Return to *North Korean Studies*
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF KOREA
Keimyung International Summer Academy for Korean Studies
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By Bradley Graham and Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writers, Friday, April 29, 2005; Page A01
The Pentagon's top military intelligence officer said yesterday that North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device, stunning senators he was addressing and prompting attempts by other defense and intelligence officials later to play down the remarks.
The statement by Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby before the Senate Armed Services Committee marked the first time that a U.S. official had publicly attributed such a capability to North Korea.
Although U.S. intelligence authorities have said for years that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons and could probably reach the United States with its long-range rockets, they had stopped short of asserting that Pyongyang had mastered the difficult task of miniaturizing a nuclear device to fit atop a ballistic missile.
Later in the day, the Defense Intelligence Agency, which Jacoby heads, issued a statement seeking to portray the admiral's assessment as nothing new and still largely theoretical. It cited his testimony last month before the same committee, where he said North Korea is developing a missile that could deliver a nuclear warhead to parts of the United States.
But those comments dealt with the ability of the North Korean missile, known as the Taepo Dong 2, to go the distance with a nuclear warhead -- not whether North Korea could actually mount such warheads on its missiles.
Other DIA and CIA officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, went further in seeking to play down yesterday's testimony by suggesting that Jacoby had misspoken. They said the U.S. intelligence community's assessment of North Korea's nuclear missile capability had not changed. The consensus view, they said, remains that North Korea is still some years away from being able to put nuclear warheads on long-range missiles.
But several Senate staff members who witnessed the testimony and have access to U.S. intelligence on North Korea indicated that Jacoby's comments did in fact reflect some recent information they had seen, although they expressed surprise that the admiral had gone public with the new assessment.
"He may not have meant to say it in a public forum," one staff member speculated.
Another Senate official said there is considerable support in the intelligence community for the idea that North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead for a missile. He indicated that he had read such internal analyses in recent months but added: "There is a difference between believing something is true and having evidence that something is true."
President Bush, speaking at a news conference last night about North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, said: "There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il, to assume he can."
Jacoby's remarks were made in response to questions from Sen. Hillary Rodman Clinton (D-N.Y.). Senate aides said the questions had been carefully crafted in consultation with the committee staff.
"Admiral, let me ask you, do you assess that North Korea has the ability to arm a missile with a nuclear device?" Clinton said.
"The assessment is that they have the capability to do that, yes, ma'am," Jacoby replied.
U.S. estimates of North Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons and build long-range missiles have critical importance for the Bush administration's vigorous effort to develop anti-missile systems.
They also bear on the administration's diplomatic drive in "six-party" talks with Japan, China, South Korea and Russia to halt the North Korean weapons programs. North Korea has refused to attend the talks since June and, according to U.S. officials, appears to have built up its stockpile of nuclear material.
Seizing on Jacoby's remarks as evidence the threat from North Korea's nuclear program is increasing, Clinton and Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the administration "to engage in bilateral diplomatic efforts with North Korea to address this serious threat." The administration has refused to meet one-on-one with North Korea, except on the sidelines of the six-party talks, arguing that such a bilateral approach has proven ineffective.
The U.S. intelligence community concluded several years ago that North Korea had already developed a two- or three-stage missile that could strike the United States about 6,000 miles away. But the country has yet to flight-test such a missile.
Determining whether North Korea has managed to make a nuclear warhead for a missile poses even greater difficulties for U.S. intelligence analysts than assessing whether the Taepo Dong 2 can fly. The physical appearance of a warhead can provide some clues but is hardly conclusive evidence, specialists say.
U.S. officials also acknowledge large gaps in their knowledge of North Korea's nuclear effort. Since estimating a decade ago that North Korea had obtained "one or two" nuclear devices, the U.S. government has not provided an official update, although privately analysts have raised their estimates to an average of about nine nuclear weapons.
Jacoby said yesterday that he expected to have a new assessment to present to the Senate committee in "approximately two weeks."
29 April 2005, by FIFAworldcup.com
The
referee holds back North Korean player Nam Song Chol after a penalty decision.
World football governing body FIFA punished North Korea for crowd unrest at
their recent World Cup qualifiers and ordered the team to play its next home
game against Japan on neutral territory and behind closed doors.(AFP/Peter
Parks) |
The FIFA Disciplinary Committee met today in Zurich under the chairmanship of Marcel Mathier (Switzerland). The decisions taken today included the following, which have already been notified to the three associations mentioned below who were all present at FIFA headquarters. Following the incidents that occurred during the games of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ preliminary competition Korea DPR-Bahrain (March 26, 2005) and Korea DPR-Iran (March 30, 2005), the next scheduled "home game" of Korea DPR in this competition (v Japan on June 8, 2005) will be played on neutral ground and behind closed doors.
FIFA will announce the venue in due course.
