North Korea:  Details Emerge of North Korean Proposal

In last week’s talks in Beijing, North Korea offered to suspend missile tests and exports and to dismantle its nuclear development program, but only after the United States meets a long list of demands, according to a briefing given by Chinese officials to Western diplomats in Beijing yesterday (see GSN, April 28).

“The Chinese seemed to think this was a significant offer,” said one diplomat who agreed with Beijing.  “The briefing certainly gave us the impression that North Korea came to the table with a pretty significant proposal,” the diplomat added.

Pyongyang’s list of demands included the completion of light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea and full diplomatic relations with Washington and Tokyo.  After the United States completed its end of the deal, North Korea would announce its willingness to abandon its nuclear programs.

“It basically listed everything they have ever asked for,” said a senior U.S. State Department official.

China may have provided yesterday’s briefing to counter U.S. reports that last week’s meetings with U.S, North Korean and Chinese officials had been a failure, the Washington Post reported (Pomfret/Kessler, Washington Post, April 29).

North Korea also demand economic aid, in part through the United States permitting Pyongyang to participate in international financial institutions and to receive foreign investment, the Baltimore Sun reported (Mark Matthews, Baltimore Sun, April 29).

In what might be a significant concession, Pyongyang announced that it would consider multilateral talks with its regional neighbors, according to a European diplomat.  North Korea has previously insisted on face-to-face talks with the United States.  As part of the overall deal, North Korean officials reportedly offered to allow nuclear inspectors into the country, the Guardian reported (Borger/Watts, London Guardian, April 29).

U.S. officials said that North Korea’s request had also included oil shipments, food aid, security guarantees, energy assistance and economic concessions.

While administration officials also said that North Korea offered to dismantle its nuclear systems only after its demands are met, it was not clear if that included both its established plutonium weapons effort and the recently revealed uranium project.

U.S. Considers Proposal a “Nonstarter”

Both moderate and hawkish U.S. officials have rejected the North Korean proposal, the New York Times reported, but the two factions also favor continuing talks with Pyongyang, according to one hard-line official.  According to hard-line view, more talks would demonstrate North Korea’s impossible negotiating position, thereby reinforcing the idea that aggressive U.S. policies are necessary, the official said.

“There are some people in this administration who argue that there’s little point in talking to the North Koreans because they are always going to cheat,” another official said.  North Korea’s current proposal, however, is such a “nonstarter” that it behooves hard-liners to pursue negotiations and demonstrate Pyongyang’s intransigence, the official added  (Steven Weisman, New York Times, April 29).

While the overall package was considered unworkable, some officials said it could be a start and it was significant that North Korea put its nuclear program on the bargaining table, albeit at an exorbitant price.

“It’s not an airplane that’s going to fly, but it may have interesting parts,” said a State Department official (Matthews, Baltimore Sun).

Some analysts agreed that the steep price of nuclear dismantlement might be overshadowing the fact that an offer was made at all.

“The initial reports from the talks focused on the negative,” said Eric Heginbotham, the director of the Korea task force at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.  “This news at least indicates the North may still be interested in an agreement.  Of course it’s hard to tell if they are serious or not,” he added (Borger/Watts, London Guardian).

Denial

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell yesterday denied reports that North Korea had told the State Department March 31 that it was reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods but that State had withheld the information from the rest of the Bush administration.

“What we were told on the 31st was shared within the administration.  I’m not sure if everybody in the administration got it, but it isn’t relevant because it didn’t seem to be anything that was terribly new or different from what we had been told on a regular basis over the last several months.  It was not, in our judgment, anything that was particularly new or newsworthy,” Powell said (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, April 29).

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South Asia:  Telephone Call May Break Ice Between India, Pakistan

Nuclear rivals India and Pakistan appear to be making diplomatic headway after a conversation yesterday between their two prime ministers, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 25).

Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali telephoned Indian Prime Minister Atal Vajpayee “to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue,” according to Pakistan Television.

Jamali said that Pakistani officials are willing to visit India and he asked Indian officials to visit Pakistan “in the cause of peace,” according to the television report.

Vajpayee last week proposed talks between the rivals (see GSN, April 21).

Jamali “welcomed Prime Minister Vajpayee’s offer of talks with Pakistan and reiterated Pakistan’s readiness for a dialogue with India at any level,” according to a statement from Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry (Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 28).

The two men spoke for 10 minutes in their first ever conversation, according to an Indian official.

“The prime minister of Pakistan called our prime minister.  The talks lasted for 10 minutes during which the Pakistani prime minister thanked and conveyed his appreciation for the statements made by our prime minister in Srinagar and later in both houses of parliament,” an Indian spokesman said.

The leaders discussed resuming economic and cultural ties, as well as aviation links and sporting matches, according to another Indian official.

The move to resume dialogue is taking shortly before the planned visit of U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Agence France-Presse reported (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 29).

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U.S.-Russia:  United States, Russia Exchange Submarine Inspections

The United States and Russia recently inspected some of each other’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles, according to ITAR-Tass.  The inspections were conducted to check compliance with START, the 1991 strategic arms treaty that restricts each side to deploying no more than 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads (see GSN, Jan. 29)

In Russia, U.S. experts inspected Typhoon submarines at Nerpichya Bay, northeast of the Kola Peninsula on April 24-27.  The found no violations, according to ITAR-Tass (Vladislav Kuznetsov, ITAR-Tass, April 28).

