Korea apparently never explicitly admitted to the United States last month that it has any nuclear program, according to an expert who recently spoke with Pyongyang officials (see GSN, Nov. 13).

Reacting to what they perceived as abrupt accusations from U.S. special envoy James Kelly, the officials said only that North Korea has a right to possess nuclear weapons, said Don Oberdorfer, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (see GSN, Nov. 6).  Oberdorfer — who visited North Korea earlier this month with Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea — spoke at a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  His remarks echoed a Washington Post commentary that he wrote Nov. 10.

The United States has interpreted North Korea’s remarks to be an admission that the country does maintain a nuclear program, U.S. officials said last month (see GSN, Oct. 17).

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for verifying North Korea’s compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, has been more cautious.

“We have asked the D.P.R.K. to confirm these reports,” IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the conference yesterday.

“There’s been a lot of speculation as to what they said,” Oberdorfer said of North Korea.  “I asked [First Deputy Foreign Minister] Kang Sok Ju — who is the one who delivered the news to Kelly of their position — what exactly did you tell Assistant Secretary Kelly?”

Kang pointed out a particular paragraph in an Oct. 25 statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry, according to Oberdorfer.  “He said that in that statement it states exactly what he told Kelly,” Oberdorfer said.

According to the statement, North Korea asserted its right to possess nuclear weapons, but it neither admitted nor denied possessing them (see GSN, Oct. 25).

“The D.P.R.K. made itself very clear to the special envoy of the U.S. president that the D.P.R.K. was entitled to possess not only nuclear weapon [sic] but any type of weapon more powerful than that so as to defend its sovereignty and right to existence from the ever-growing nuclear threat by the U.S.,” says the key paragraph, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

This latest controversy originated when U.S. diplomats accused North Korea of having started a uranium enrichment program during the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons, according to Oberdorfer.

“The officials never denied seeking to enrich uranium in secret facilities, but portrayed their actions as a response to the Bush administration’s hostility,” he wrote in the commentary.

Oberdorfer said he also believes that Pyongyang would now readily give up any secret nuclear efforts if it felt that it could do so peacefully.

“I think they’re quite willing to give up this program,” he said yesterday.  “I think they have the program.  We know they have it.  I think that’s why they made the statement that they [made],” he added.

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Threat Assessment:  Asian Nuclear Policy Dependent on U.S. Moves

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A variety of external and domestic pressures could push South Korea, Japan or Taiwan to pursue nuclear weapons, but U.S. actions in the region and worldwide could have the largest consequences, a panel of experts said today.

While regional rivalries make Asian countries susceptible to reconsidering their original non-nuclear decisions, these states are not close to making that decision, several U.S. experts said during a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“I don’t think there is any reason for immediate alarm. I don’t think that this is an issue that should animate all aspects of academic inquiry.  But I do think that a little bit more discussion and inquiry about the factors that might lead to this kind of re-evaluation should be at a higher priority within the United States government,” said Kurt Campbell, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy assistant defense secretary for Asia and the Pacific.  One of the significant successes of U.S. foreign policy has been the ability to prevent countries from acquiring nuclear weapons, he said.

“Most countries in Asia, particularly Japan, much of their identity on nuclear and indeed on defense issues is animated by their relationship with the United States and what they perceive to be as U.S. policy,” Campbell said.

Campbell presented a list of factors that could push non-nuclear Asian countries to develop nuclear weapons, including a cascading effect after one country develops a nuclear device, extended economic depression, the decline of the nuclear taboo and regional imbalances in conventional forces.  The influence of the United States, however, is the single most important factor in the nuclear debate within Asian countries, he said.

“There are concerns about what some countries feel are new strategic dimensions and directions in the national security document issued in September,” Campbell said.  The power that Washington wields in the region must be treated carefully, he said.

“Even modest or minor changes, or even the perception of changes in Washington can have a rippling effect and tremendous unintended consequences.  Particularly among nations who, in a fundamental way, have decided to put [their] security in the hands of the United States,” he added.