See more at Soccer in North Korea 2005 World Cup Qualifier
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Memo to: Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Re: Just for the Fun of It
by Jude Wanniski, April 27, 2005
Your column today on North Korea and the six nuclear weapons you say it has produced since George W. Bush has been president is probably wrong in assuming it really does have nukes, even though it now says so, but it is correct in asking why in the world our government has refused to negotiate with them directly since 2001. President Clinton had bilateral talks with Pyongyang that seemed to be bearing fruit, but as soon as the Bush administration began, an excuse was found to break off the talks, and ever since we have hewed to that policy. You note that:
"Selig Harrison, an American scholar just back from Pyongyang, says North Korean officials told him that in direct negotiations with the U.S., they would be willing to discuss a return to their plutonium freeze. Everything would depend on the details, including verification, but why are we refusing so adamantly even to explore this possibility?"
You might have mentioned that at the outset of the Bush administration, Secretary of State Colin Powell seemed eager to continue those talks, but all of a sudden, Undersecretary of State for Nonproliferation John Bolton threw a monkeywrench into that worthy diplomatic effort. The talks were suspended in March 2001, and in his State of the Union Address in 2002, the president labeled North Korea one of the three legs of the "Axis of Evil."
It was Bolton who was the source of the assertion that North Korea had secretly been enriching uranium in violation of the Nonproliferation Treaty and that it had admitted as much to an American diplomat at a cocktail party in Pyongyang.
I'm afraid Bolton had to know this was baloney, but it served his purpose. To this day, North Korea denies it had ever engaged in a uranium enrichment process and there is no evidence that it ever has. It has, though, openly acknowledged that it has been mining uranium, which it uses in its two nuclear power plants that use natural uranium as fuel, natural uranium having no use in a nuclear weapons program.
What's going on? In 1994, it was the United States that persuaded North Korea to stop work on the nuclear power plant it was building, which could produce plutonium that could find its way into a nuke. Instead, we would help it build cold-water reactors that would give them the electric power they need and not produce the fissile material that would be suitable for nukes. But you have to realize we never intended to fulfill our part of the deal. I wrote about this here on Nov. 6, 2003 in "A Little Joke We Played on Pyongyang."
The idea back then was that Kim Jong-Il's regime would soon collapse, on the heels of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and we wouldn't have to live up to our part of the Agreed Framework. No kidding. I put it this way:
"By now, though, it is clear to Pyongyang that the warhawks in the Pentagon – and their stooge, John Bolton at State – don’t want compliance and never have. They want a nice little war, or at least a regime change and another puppet government like they have arranged for Iraq. What good did it do Baghdad to persuade the IAEA that it was no threat? The boys want an American Empire! Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose heart is in the right place, has been trying to work things out with Pyongyang, but every time he makes a diplomatic move, his Undersecretary Bolton has a press conference and calls Kim Jong-Il a commie rat fink. What can a poor secretary of state do when his big boss, the president, now and then has a press conference and calls Kim Jong-Il a commie rat fink? The general should resign and write some new memoirs, that’s what."
For three years now, I've been trying to get journalists in our major media to dig into these issues in a serious way instead of swallowing whatever John Bolton tells them. Your column today is at least very positive in pushing for direct talks with Pyongyang, but I am afraid the game plan remains the same as it was in 1994: Keep delaying resolution of the process in the hopes that Kim Jong-Il will slip on some wintry ice and break his neck, and capitalism and democracy will suddenly sprout hours after his funeral.
A more productive use of your time would be to unravel all the propaganda that has been concocted by the neocons and their helpers, like John Bolton. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is now digging away at reports Bolton behind-the-scenes manipulated the intelligence process in order to promote the right-wing foreign policy agenda. Sure, he did that. But the Committee has yet to take notice that over the years he has manipulated the press corps, including the Washington Bureau of the New York Times, into spreading the word that the "Axis of Evil" is secretly working on nukes, when none of the three – Iraq, Iran, or North Korea – were doing so.
As for North Korea's current assertion that it indeed has nukes, please note that when Robert Zoellick was asked in the Senate hearings on his nomination to be deputy secretary of state, he suggested it might be a bluff. A bluff? What does Zoellick know that Bolton should know (and probably does but is fudging)?
Zoellick may have checked with officials at State who Bolton tried to have cashiered. He would have learned that while one of the easier things to make is a nuke with highly enriched uranium, one of the most difficult things in the world to make is a nuke with plutonium. Gordon Prather, the expert in this sort of thing, tells me that to do so, the North Koreans would have had to assemble the equivalent of the Manhattan Project team – and even then they could not know if the weapon they developed would work unless they tested it.
If you wish to learn a bit more, Dr. Prather did a column on an aspect of this issue for Antiwar.com last Nov. 13, "A Radical Change in North Korea Policy." Take a look.
By CHRIS BRUMMITT, 24 April 2005, The Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - South Korea and North Korea agreed Saturday to resume talks that broke down last summer and to discuss the standoff over the North's suspected development of nuclear weapons, an Indonesian official said.
But there was no word of progress on stalled six-party talks involving the Koreas, neighboring countries and America, aimed at ending the North's nuclear ambitions.
The decision to revive the inter-Korean dialogue came as Washington's top envoy on the nuclear dispute, the chief U.S. negotiator in the nuclear talks, Christopher Hill, arrived in Seoul for meetings with South Korean officials.
South Korean Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and North Korea's No. 2 man, Kim Yong Nam, met on the sidelines of an Asian-African summit in Jakarta. It was the second meeting at the summit between the two leaders.