In the United States, Russian specialists recently visited the U.S. submarine base at Kings Bay, Ga.  In a four-day visit, they found no treaty violations, ITAR-Tass reported (Vladislav Kuznetsov, ITAR-Tass, April 29).

Both the United States and Russia reduced their strategic weapons to below treaty limits by the treaty deadline in 2001, and Russia has slowly continued to make reductions (see GSN, Dec. 7, 2001). 

Strategic Holdings

In a treaty-mandated information exchange made public this month, Russia declared that in January it was deploying missiles and bombers capable of carrying 5,436 nuclear warheads, as counted under somewhat complicated treaty rules.  That figure is less than the 5,483 warheads Russia declared in July 2002 and the 5,518 it declared in January 2002, reflecting attrition to Russian missile forces.  Treaty rules require the parties to exchange information on their strategic holdings every six months and the United States releases the information about three months later.

As for its forces, the United States declared it had 5,974 treaty-accountable nuclear warheads as of January.  In July 2002, the United States declared 5, 927 and in January 2002 it declared 5,948 warheads.

The recent increase of 47 warheads reflects the completion of another submarine conversion in a program to replace Trident 1 missiles, on which the United States loads as many as six warheads, with Trident 2 missiles, which are armed with as many as eight warheads.  Each U.S. ballistic missile submarine can carry 24 missiles, so each conversion allows the upgraded boats to carry 48 more warheads, or a total of 192.

The recent U.S. data also reflects the loss of B-1 bomber to a crash in the Indian Ocean (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2001).  The B-1 bomber no longer has a nuclear role in the U.S. Air Force, but it remains accountable under the treaty (Greg Webb, GSN, April 29).

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NPT:  Nuclear Nonproliferation Meeting Opens With Gloomy Assessment

By Jim Wurst
Global Security Newswire

GENEVA — The 2003 meeting of the parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) opened today with numerous gloomy assessments by delegations about the state of disarmament and nonproliferation, but with disagreements over responsibility for the situation (see GSN, April 23, 2002).

New Zealand’s minister of disarmament, Marian Hobbs, said today, “The past year has been an inauspicious one for the NPT in general and for the issue of nuclear disarmament in particular.”

Hobbs was speaking on behalf of the New Agenda Coalition of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden, an ad hoc group working to persuade the nuclear powers to embark on a series of steps leading to nuclear disarmament.

“Trends have been dismal,” she added.  “Deeply unsettling events in the Middle East and in Asia surely must serve as a spur to our efforts to fully implement the NPT regime and to underscore emphatically the significance for global stability of compliance with international obligations as well as the universality of the treaty.”

Two of those trends are the withdrawal of North Korea from the NPT, which became final this month (see GSN, April 10), and the invasion of Iraq, an NPT state, which was undertaken in part because of charges that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons (see related GSN story, today).

The chairman of the meeting, Hungarian Ambassador Laszlo Molnar, opened the proceedings saying that, with the unanimous support of the parties, the nameplate of North Korea “would be held in custody” by him for the duration of the meeting — in other words, the issue would be taken off the table.

He said a debate over the country’s status would “serve as a detriment” to the work of the NPT.  Molnar later told Global Security Newswire that the meeting was “heading for a procedural quagmire” over how to deal with North Korea’s withdrawal and that he took the “unprecedented step” of taking the nameplate in custody “so as not to prejudice the outcome of the ongoing negotiations” over North Korea’s nuclear program. 

Most countries called on North Korea to reverse its decision and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspections.  Speaking for the New Agenda, Hobbs said the group “supports dialogue over confrontation.  We hope for an early, peaceful resolution of the situation, leading to [North Korea’s] return to full compliance with the treaty’s terms.” 

Argentina took a harder line, calling on the committee to condemn North Korea’s action. 

U.S. Ambassador John Wolf said the dangers to the NPT come from “irresponsible” parties to the treaty, meaning, for the most part, North Korea and Iran (see GSN, April 11).

“Iran provides perhaps the most fundamental challenge ever faced by the NPT,” he said.  Under the guise of a civilian nuclear program, Wolf said, “Iran has been conducting an alarming, clandestine program to acquire sensitive nuclear capabilities that we believe make sense only as part of a nuclear weapons program.” 

Wolf said the NPT “is dangerously out of balance.  Disarmament continues,” while nonproliferation is weakened.  “It is not credible to argue that we are not on a steady downward path towards the goals of [nuclear disarmament]. Yet, the path for nuclear proliferation is spiraling upward,” said Wolf.  “The NPT’s core purpose is preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. While the treaty has been largely successful in this respect, irresponsible NPT parties are taking action that pose fundamental challenges to the treaty,” Wolf added.

“The time for business as usual is over.  The time for resolute action is here,” he said.  “We must choose to strengthen our political commitment to the NPT and build stronger barriers against those who try to violate the treaty’s fundamental obligations.” 

Wolf made only a passing reference to Iraq, grouping it with North Korea and Iran as countries developing nuclear weapons under the cover of peaceful nuclear programs.  Iraq was represented by diplomats accredited to the United Nations under the government of Saddam Hussein.  Nawfal Basri, a second secretary from the mission attending today’s meeting, told GSN that there have been no challenges to the credentials of any members of the delegation.

Hobbs referred to Security Council debates over Iraq in her comments, saying that “the recent international debate” over weapons of mass destruction “underlined international concerns about the legitimacy, possession and possible use of such weapons.  These statements should provide further impetus to international efforts to de-legitimize all nuclear weapons and to hasten international efforts towards nuclear disarmament.” 