Japan and Taiwan

Japan will most likely not develop a nuclear weapons program while it is under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, according to panel member Benjamin Self, a senior associate at the Henry L. Stimson Center who works on Japanese defense issues.

“It makes no strategic sense,” Self said.  Regional nations “are more afraid of a Japanese nuclear weapon than the Japanese want one,” he added.

Taiwan is also influenced by U.S. policy, according to Self.

U.S. officials have made it clear to Taiwanese officials that “the U.S. stands by Taiwan but there are limits on what we allow … where we would like Taiwan to move,” he said.

These countries must internalize nonproliferation goals if those efforts are to truly succeed, said Leonard Spector, deputy director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.  Weapons control regimes that are maintained only by external influences are not well adhered to, he said.

The panelists agreed, however, that every U.S. move had repercussions in the region.

“At this particular juncture there is so much interest and concern about the future directions of American power that I think that anxiety would be at the top,” Campbell said.

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U.S. Testing:  Nonproliferation Experts Urge U.S. to Maintain Testing Moratorium

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Some U.S. officials want to end the moratorium on nuclear testing in the United States, but several U.S. experts said yesterday there is little to gain from nuclear testing and much to lose (see GSN, Oct. 22).

A panel of experts discussed the future of the nuclear testing moratorium yesterday during a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Republican legislators attempted to include language in the 2003 defense authorization bill that would have allowed the design and initial development of a new nuclear device under five kilotons, according to Frank von Hippel, chairman of the Federation of American Scientists and a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton University (see GSN, Oct. 10).  The language was removed before the bill was passed and sent to President George W. Bush this week, von Hippel said (see GSN, Nov. 14).

U.S. officials have also said that the moratorium — which marked its 10^th year last month — does not allow the United States to properly maintain its nuclear stockpile (see GSN, March 22).

“Lots of people want it to be dropped,” von Hippel said.

Other experts questioned the benefits that would accompany renewed U.S. nuclear testing.

“Nuclear testing will not serve to increase confidence in the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons,” said Richard Garwin, of the Council for Foreign Relations and Columbia University.

“Both sides of this debate over new nuclear weapons need to look at it in a fresh way,” said Michael Levi, director of the Strategic Security Project at the Federation of American Scientists and author of a recently released report on the subject, Fire in the Hole:  Nuclear and Non-Nuclear Options for Counterproliferation (see GSN, Nov. 14).

New nuclear weapons would not necessarily provide military benefits, Levi said, drawing a distinction between “usable” and “useful” weapons.  While nuclear testing would cross an important threshold, opponents of new nuclear weapons should not automatically assume that a new device undermines nonproliferation, Levi said.  The proposed robust nuclear earth penetrator would not require nuclear testing, according to Levi (see GSN, Oct. 10).

“I think there are orthodoxies on both sides that may be preventing us from moving forward to a pragmatic compromised solution,” he said.

Other panelists, however, said that the future of nuclear weapons could be at stake in this debate.

Liberals and conservatives hotly debate whether to maintain the moratorium.  “On both sides it is perceived as the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons,” von Hippel said.  While a continued testing moratorium would not signify the technological death of nuclear weapons, it might be a sign of the end of nuclear weapons in the political arena.  Von Hippel made it clear which outcome he preferred.

“We have nuclear weapons on a slippery slope as long as we can maintain the moratorium,” he said.

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Pakistan:  Islamabad Denies Providing Nuclear Aid to North Korea

Pakistan yesterday denied U.S. media reports indicating that it had provided nuclear assistance to North Korea as recently as three months ago (see GSN, Nov. 13).

“It is [a] totally baseless, fictitious and tendentious report,” Pakistani Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said, referring to an article published this week in the Washington Post.

The Bush administration has no conclusive evidence that Pakistan has aided North Korea’s suspected nuclear weapons efforts, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday (see GSN, Nov. 14).

“That’s not to say they might not have,” however, the official said.  “I’m not saying we are convinced there is no Pakistani government involvement,” the official added (Reuters/Karachi Business Recorder, Nov. 15).

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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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