"`They agreed to resume the inter-Korean dialogue ... and they agreed to exchange views over the six-party talks,'' said Jacob Tobing, Indonesia's ambassador to South Korea. Tobing was at the conference with the South Korean delegation.
"`We know they both need this kind of meeting so we (Indonesia) offered to facilitate it. At least one step has been taken but there is a lot of work
ahead."
The dialogue between the two Koreas was suspended last July after mass defections to South Korea from the North that Pyongyang labeled
"`kidnappings.'' Although it is seen as less crucial than the nuclear disarmament talks, the agreement Saturday to resume the dialogue appeared to signal a warming of ties on the peninsula.
Three rounds of nuclear talks - which involve the Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States - have been held since 2003 with no breakthrough. A September session was canceled after the North refused to attend, citing Washington's alleged hostile policy toward Pyongyang.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and North Korea's ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong Nam, also met on the sidelines of the summit Friday, but North Korean Central Broadcasting Station didn't say in a report Sunday whether the two leaders discussed the stalled nuclear talks.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who also attended the Asian-African summit, told reporters he hoped diplomatic attempts to draw Korea back to the six-party talks would soon succeed.
Asked how the U.N. Security Council would react if the North tested a nuclear device, Annan said:
"I hope we will dissuade North Korea (and) that North Korea will not take this action.''
The first meeting Friday was the highest-level contact between the two Koreas since a 2000 summit between then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
By Sue-Elaine Oser, 17 April 2005
North Korea is reported to have nuclear weapons. It remains the only headline and issue we in America are familiar with apart from North Korea’s famine crises, or South Korea’s IMF recovery. All five nations involved in the nuclear talks, i.e. Russia, South Korea, China, the United States and Japan want the peninsula free of its nuclear weapons. It is now believed that North Korea may want to as well. However, the country remains delusional. It still thinks that it can defend itself with these weapons while remaining totally neutral. It also is still under the illusion that it can save South Korea from Western imperialism.
There also remains a high level of mistrust between both the DPRK and the United States. A lot of times this will occur because the leadership feels that no one is paying attention to them as they are to other countries in the world. As much as there is a repeated “boy who cried wolf” news that North Korea is threatening nuclear war, they are very much aware that any military or physical conflict with the United States itself could be the end of everything they have built up over the last few decades (Eberstadt 1999: 102, 135).
Washington fears that North Korea might shower artillery shells and missiles on Seoul, but this is all due to the endless dramatic chatter from the North Korean rhetoric (Eberstadt 1999: 102). This is not surprising considering that there is a high military presence, which is backed exclusively by the United States within the South. It has existed over the last 50 years and perhaps even will last longer due to security issues (Eberstadt 1999: 135).
It has been reported in the news that South Korea is considering a plan to come out from under the United States shadow and play a neutral role in the Northeast Asian region (Herman 2005: par. 1). It wants to work away from superpower countries and start up economic relations with the North so that in the future there can be an easier and more peaceful unification (Herman 2005: par. 8). It has been considered previously from presidents such as Kim Dae Jung, but neither support nor follow-through was ever made. Now with the Roh, Moon-Hyun administration, this promise can now become a reality. These economic exchanges have now become a main form of contact between both North and South Korea, and are planned to continue with the rest of the world in the months and years to come (Cummings 1997: 459). It has also help to develop a good working hypothesis for analysts and policymakers to evaluate these and other possible nonmilitary alternatives to solving the division problem when looking at the issue from a broader scope.
With this information in mind, the United States, Japan and South Korea should not push a Western strategy on North Korea’s allies Russia and China. They need to encourage them to think clearly and realistically about where their interests lie within the peninsula, and what is truly at stake for them if they do not cooperate (Eberstadt 1999: 135). With Russia, nothing is quite certain yet, nor has anything of significance been reported as far as what actions it has taken or what decisions it has made in regards to the peninsula. China on the other hand, has actually taken action by promoting its own economic trade and commerce with South Korea and it’s paid off.
With a thriving commercial relationship that China is enjoying with the peninsula, it sees no reason to push for any kind of reunification quickly or slowly, even if done peacefully (Eberstadt 1999: 126). South Korea has put a huge economic stake in the country. One of the reasons is that China is predicted to become the new economic wonder for trade and competition with goods, sales, and dollars worldwide (Herman 2005: par. 10).
We should look to the future of the Korean peninsula as “a single and gigantic investment project”. Judging by the recent economic advancements made in order to interact with North Korea and it’s allies, we can see how this is possible (Eberstadt 1999: 129). As the world’s leading economy and leader of any strategic initiative abroad, the United States will almost surely and naturally be responsible for coordinating an international approach towards Korean unification, economic or otherwise (Eberstadt 1999: 138). It almost seems predestined. Yet, with current president George W. Bush still in power, and harsh comments from current Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice concerning the North, any hopes for future diplomacy seem to be fading in the background.
Truthfully, the United States is too confronting and forward about the nuclear issue, making accusations that it’s an evil country because it has nuclear weapons of mass destruction. In the Korean mind, this kind of aggressiveness is unfavorable. It’s a matter of saving one’s face in a time of disagreement or conflict that is so important in rules of Korean custom. This is something that North Korea has mastered very well, and why they have survived so long despite its poor economic fallouts.