“The real guarantee against the use of any weapons of mass destruction anywhere, including nuclear weapons, is their complete elimination and the assurance that they will never be used or produced again,” Hobbs said.

South Africa also sought to broaden the nuclear debate beyond Iraq.  Pretoria’s representative, Peter Goosen, said during the council debate that “strong statements … were repeatedly made about the threat that is posed by weapons of mass destruction, about the need to eliminate this threat, about the need to destroy these weapons by many of the members of the international community and about the legitimacy of their possession.”  He added, “It is our belief that given this now universal condemnation of the possession, proliferation and possible use of weapons of mass destruction, we should move even more decisively to implement” nuclear disarmament by all states.

This is the annual preparatory committee meeting leading up to the treaty’s 2005 review conference.  Molnar told participants, “Only if we avoid the temptation of complacency or pessimism, and focus our efforts on what united and now what divides us, can we expect to continue to build on the progress achieved by our predecessors.  Our work must ensure that the NPT and the larger nonproliferation regime remain vital and robust as a pillar of international security.”

This preparatory meeting concludes May 9.

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North Korea I:  China Opposes Security Council Action

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — China does not intend to support any U.N. Security Council action against North Korea over its alleged nuclear weapons development, a Chinese military adviser said here Friday (see GSN, April 25).

“There is no need for the Security Council to take action on this,” said Dingli Shen, a consultant to China’s Defense Ministry and a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Shen spoke here at an international security conference, hosted by the U.S. Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

The United States held talks last week with diplomats from China and Pyongyang over the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.  At the start of those talks, a North Korean official reportedly told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons and is prepared to test or export them.

Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said last week that if Pyongyang foiled the talks, the North Korean issue should be forwarded to the U.N. Security Council.  He also suggested that Beijing might support Security Council action (see GSN, April 24).

Shen said that within the council there could be “a certain amount of discussion [but] no action is needed.”

Throughout the six-month crisis, Washington has pushed for multilateral talks but has also refused to rule out using military force against North Korea.  Shen dismissed the possibility of military action.

“It will not come to a military conflict,” he said.

Talks Not a Failure

The North Korean nuclear weapons claim may have caused the first round of talks to end on a sour note, but the negotiations were not a failure, according to Shen.

“That depends on the definition.  Nobody would expect a breakthrough in the first meeting so it was not a failure,” he told Global Security Newswire.

Shen was asked what comes next for Washington and Pyongyang.

“We hope they continue to talk, [we want] continued talks between the D.P.R.K. and the U.S.,” he said.

Clay Moltz, director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Monterey Institute’s Center for Nonproliferation Studies, cautiously agreed.

“It’s not a failure, but it certainly wasn’t a success,” Moltz said.  He suggested that neither North Korea nor the United States put their best foot forward in the talks.  Kelly was the top U.S. official in Pyongyang last October when the United States leveled the nuclear accusations against Pyongyang.  The two sides have not had an official diplomatic meeting since (see GSN, Oct. 17, 2002).

“North Korea obviously sent a less than high-level official.  The U.S. sent a guy who had some baggage in North Korea’s eyes,” Moltz said, suggesting that Washington send Secretary of State Colin Powell to the next meeting.  Powell has often adopted a more moderate position than other Bush administration officials.

Officials need to “rethink the team that attends, on both sides,” Moltz said, but he cautioned that “any negotiation with North Korea is bound to be prolonged.”

Nuclear Claim Doubted

Several officials, including Moltz, doubted that North Korea would make the world aware of its nuclear weapons stockpile in such an understated manner.

Moltz suggested that Pyongyang was trying to intimidate the United States to begin talks but he said the North Korean rhetoric could moderate if talks continue.

“They might have been trying to look as big and bad as possible … some of this may have been trash talk,” he said.

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North Korea II:  New Proposal From Pyongyang on Table

News coverage of North Korea’s nuclear weapon claim last week left unreported a new North Korean proposal to the United States, the Los Angeles Times reported today (see GSN, April 25).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly told Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda that Pyongyang had put forward a “bold, new proposal” to resolve the nuclear standoff on the Korean Peninsula.

Kelly was more optimistic after the most recent talks than he was after contentious negotiations in October, which featured U.S. allegations of nuclear weapons development and marked the beginning of a freeze on diplomatic contact between the two countries.

The proposal is believed to be a modification of previous demands that Washington guarantee North Korea’s safety in return for a freeze in nuclear development.

“North Korea is desperate to have talks.  They are not asking for economic assistance at the moment — it is security assurances,” according to Moon Chung-in, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul (Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times, April 27).

A North Korean spokesman alluded to the proposal in a statement Saturday.

“As the DPRK set out a new proposal for the settlement of the nuclear issue, proceeding from its stand to avert a war on the Korean Peninsula and achieve lasting peace and stability, it will follow the U.S. future attitude toward it,” the spokesman said (Korean Central News Agency, April 26).

The United States is considering future talks, according to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

Last week, China was pushing for further talks but the United States planned to “analyze everything that happened and was said, and then we would decide back here on whether there should be further talks,” he said.  “One or more of the parties may be interested in further talks.  At this point, we have not decided yet,” he added (State Department release, April 25).

China was reportedly embarrassed by North Korea’s nuclear announcement and U.S. officials are hoping that will translate into more help in pressuring Pyongyang to dismantle nuclear facilities.