The continuing existence of two suddenly formed and mutually hostile states in one nation has become a fixture in the wake of World War II. With Korea’s 50-year division and history, it has survived the Soviet downfall, various economic crises, and numerous weather-related incidents, which have caused devastating famines and floods in the North. With all these events surrounding and affecting the nation, the communist North and pro-West South conflict continues on until one side or the other breaks down, and that will more than likely be on the side of North Korea.
Works Cited:
Cummings, Bruce. Korea's Place in the Sun, NY: W.W. Norton and company, 1997.
Eberstadt, Nicholas, The End of North Korea, Washington, D.C: AEI Press, 1999.
Herman, Burt. “South Korea to Play Neutral Role in Asia.” The Associated Press, April 10, 2005.
by Terrence Henry, The Atlantic Monthly, May 2005
When Kim Il Sung, the "president-for-life" of North Korea, turned
sixty-two, in 1974, he decided that his son Kim Jong Il would succeed him. Kim Jong
Il, who indeed took over when his father died, twenty years later, turned sixty-three in February. The North Korean media have recently been quoting
words reportedly spoken by Kim Il Sung: if he himself could not carry out "the final victory of the Korean revolution," then his son would; and
if his son couldn't, then his grandson would. Just weeks before his birthday, Kim
Jong Il announced to North Korea that he would "uphold Father Leader's instructions" -- and so it is widely believed that the "Dear
Leader" will soon name his own successor. Needless to say, Kim Jong Il's choice of who
will complete the revolution is an important one, for North Koreans and for the world. Here are the candidates most likely to continue the Kim dynasty.
KIM JONG CHOL: The middle son (born 1981) of Kim Jong Il. His mother was the popular North Korean dancer Ko Yong Hui.
Why he might be the next Dear Leader: Jong Chol's mother, who died last year, seems to have been the subject of a glorification campaign by the
state, which referred to her in recent years as "respected mother,"
"great woman," and "loyal subject to the Dear Leader." A similar
campaign glorified Kim Jong Il's mother when he prepared to succeed his father. Ko Yong Hui was
rumoured to have lobbied vigorously in behalf of her son, using her unusually strong influence on Kim Jong Il to secure a place for Jong Chol in
the country's leadership and to banish Kim Jong Il's own brother-in-law -- who had
been considered a possible replacement for the Dear Leader -- from Pyongyang. (She also reportedly got Kim Jong Il to give up drinking.) Why he
might not be: Kim Jong Il may not like his second son much. The dictator, according to his former sushi chef, who worked for him for more than a
decade and has written two books about the experience, has called Jong Chol effeminate and said that he is "no good" because he is "too much
like a girl."
Verdict: Front-runner. In late 2003 someone referred to as Paek Se Bong -- which can be interpreted as "the New Peak of Mount Paektu" -- was
named to Kim Jong Il's exclusive cabinet, and though there are no published photos of
the "New Peak," some South Korean analysts speculate that it is Jong
Chol. Mount Paektu is a sacred mountain in Korean mythology, and is known as Kim
Jong Il's birthplace. Already one peak of the mountain has been named for Kim Jong Il, and so if Jong Chol is indeed the "New Peak," the moniker
could mark him as next in line for the dictatorship. (Another point in Jong Chol's
favour is that when Kim Jong Il was rising through the political ranks, he, too, was known by a secret code name: "the Party
Center.")
KIM JONG
NAM: The oldest son (born 1971) of Kim Jong Il. His mother was the actress Song Hye
Rim.
Why he might be the next Dear Leader: Jong Nam has held several key leadership positions in North Korea's secret police, army, and national
political party, and he is thought to have brokered secret arms deals. In his youth he was the favourite of his father, who appreciated his love of
the military. When Jong Nam turned twenty-four, his father gave him a soldier's uniform with the badges of a general on it. Ever since then he has
been known in the People's Republic as "Comrade General." North Korean
state television reported in January that his army unit assisted peasant farmers
in the north by preparing "good-quality manure."
Why he might not be: Jong Nam's maternal relatives have a bad habit of defecting. Though his mother never did, his aunt and cousins defected. And
Jong Nam has had his own trouble with borders: In 2001 he was deported from Japan for carrying a false passport from the Dominican Republic. He claimed
he was going to Tokyo Disneyland; South Korean media reported rumours that he was in the country to arrange arms deals. Many analysts suspect he
has fallen out of his father's favour after this embarrassing incident. Some South Korean media sources have reported that Jong Nam's two half brothers
tried to have him assassinated while he was visiting Austria last year. And in 1997 a cousin was murdered in Seoul by a North Korean death squad after
publishing a tell-all about the Kim dynasty.
Verdict: Close runner-up. Jong Nam remains the best-known of the possible heirs. He speaks several languages and is technologically savvy. But the
Tokyo incident damaged his reputation, and last year he briefly corresponded with press outside the country, probably angering his father. Using a South
Korean Yahoo e-mail account, he conducted a brief correspondence with several Japanese journalists. "Hello, I am Kim Jong Nam," he wrote.
"The year-end and New Year are approaching. I wish you good health and happiness."
KIM JONG UN: The youngest (born 1983) of Kim Jong Il's three sons, and one of two he had with Ko Yong Hui.
Why he might be the next Dear Leader: Kim Jong Il's former sushi chef has said that Kim Jong Un is the most favoured of the three sons, because of his
striking resemblance to his father. Why he might not be: He doesn't appear to have held any significant
positions in government, and tradition suggests that as the youngest son he is unlikely to be picked.
Verdict: Dark horse. Like Jong Chol, he no longer has his mother around to influence Kim Jong Il.
KIM SOL SONG: Kim Jong Il's daughter (born 1974). Her mother, Kim Yong Suk, was a typist.
Why she might be the next Dear Leader: Sol Song is the only one of the dictator's children whose mother is still alive and able to push for her
succession. Trained in economics, she often accompanies Kim Jong Il on government trips, and he reportedly relies on her for advice.
Why she might not be: She's a woman in a society with a strong patriarchal tradition. Also, there has been no propaganda in the state media about her
or her mother, who was reportedly replaced in Kim Jong Il's affections by Ko Yong Hui in the mid-1970s.
Verdict: Long shot. Confucian tradition favours passing on leadership to males only, and Kim Il Sung's wish was that the revolution continue through
his grandson.
KIM HYON NAM: The illegitimate child (born 1972) of Kim Il Sung and his nurse, which makes him the half brother of Kim Jong Il, who arranged for
Hyon Nam's adoption with the help of his now banished brother-in-law.
Why he might be the next Dear Leader: Three years ago he was named to a position of substantial power: head of the Propaganda and Agitation
department of the Workers' Party. (Before then few North Koreans even knew of his existence.) Why he might not be: Hyon Nam's illegitimacy will most
likely prevent Kim Jong Il from naming him over one of his own sons. Also, rumour has it that Hyon Nam was recently in a shootout with Kim Jong Chol in
one of the family's palaces.
Verdict: Wild card. Seems an unlikely selection-but so did Kim Jong Il, who had to fight his more powerful uncle and more favoured half brother to
become Dear Leader.
[Sources: Bradley Martin's Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader; South Korean and Japanese media reports]
by David E. Sanger, New York Times, 18 April 2005
The suspected shutdown of a reactor at North Korea's main nuclear weapons complex has raised concern at the White House that the country could be
preparing to make good on its recent threat to harvest a new load of nuclear fuel, potentially increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal.
While there is no way to know with any certainty why the reactor might have been shut down, it has been North Korea's main means of obtaining
plutonium for weapons. The Central Intelligence Agency has told Congress it estimates
that in the last two years the country turned a stockpile of spent fuel from the same reactor into enough bomb-grade material for more than six nuclear
weapons.
The White House's concern over the past week arises from two developments. An American scholar with unusual access to North Korea's leaders, Selig
S. Harrison, a long-time specialist on North Korea at the Center for International Policy in Washington, said after visiting the country two
weeks ago that he was told by a very senior North Korean that there were plans "to unload the reactor to create a situation" to force President
Bush to negotiate on terms more favourable to North Korea.
That focused new attention on spy satellite photographs of the reactor, which has been watched intensively in recent months. While American
officials would not discuss what the spy satellites had seen, commercial satellite photographs of the plant, taken by DigitalGlobe and interpreted by
the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, show that the plant was apparently shut down or shifted to a very low power level
at least 10 days ago, around the time of Mr. Harrison's visit.
Mr. Harrison's message and the satellite photographs present a mystery that has underscored how difficult it is for intelligence officials to decipher
the state of the nuclear program in North Korea. The signs could mean that preparations are beginning to extract fuel rods from the aging five-megawatt
reactor, the first step in the elaborate process of reprocessing the rods into weapons-grade plutonium. But there could also be more innocent
explanations, among them maintenance - or a diplomatic bluff.
"You can't reach any definitive determination yet," said David
Albright, a former weapons inspector who heads the institute. He and other experts note
that it is uncertain how many weapons the North could produce if it removed the fuel rods, which have been in the reactor for a little over two years.
But it would be likely to obtain enough plutonium for at least two weapons, and maybe more, if it had begun to master the complex art of reprocessing
the rods into plutonium.
Though administration officials strike a public pose of little concern about North Korea's threats, the message brought back by Mr. Harrison has seized
the attention of senior American officials as they are debating internally whether the diplomatic approach they have taken for the past two years
should be declared a failure. White House officials are a bit skeptical of Mr. Harrison, who has been critical of Mr. Bush's refusal to negotiate one
on one with North Korea, and who is often warmly received in Pyongyang, the capital.
"It is still too murky to tell exactly what the North Koreans are
doing," said one senior administration official who is deeply immersed in the
intelligence. The North has repeatedly publicly declared in recent months that it now possesses nuclear weapons. It recently urged the United States
to accept that fact and engage in mutual arms reduction talks.