Not Sharing Information?

During a March 31 meeting at the United Nations, North Korea reportedly told State Department officials that it was reprocessing spent fuel rods.  That information did not become public until last week, and State Department officials apparently did not share it with other U.S. officials in an effort to keep the proposed talks on track, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

“I think heads will roll over this,” a Bush administration official said.  “North Korea for the first time ever officially communicated to the U.S. government that they were reprocessing.  That that information was not shared is very disturbing,” he added.

The dispute over information sharing underscores a deeper rift in the administration over U.S. policy on North Korea, the Post reported (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 27).

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Beijing meetings “have not moved the ball forward.”

The State Department, however, was less quick to judge.

“We have made it clear again and again that the intention of going to Beijing was, first of all, not to negotiate, not to try to move the ball forward in that sense, but to say what we had to say, hear what we expected to hear and see the Chinese participate,” Boucher said (Michael Lev, Chicago Tribune, April 27).

Partial Blockade Considered

The United States is also considering blockading some North Korean sea traffic  to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, materials or technologies, the London Telegraph reported.

The approach has been nicknamed “Cuban Lite,” for its similarities to the 1963 Cuban missile crisis.

U.S. forces would perform routine interdiction of ships suspected of carrying nuclear materials.

“It wouldn’t be a total blockade.  International shipping would not necessarily be blocked from going in to North Korea, but the passage of North Korean shipping would be contingent on what we knew was being carried.  We have the ability to track anything in or out of North Korean waters,” said a senior Pentagon adviser.  “The virtue in an interdiction strategy is that it would not be formally imposed … there would not be a big set-piece confrontation with the North Koreans.  Instead the U.S. would use its intelligence net and only movie in when it needs to,” he added.

A U.S. official suggested that the domestic U.S. policy divide is not as sharp as is commonly thought.  More militant U.S. factions do not want a war now and more pacifist factions understand that North Korea is sending confusing signals (Julian Coman, London Telegraph, April 27).

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North Korea III:  Seoul Urges End to Nuclear Confrontation

During Cabinet-level meetings in Pyongyang today, South Korean diplomats urged North Korea to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions, a South Korean spokesman said (see GSN, April 25).

“We again urged the D.P.R.K. to honor the South-North joint declaration on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula signed in 1992,” said Shin Eon-sang, the South Korean spokesman.  “At the 45-minute session, we called on the D.P.R.K. to find a peaceful solution to the nuclear issue in a prompt manner, as Pyongyang has started a multilateral dialogue with related countries,” he added (Xinhua News Service, April 28).

North Korea, however, has told Seoul to keep out of its disagreement with the United States, CNN.com reported.

“The Northern side reiterated that the nuclear issue is a matter between the North and the United States,” said a South Korean statement.  “But they said they wanted to resolve the matter peacefully,” the statement added (CNN.com, April 28).

North Korean officials also refused to clarify reports that Pyongyang has claimed possession of nuclear weapons (News24.com, April 28).

North Korean, British Officials to Meet

British officials are scheduled to meet with North Korean diplomats in London this week, according to CNN.com.

“In our view it’s important to remain engaged with North Korea.  We want to use every opportunity to put our concerns across and urge them to comply with their international obligations,” a British spokeswoman said.

British Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammel is expected to meet with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon.  Diplomatic relations between the two countries are “under review,” according to the spokeswoman (CNN.com, April 26).

German Shipment Seized

German authorities have detained the director of a German company suspected of supplying aluminum tubes to North Korea for its nuclear development program, Singapore’s Straits Times reported today.

German authorities said the shipment — containing 22 tons of aluminum tubes — was sent to China’s Shenyang Aircraft Corporation but was actually headed to North Korea.

The shipment left Hamburg, Germany, on a French container ship April 3 and was seized nine days later as it was about to enter the Suez Canal.

The shipment was unloaded in Egypt (Singapore Straits Times, April 28).

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North Korea:  Pyongyang Threatens to Export Nuclear Weapons; Claims Fuel Rod Reprocessing Nearly Complete

In a direct conversation in Beijing on Wednesday, North Korea threatened to export nuclear weapons if the United States does not restore its former commitment to provide energy to the isolated communist nation, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 24).

North Korea issued its threat Wednesday, the opening day of a series of talks between U.S., North Korean and Chinese officials, U.S. officials said.  North Korean envoy Li Gun pulled aside his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, and told him North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“We can’t dismantle them,” Li told Kelly.  “It’s up to you whether we do a physical demonstration or transfer them,” Li said.

U.S. officials are still assessing precisely what Li meant by his remarks, including whether they were a threat to conduct an actual test, according to the Washington Post.  Whatever Li’s statement might have meant, “it was very fast, very categorical and obviously very scripted,” a senior official said.

During a formal session of the talks, Li also said that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of 8,000 spent fuel rods that were being stored at the Yongbyon nuclear complex.  U.S. intelligence analysts, however, have not been able to confirm the claim, the Post reported.  During the talks, Kelly tried to press Li to confirm that he truly meant to say that North Korea had finished reprocessing the spent fuel rods, because North Korean officials have previously made contradictory statements on the issue.

Negotiating Positions

North Korea presented what was described as an extensive proposal for ending the nuclear crisis, the Post reported.  In the proposal, North Korea wanted to re-establish the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which it agreed to end its nuclear program in exchange for energy aid, but it would only end its nuclear program once the United States has fulfilled its side of the agreement.  The U.S. delegation, however, said North Korea must verifiably dismantle its nuclear program before other U.S.-North Korean issues could be addressed, the Post reported.

Yesterday, the second day in the planned three-day talks, the parties never met in a three-way discussion.  Instead, Chinese officials held separate meetings with the U.S. and North Korean delegations, according to the Post.  Today, the United States and North Korea again held separate meetings with the Chinese delegation and then a “brief informal trilateral meeting” was held before Kelly left for Seoul and Tokyo.

Chinese Reaction

Privately, Chinese officials were “in disbelief over Li Gun’s categorical statements,” a U.S. official said (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, April 25).

Publicly, however, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said the meeting “signifies a good beginning.”

All three countries have “agreed to maintain contacts through diplomatic channels regarding continuing the process of talks,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, April 25).

Bush Reacts

U.S. President George W. Bush dismissed North Korea’s claims yesterday, saying Pyongyang was “back to the old blackmail game” and that the United States would not be intimidated.

“This will give us an opportunity to say to the North Koreans and the world we’re not going to be threatened,” Bush said.

It is unknown if Li’s claims that North Korea possessed nuclear weapons referred to the one or two bombs U.S. intelligence agencies have believed North Korea has possessed for 10 years, or if Li’s claim was an overstatement of North Korea’s nuclear capability in an attempt to deter the United States from attacking its nuclear sites, according to the New York Times.

The CIA believes that North Korea probably reprocessed enough material before the Agreed Framework to build up to two nuclear weapons, the Times reported.  There has only been unclear evidence to back such a belief, however, such as an assessment of North Korea’s technical capability and what one former senior intelligence official described as “a good deal of supposition.”

“The only surprise here was that they admitted it,” a senior Bush administration official said.  “That fact itself is hardly new,” the official added (David Sanger, New York Times, April 25).

Some Question North Korea’s Claims

South Korean and Japanese experts today said they doubted North Korea’s weapon possession and reprocessing claims.

South Korean nuclear analyst Kang Jungmin said he doubted that North Korea was close to completing the reprocessing of its spent fuel rod supply, noting that the heat generated by reprocessing would be easily detected by U.S. satellites.

“It’s a sheer lie.  There is no sign whatsoever that North Korea has restarted its reprocessing facility,” Kang said.  “Even if it has restarted its facility, it would take them four or five months to complete the reprocessing,” Kang added.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, professor of international relations at Takushoku University in Japan, said he did not believe North Korea possessed nuclear weapons.

“North Korea believes the U.S. was able to invade Iraq because Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapons, so it is saying it has nuclear weapons,” Shigemura said (Sang-hun Choe, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, April 25).

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South Asia:  Pre-Emption Comments Indicate Escalating Tensions, Experts Say

By Mike Nartker
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha’s comments earlier this month suggesting that Pakistan would be an appropriate target for pre-emptive military action indicate an escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed South Asian rivals, experts told Global Security Newswire this week (see GSN, April 7).

Early this month, Sinha said Pakistan was a “fit case” for a pre-emptive strike, — much like Iraq — because it possesses weapons of mass destruction, provides sanctuary for terrorists and lacks democracy.  Soon after, Pakistani officials responded in kind to Sinha’s remarks, saying India was itself ripe for pre-emptive action for also possessing weapons of mass destruction.

“India is a fit case for a pre-emptive strike,” Pakistani Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency as saying.  “If India thinks, and could do so, then we also have the right to go for a pre-emptive strike,” he said.

While India and Pakistan have often exchanged heated rhetoric, Sinha’s pre-emption comments cannot be taken lightly, said Hussain Haqqani of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  “When do we know when it is no longer posturing?” he said. 

A number of previous conflicts between India and Pakistan ended in such a way as to leave both countries with “scores to settle,” said Michael Krepon, founding president of the Henry L. Stimson Center.  For example, an attack by Kashmiri separatists on the Indian Parliament in December 2001 led to India mobilizing its armed forces on the border with Pakistan for almost 10 months.  All-out war was averted, however, after the United States pressured Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to crack down on militant Kashmiri separatist groups based on the Pakistani side of the “line of control” that divides the disputed Kashmir province.

The question facing India now is what to do if another such attack were to occur, Krepon said, adding that some Indian military officials were “frustrated” when the military was mobilized without going to war.  He warned that some experts are predicting a new wave of violence to begin in Kashmir during the spring and summer because of improving weather conditions.

“People are worried,” Krepon said.

Teresita Schaffer, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ South Asia program, said India believes Musharaff has not followed through on his pledge to combat cross-border terrorism (see GSN, April 18).  There is increasing belief among Indian officials that the current situation requires a larger response than last year’s mobilization, she said.    

Sinha’s use of the term “pre-emption” might have been part of a strategy to create a foundation for future action, according to some experts.  During the debate over the U.S. National Security Strategy, which includes the use of pre-emptive attacks, some officials and experts feared that other countries would use the new U.S. strategy to justify their own actions (see GSN, Sept. 23, 2002).

“It sets in motion a series of uncontrollable actions that could be taken by China, by Russia, by Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea,” U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said in a speech late last year, referring to the U.S. strategy (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2002).

The idea of pre-emption, if not that exact term, has been in Indian minds before the U.S. adoption of the strategy, which was manifested in the recent war with Iraq, Krepon said.  Indian officials have thought since at least 1999 that India cannot always be in a “receive mode” of terrorist attacks and that Pakistan needed to be taught a lesson, he said.