An Asian diplomat deeply involved in the talks said this weekend that
"there seems to have been a decision made by the North Koreans that they are
going to plunge ahead and hope that everyone comes to the conclusion that they've
made so many weapons now that it's too late to reverse things."
Mr. Harrison said that in his meetings the North Koreans said they wanted to use the removal of the reactor fuel to force Mr. Bush to "negotiate a
freeze" on new nuclear activity, rather than full dismantlement. "They
said they will not make commitments on dismantling their nuclear arms, the ultimate step,
until we normalize relations with the North," Mr. Harrison said. Mr. Bush has said dismantlement must come first, and he has rejected a
new nuclear freeze, saying that a freeze agreement reached with President Clinton ultimately failed.
Still, another senior official, who is a central player in the continuing internal arguments within the administration over how to handle North
Korea's mixture of bluffs and provocation, said Mr. Bush would not be intimidated into changing his strategy even if the North raced to produce
more weapons fuel. "We still think a peaceful solution is possible,"
he said. He added, however, that if North Korea refused to return to serious negotiations about
disarming, "or takes additional provocative action, we will need to consult with our four other negotiating parties to consider
other measures." Taking North Korea to the United Nations Security Council for the imposition of sanctions - a step China and South Korea are
desperately trying to avoid - would be among those options, the official said.
The prospect that North Korea may be about to remove fuel from the reactor may also reinvigorate the long-running argument inside the Pentagon, the
State Department and the National Security Council about whether the United States should take some kind of military or covert action to prevent the
North from producing more bomb-grade fuel.
The nuclear facilities are particularly vulnerable when the reactor is being unloaded and the fuel is being cooled, a process that can take several
months. After that, however, the fuel is relatively easy to move and hide, which is what happened after inspectors were thrown out in 2002. Mr. Bush
has said the United States has no interest in attacking North Korea, and any strike at the nuclear plant would carry risks of retaliation.
Still, some Bush administration officials now ruefully recall the advice of Brent
Scowcroft, the national security adviser under President Bush's father, who argued in the early 1990's that the United States should never
let the North reprocess its fuel and become a nuclear power. "You could say
that Brent correctly predicted exactly the scenario we are in now," one of the current President Bush's strategists on the issue said recently. "The
North Koreans have been very smart about how they have gone about this."
by Joo Sang-min, Korea Herald, 15 April 2005
President Roh Moo-hyun opposes increasing pressure on North Korea to get it to end its nuclear ambitions, and says antagonizing the isolationist state
will only aggravate the situation. In an interview with the German daily Die Welt during his stay in Germany, Roh spelled out his North Korean policy and
also expressed optimism about the 30-month-old nuclear standoff.
"I am sceptical about the idea that increased pressure against North Korea will make the North discard its program. In reverse, (the pressure) could
make the situation worse," Roh was quoted as saying. His remarks came as some US hard-liners recently indicated Washington might
apply further pressure on Pyongyang, including referring the issue to the UN Security Council if the North shows no willingness to return to the
negotiating table.
Since the third round of six-party talks denuclearization talks last June, North Korea has been refusing to participate in another round of the
discussions which group the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. The nuclear dispute became more tense after the North declared Feb.
10 it possesses nuclear weapons and will boycott the talks indefinitely until the United States changes its hostile policy. Since then it has made
further demands, including recognition by the United States. President Roh, however, reiterated his optimistic view of settling the standoff.
"We will mention sanctions when we believe there is no hope, but this is
not the situation where there's no hope," Roh said. "There is possibility
the North will come back to the negotiating table, and China has been doing its best for that. North Korea has neither said it cannot discard its nuclear
programs whatsoever, nor has the United States said it will not recognize North Korea," he added.
Roh held a summit Wednesday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at which he reiterated South Korea will support Germany's bid for a
permanent UN Security Council seat if such a reform plan ends up being approved.
Earlier in the day, at a meeting with a group of Korean residents in Frankfurt, Roh said he sees little chances of a sudden collapse of the
Pyongyang regime, an event that would not be welcomed by Seoul.
"Chances are very low that North Korea will collapse suddenly, and we don't
have any intention to encourage it either," Roh said.
He said he believes the communist state has the structural ability to manage any contingencies. Roh hoped for a reunification different from Germany's
experience, where the merging of West and East Germany cost vast sums of money and brought other problems.
"It would be good if the two Koreas are reunified through the form of national confederation, which is after South Korea establishes a peace
structure and develops inter-Korean relations through bilateral cooperation, while North Korea builds the capacity for national unification," he said
Roh was slated to fly to Turkey late yesterday for a four-day visit after winding up his five-day stay in Germany. He leaves for home on Sunday.
The Baltimore Sun, April 12, 2005
Michael
E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign
Policy Studies
Charles
L. Pritchard, Visiting Fellow, Foreign
Policy Studies
The Bush administration's basic policy toward North Korea is not going well. Without a clearer strategy, pursued with strong U.S. leadership, we are almost certain to fail in our efforts to denuclearize North Korea.