India is using pre-emption comments to employ a similar theme as those of the United States in order to maintain freedom of action if New Delhi chooses to go to war, Krepon said, calling Sinha’s comments “opportunistic.”

Haqqani agreed, saying the U.S.-led war against Iraq provided India with a “legal stool to stand on” if it conducted similar action against Pakistan.  “Legalization is important in South Asia,” Haqqani said.

U.S. Role

The current tensions between India and Pakistan appear to have become a significant concern for the United States, according to experts.  Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is expected to travel to the region next month in an attempt to help reduce tensions (see GSN, April 17). 

Schaffer said she believed Armitage hoped to set the momentum of India-Pakistan relations “on a different course” by his visit.  She does not think Armitage expects to see immediate results, but his visit could begin a period of quiet backchannel diplomacy in preparation for a summit.

Indian Prime Minster Atal Bihari Vajpayee hinted at such a summit during a speech last week in the Kashmiri city of Srinagar.  In his remarks, Vajpayee proposed that India and Pakistan hold talks to resolve their dispute over Kashmir (see GSN, April 21).

“Problems can be resolved by talks,” Vajpayee was quoted as saying by the Washington Post.  “We are ready,” he said.

Pakistani officials early this week said they welcomed the idea of talks.

Haqqani, however, noted that Armitage’s visit would be the third time in the last two years that the United States has had to step in to ease tensions in South Asia.

“Does the United States want to play babysitter in that region for the foreseeable future?” Haqqani said.  “You can’t keep babysitting two nuclear-armed neighbors forever,” he said.

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United States:  U.S. “Bunker Buster” Development Worries Russia

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Russia is concerned about U.S. efforts to develop low-yield nuclear weapons for destroying deeply buried targets, a top Russian nuclear official said yesterday (see GSN, March 7).

In 1994 the U.S. Congress banned research and development on nuclear weapons with yields below five kilotons, but the U.S. Defense Department has asked lawmakers to lift the ban.

“Where did this talk come from to do away with the five-kiloton threshold?” asked Nikolai Voloshin, the head of the Department of Nuclear Ammunition Development and Testing at the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry.

“The idea is being circulated to do lower yield charges, I question the thoughts of using such low-yield weapons, which means that nuclear weapons cease to be a deterrent and become combat weapons,” he told Global Security Newswire at an international security conference here organized by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

Earlier this year, in a draft of the fiscal 2004 Defense Department budget request, Pentagon officials told Congress the ban must be repealed to “train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers.”

The Pentagon needs a “revitalized nuclear weapons advanced concepts effort,” but the ban has had a “chilling effect” on any such initiative “by impeding the ability of our scientists and engineers to explore the full range of technical options,” according to the draft request.

Developing the new weapons would not be exceptionally difficult, according to Voloshin.  He questioned U.S. motives in publicizing the debate on potential new nuclear weapons.

“No one denies it can be easily done, why bring all the hype about it?” he asked.

He also criticized the U.S. approach to international arms control agreements, specifically the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Bush administration does not support.

“We are very concerned about why the U.S. has not yet ratified the CTBT,” Voloshin said.

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North Korea I:  Pyongyang Declares Nuclear Weapons; Talks End

North Korean diplomats today declared that Pyongyang possesses nuclear weapons and threatened to test them, a source told CNN today (see GSN, April 23).

In a “blatant and bold” statement on the second day of talks in Beijing, North Korean envoy Ri Gun told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly that his country has nuclear weapons, the source said.  Ri also threatened that North Korea would conduct a visible test of its weapons to prove that it was a nuclear power, the source added.

“What are you going to do about it?” a North Korean diplomat was reported to have said during the exchange.

A senior Bush administration official said today that the White House was still working to determine what exactly the North Koreans meant by their claim (CNN.com, April 24).

The planned three-day series of talks between the United States, North Korea and China, which began yesterday, came to an abrupt end today after the North Korean claim. 

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell warned Pyongyang against leaving with “the slightest impression that the United States and its partners and the nations in the region will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats or actions.”

Bilateral talks between the United States and China, as well as between China and North Korea, could still occur tomorrow, Powell said (BBC News, April 24).

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North Korea II:  U.S. Ready to Seek U.N. Security Council Action if Talks Fail

By David McGlinchey
Global Security Newswire

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If North Korea scuttles negotiations that are intended to defuse the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, the U.N. Security Council will need to take action and Chinese opposition could be minimal, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said yesterday (see GSN, April 23).

The United States took part in talks this week with China and North Korea, but the talks ended abruptly today reportedly after North Korea declared that it possesses nuclear weapons and threatened to test them (see related GSN story, today).  Rademaker’s remarks preceded those developments.

U.S. officials have been sharply critical of the United Nations and the Security Council for failing to enforce U.N. resolutions on Iraq, but they have maintained their desire for U.N. involvement in the North Korean crisis.

If the current talks fail, particularly if they fail because of North Korean “intransigence,” then the issue should be brought before the Security Council, Rademaker told Global Security Newswire.

China has opposed earlier Security Council attempts to reprimand North Korea for withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (see GSN, April 8).

Asked why the Security Council would be more effective in dealing with North Korea than it was in dealing with Iraq, Rademaker said that current negotiations are giving North Korea a way out.  If Pyongyang foils the talks, however, Rademaker expects China will be less supportive of its communist neighbor when the issue reaches the United Nations.