The policy-making confusion was evident during Condoleezza Rice's first trip to Asia as secretary of state. She made several statements intended to encourage Kim Jong Il to resume serious negotiations at the six-party talks under way since 2003. She explicitly recognized North Korea's sovereignty and promised security assurances and economic help if it would denuclearize. Yet she also called North Korea an outpost of tyranny. She further voiced thinly veiled threats that the United States might address the North Korea problem outside of the six-party negotiation process, perhaps implying that Washington would demand that the U.N. Security Council consider economic sanctions.
Ms. Rice's thinking is understandable. But her words create concerns, in South Korea and China as well as North Korea, that the United States is not truly sincere in trying to resolve the nuclear crisis diplomatically. The Bush administration is making four fundamentally wrong assumptions in its current policy on North Korea.
The first is that the six-party format, created by the administration in 2003, automatically works to our advantage. Much is to be said for a negotiating forum that brings together China, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and the United States to deal with a problem that affects us all. But the original logic that such a format would isolate Stalinist North Korea has not worked. There is a consensus that the peninsula should be free of nuclear weapons. But there is no agreement on how to achieve that common goal.
Except Japan, other countries in the talks do not think the Bush administration has offered North Korea enough incentives. They also have at least a smidgen of sympathy for North Korea's strategic position in light of the administration's doctrine of pre-emption. Without going so far as to condone a North Korean nuclear arsenal, they understand why a charter member of the "axis of evil" would see such weapons as advantageous, particularly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The second incorrect assumption is that other participants in the talks trust our intelligence about North Korea's nuclear programs. But the Iraq experience makes that dubious. So do recent reports that when briefing Chinese and South Korean officials, the United States exaggerated North Korea's past role in shipping uranium gas to Libya. Unfortunately, our credibility has been called into question just when North Korean recalcitrance was working in our favor.
The third incorrect assumption is that China can find a new mix of carrots and sticks to sway North Korea to negotiate seriously. There is nothing wrong in principle with asking China to play an even greater role in the talks. And in theory, Beijing might threaten to cut off aid to North Korea or curtail trade. But those approaches are implausible in light of China's views that Washington has not negotiated with Pyongyang in good faith in avoiding the destabilization of an immediate neighbor.
The United States, by contrast, can offer to give North Korea much more aid, to lift trade sanctions, to approve World Bank and IMF loans, to seal a security pact and to establish diplomatic ties. It should not do so unconditionally. But unless these U.S. carrots are unambiguously offered in exchange for North Korean concessions on the nuclear issue, other security matters and domestic reforms, Pyongyang is unlikely to budge.
Finally, the Bush administration seems to assume that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein will intimidate North Korea into better behavior. But leaders in Pyongyang know how strained U.S. military forces are today and how vociferously South Korea would oppose any use of U.S. force on the peninsula under current conditions.
The administration needs a new North Korea strategy. It should show the kind of flexibility toward North Korea that it has wisely decided to use with Iran recently. It should offer North Korea concrete, major benefits if Pyongyang will agree to eliminate its nuclear weapons and take other broad steps that begin a process of reform similar to what Vietnam adopted 25 years ago.
Should talks then fail, the United States could not be blamed for having stacked the deck against their success in advance and might gain more key regional support to make North Korea pay a price for its egregious behavior.
by Joseph Kahn, New York Times, 11 April 2005
The North Korean government has disavowed a commitment to negotiate a step-by-step elimination of its nuclear weapons program with the Bush
administration but may freeze the production of nuclear bombs under strict conditions, said an American specialist on North Korea who completed a visit
there this weekend.
The specialist, Selig S. Harrison of the Center for International Policy in Washington, said in an interview that he had been informed by several
top-ranking North Korean leaders that the United States must pledge to respect the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity before any
freeze could be discussed. The Bush administration has rejected conditions for resuming negotiations.
"We have lost the opportunity to negotiate a step-by-step agreement that would lead to the eventual dismantling of their nuclear program," Mr.
Harrison said in Beijing after returning from Pyongyang, North Korea's capital. "They are no longer willing to discuss that possibility."
Mr. Harrison has been critical of the Bush administration for not negotiating directly with the North Koreans. He has had a rare high-level
access to the North Korean leadership. On his most recent visit, he said he met Kim Yong Nam, North Korea's second-highest official and the nominal head
of state; Kang Sok Ju and Kim Gye Gwan, senior Foreign Ministry officials who oversee talks on the nuclear program; and Gen. Ri Chan Bok, who is in
charge of North Korean forces at the truce village of Panmunjom at the border.
Although the North Koreans are willing to return to six-nation nuclear talks that have taken place under Chinese auspices, they are demanding that the
United States apologize for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's comment during Congressional hearings that North Korea was an "outpost of
tyranny," Mr. Harrison said.
Some of the comments made to Mr. Harrison appear to echo a statement issued by North Korea on March 31, in which it declared itself a nuclear
power and demanded that talks on reducing weapons on the Korean peninsula, including
any weapons under control of American forces in South Korea, take place between the United States and North Korea on equal terms.
Mr. Harrison said this constituted a "major policy shift" that had
taken place since his last visit to Pyongyang a year ago, adding that he attributed the shift
to hard-line military elements that have exerted more control in recent months.