Rademaker made his comments after a panel discussion at a conference here hosted by the Energy Department’s Sandia National Laboratories.

The United States suspects North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and Washington has so far insisted it will not offer economic or energy aid until Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear facilities.

Pyongyang announced earlier this year that it is withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  North Korean officials have said they are prepared to begin reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods, a key first step to building nuclear weapons.  North Korea’s state-run media outlets have said the country needs a powerful military capability to deter a U.S. invasion.

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U.S.-Russia:  Bush Officials Optimistic on Plutonium Conversion Deal

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is optimistic it will finalize this year a deal initiated eight years ago to dispose of Russian weapon-grade plutonium by converting it to fuel for use in nuclear reactors (see GSN, Jan. 30).

However, the United States still needs to raise an additional $600 million from other nations to support the agreement.  So far other Group of Eight countries have committed $400 million toward a goal of $1 billion, a senior administration official said yesterday on a panel at the American Enterprise Institute.  The United States would match the $1 billion, according to the plan.

“Based on what we can reasonably forecast from the U.S. perspective … we can reasonably say this year we will be able to top $1 billion,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.  “We are hoping to have an agreement by the end of the year,” the official said.

The origins of the deal go back to 1995 when then-U.S. President Bill Clinton declared as surplus 50 tons of U.S. plutonium not needed for U.S. nuclear weapons.  Boris Yeltsin, the Russian president at the time, reciprocated in 1997 by declaring 50 tons of Russian plutonium to be in excess of Russian military needs.  In 2000, the two nations agreed to dispose of 34 tons each primarily by converting the plutonium into reactor fuel (see GSN, Jan. 23, 2002).

Russia has indicated it would not begin implementing the deal until it could be sure the estimated $2 billion cost could be funded, according to the U.S. official, who also noted that the United States has secured commitments from all G-8 members — except Germany — to achieve the $400 million total, but acknowledged that some of them had not publicly stated those commitments.

Dispute Over Plan

The administration is pitching the plan as the best way to deal with the Russian plutonium, which some experts fear could be passed on to terrorists or other governments.  The reactors would burn the fuel, turning it into waste that experts say would be far less usable for nuclear weapons, and put the material under international control.

Some critics say the plan creates proliferation problems because it could encourage the construction of plutonium-fueled nuclear reactors.

“I’m not going to argue that this program is risk-free … I do believe that the program has far fewer risks than the only alternative,” said the senior official.

The alternative, the official said, would be for Russia to store the material in its weapon-grade form “indefinitely” until Russia someday uses it for energy.  Moscow would never adopt an alternative proposal to degrade the material by mixing it with nuclear waste products, he added. 

Panelist Henry Rowen, a professor of public policy and management at Stanford University, charged the plan would be more dangerous than retaining the material at Russian storage sites and that the U.S. funding could be put to better use hastening security improvements for Russian nuclear materials.

“I have one suggestion for these billions of dollars.  Give it to the Nunn-Lugar program,” a U.S. effort to secure and dismantle former Soviet weapons of mass destruction, he said (see GSN, March 13).

Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, which cosponsored the panel, also expressed concern over the security of Russian plutonium in transit.

“We’re taking a route, in the name of making this material less accessible, that will make it more accessible,” he said. “If Japan loses 50-plus bombs of material, and cannot tell where it is, in 15 years, what are the odds without IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards in the case of Russia that Russia will do better?” he asked (see GSN, April 2).

Potentially Lucrative Deal

Critics suggested certain government and financial interests were driving the deal.

Sokolski, a nonproliferation official in the administration of former President George H.W. Bush, said today the deal’s “key beneficiaries” would include the company Cogema, a U.S. subsidiary of a French firm.

“It owns a major portion of the entity that … won the bid for the construction of the (Russian) plant,” he said.

That company — Duke, Cogema, Stone-Webster — is  “one entity,” Sokolski said.  Those two companies also do nuclear-related work for the Energy Department, which experts said also favors the deal.

Other potential beneficiaries are the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site, as well as Russia, from the facility to be constructed for processing the fuel, Sokolski said (see GSN, Dec. 6, 2002).

“They will get title to the (plutonium fuel) plant,” and after processing the 34 tons could use the plant for processing other countries’ plutonium — 50,000 nuclear weapons worth — that would need to be transported and could be subject to diversion, he said.

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Russia:  Atomic Energy Ministry Designing New Plutonium Reactor Fuel

After conducting research in secret for almost a decade, the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry has acknowledged that it is working with the United States on a program to use weapon-grade plutonium as a component in a new type of nuclear power plant fuel, the Moscow Times reported today (see GSN, March 12).

The U.S.-Russian program looks to create nuclear power plant fuel by combining weapon-grade plutonium with the radioactive metal thorium.  The plutonium would then trigger a chain reaction out of the material to produce energy.  While supplies of uranium, the current main component of nuclear fuel, are dwindling, according to the Times thorium is abundant in a number of locations around the world.

“The possibility of using thorium fuel in existing reactors is very significant because it means we will not have to change the reactors,” said Valery Rachov, deputy director of the Atomic Energy Ministry’s scientific research department and head of the Russian component of the program.

The United States and Russia are already involved in a program to reduce plutonium stockpiles through converting the material to mixed oxide (MOX) fuel (see related GSN story, today).  For Russia to do this, however, a special MOX production plant would have to be built at a cost of $2 billion, the Times reported.  Supporters of the thorium program, which includes U.S. Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), have said it is faster, cheaper and safer than the MOX program.

“I have strongly supported additional funding to test the thorium process,” Weldon said.  “The thorium process provides the double benefit of reducing weapons-usable fissile material and producing advanced, proliferation-resistant nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies.  As such, it is in the best interests of the United States to provide funding to advance this technology,” he said.

The United States has provided $5 million for the thorium project — $2 million in government funding and $3 million from Thorium Power, a private U.S. company.  Weldon has urged the United States to provide $3.5 million for the project this year.  The U.S. Energy Department said earlier this month, however, that no budget funding would be specifically allocated for the project this year.  Even so, Weldon said he was confident that funding could be found.

“My intention is to convince my colleagues in Congress that the thorium process can play a vital role in preventing nuclear weapons materials from falling into the wrong hands, and its development should receive the funds necessary to continue its progress,” Weldon said (Yevgenia Borisova, Moscow Times, April 24).

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Iran:  France Urges Tehran to Sign IAEA Additional Protocol

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urged Iran today to sign an additional protocol to its International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards agreements (see GSN, March 13).  The protocol would permit the agency to conduct more intrusive inspections of suspected Iranian nuclear sites.

“We think it is essential to continue confidence-building measures, in particular by signing the additional protocol of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as demanded by [IAEA Director General Mohamed] ElBaradei,” de Villepin said (Agence France-Presse, April 24).

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North Korea:  Day One of Nuclear Talks Finished in Beijing

U.S., North Korean and Chinese officials began three days of talks today in Beijing to begin to resolve tensions over North Korea’s relaunched nuclear program, according to the Associated Press (see GSN, April 22).

The U.S. envoy to the talks, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, refused to comment following the first day.  “No words today, thank you,” he said.

North Korea is represented at the meeting by Ri Gun, deputy director of U.S. affairs at the North Korean Foreign Ministry.  China is represented by Fu Ying, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Asian Affairs Department (Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press/News!Yahoo, April 23).

Experts doubt the talks will have immediate results, in part because of the vast differences between the U.S. and North Korean goals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

One issue preventing major progress in this week’s meeting is the differing ranks of the U.S. and North Korean envoys, the Journal reported.  Some observers have said North Korea’s decision to send Ri, a midlevel Foreign Ministry official, was meant as an insult to the United States and that he is too junior of an official to make any decisions without first consulting with Pyongyang.

“He can’t cross the street without instructions,” a Western diplomat said.

For his part, Kelly is disliked by North Korea for his role in the crisis, experts said.  It was Kelly’s visit to North Korea last year — when he confronted North Korean officials with U.S. evidence of a North Korean secret uranium enrichment program — that began the latest crisis.

“Kelly is not well-received by North Korea,” said Zhang Liangui, a senior North Korea strategist at a top Communist Party training academy in Beijing.

The United States and North Korea are also pursuing vastly different policy goals, which could make it difficult to craft a compromise, observers said.  The United States has said North Korea must first verifiably end all of its nuclear efforts before other issues can be addressed.

“We are not prepared to offer any inducements to North Korea to try to achieve that,” U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.

North Korea, however, is suffering such economic hardships that it believes it cannot give up its nuclear activities without first achieving its goals of economic assistance and a guarantee that the United States will not attack, diplomats said.

“The U.S.’s demands and North Korea’s terms are so far apart, it’s hard to see how these talks can get off to a smooth start,” Zhang said (Hutzler/Solomon, Wall Street Journal, April 23).

South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan said today that it could take years of negotiations to resolve the conflict over North Korea’s nuclear program.

“We don’t know how long it will take.  It may take two or three years,” Yoon said.  “Dialogue has just started.  This is only the beginning of a long process,” he added (Associated Press, April 23).

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United States:  Los Alamos Makes First Plutonium Pit Meeting New Standards

Following a 14-year U.S. hiatus in producing plutonium “pits” — the cores of nuclear weapons — the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory has manufactured a pit that meets all modernized production standards, a first step toward reconstituting a nuclear warhead production program (see GSN, March 10).

Pits are hollow spheres of plutonium that initiate the fission that leads to a nuclear explosion.

The laboratory plans to certify the performance of the pit through a variety of experiments that will include subcritical testing at the Nevada Test Site (see GSN, Sept. 27, 2002).  That process is expected to be completed by 2007.

To date, Los Alamos has spent $350 million to modernize the pit production process that had been suspended since 1989, and the laboratory expects to spend a total of $1.5 billion by the time it completes the certification process.  At that time, Los Alamos plans to be able to manufacture 10 pits per year that could be added to the U.S. nuclear weapon stockpile.

Officials intend to sustain that production capacity until a larger pit production facility can be built at a still-undetermined site by 2018 (Los Alamos release, April 22).

The latest development “is a sign that after a long period of decline, the weapons complex is back and growing,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former Energy Department weapons expert (Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times, April 23).

Los Alamos Management Woes

The Los Alamos facility has been under the direction of the University of California for more than 60 years, but the school’s financial management capabilities came under fire by New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici yesterday after he announced his support for the Energy Department’s plan to seek bids for a new management contract for the laboratory, according to Energy Daily (see GSN, March 11).

“I have been proud of the University of California under whose management the laboratory has largely flourished for 60 years,” Domenici said.  “But, we all know that the present manner in which the laboratory is managed must change in ways that are inevitable, just as changes in other major institutions — from government to industry — in our nation occurred,” he continued (George Lobsenz, Energy Daily, April 23).

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