He quoted the North Korean officials as saying that they planned to unload plutonium fuel rods from their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon in coming weeks
for the first time since 2002, giving them another 8,000 nuclear fuel rods. Mr. Harrison said this could provide enough nuclear fuel to double their
existing arsenal of bombs, which some American estimates now place at six to eight.
While that suggests an expansion of North Korea's nuclear program, Mr. Harrison said he was told that there were no plans to conduct a nuclear
test. "They said they see no need to test and do not want to test because they are worried about the nuclear fallout, even of an underground test,"
he said.
By BURT HERMAN, The Associated Press, 04/11/05
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's rubber-stamp legislature approved the national budget Monday under the watch of leader Kim Jong Il, boosting defense spending to arm all its citizens and turn the isolated communist country into a ``fortress,'' according to reports.
Kim appeared at the one-day session of the Supreme People's Assembly, the North's official Korean Central News Agency reported, although he did not appear to have addressed the meeting of hand-picked loyalists.
The North originally said it would convene the parliament session in early March but postponed it without any explanation. The legislature usually meets once or twice a year to approve budgets or policy already set by the Kim regime.
The meeting comes amid a heightened standoff over North Korea's atomic programs after Pyongyang claimed in February it had developed nuclear weapons and said it would boycott six-nation disarmament talks that include the United States. But in the official report on the parliament session Monday, there was no mention of the nuclear dispute.
North Korea's budget revenue will increase 15.1 percent this year from 2004, boosted by a 13.5 percent increase in revenues from state enterprises in the country's centrally planned economy, KCNA reported, citing Finance Minister Mun Il Bong. No figures were given for the 2005 budget or the year before.
The North said it spent 15.6 percent of its budget on the military last year ``in order to cope with the more frantic moves of the U.S.-led imperialists to isolate and stifle'' the country.
This year, the figure will rise to 15.9 percent ``with a view to bolstering the People's Army, developing the defense industry and implementing to the letter the (Korean Workers) Party's policy of placing all the people under arms and turning the whole country into a fortress,'' according to
KCNA. Premier Pak Pong Ju focused his speech to the meeting on the claimed successes of the economy in the North, which relies on outside aid to feed its people. The North has embraced tentative reforms to its communist system and encouraged managers to put a priority on profit, which Pak said should continue.
Economic officials and factory managers should devise strategies ``thoroughly adhering to the socialist principle and the principle of ensuring profitability,'' he said, according to
KCNA. Pak also blasted the United States for halting fuel oil shipments that were provided under a 1994 deal between the countries in which Pyongyang agreed to stop its nuclear weapons development in exchange for aid.
``The U.S. imperialists were so base as to suspend even the supply of heavy fuel oil to our country last year, though they were committed to it as compensation,'' he said.
The energy deal fell apart after the latest nuclear crisis erupted in 2002, when U.S. officials accused the North of running a secret uranium-enrichment program.
International efforts have been under way to reopen international nuclear disarmament talks that also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Three previous rounds in Beijing failed to lead to any breakthroughs.
But prospects for a speedy resumption of the talks appeared to dim after a U.S. scholar who visited North Korea and met senior leaders said Sunday that Pyongyang will not discuss dismantling its nuclear weapons before the United States normalizes diplomatic and economic relations.
11 April 2005, www.utro.ru (in Russian)
В КНДР в католическом храме Пхеньяна прошла траурная служба в память скончавшегося главы Римско-католической церкви Иоанна Павла II. На службе присутствовали около 100 человек. Северокорейские СМИ сообщили о смерти понтифика лишь несколько дней спустя после того, как стало известно о его кончине. По оценкам независимых экспертов в КНДР, где религиозная деятельность строго контролируется государством, насчитывается от 3 до 4 тыс. католиков.
Reuters, Seoul, 5 April 2005
North Korean Catholics are holding memorial services in Pyongyang and across
the country in honour of the late Pope John Paul II, the atheist state's
KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday. KCNA quoted from a condolence message
it said had been sent to the Vatican by Samuel Jang Jae On, described as
chairman of the Central Committee of the Korean Catholics Association.
"All the Catholic believers of our country are also offering memorial
service in deep grief at the Jangchung cathedral in Pyongyang and family
worship places across the country," Jang was quoted as saying.
The Catholic Church has no legal standing in North Korea, and the number of
its followers is unknown. Archbishop Nicholas Cheong of Seoul told the
Catholic Mission organization in an interview with its online Mission News
(http:/www.catholicmission.org/Mission_News): "We know there are Catholics
in the North, but exactly how many we are not sure. 3,000 perhaps."
Asahi Shimbun: April 5, 2005
North Korea hinted to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which has suspended the project to build light water reactors
in North Korea, that it would abandon a "memorandum" concluded between
North Korea and KEDO in March last year, a high-ranking US government official has
told the Asahi Shimbun. The memorandum stipulates agreements on such matters
as the safety of about 120 workers who are still at the construction site and free visits to the site. To examine the DPRK's real intentions, KEDO is
hastening preparations to send high-ranking officials to North Korea this month.
In late March, North Korea sent a fax letter to the KEDO Secretariat in New York. In the letter, North Korea said the memorandum it concluded after
the suspension of the light water reactor project "is about to become
invalid," and requested that talks among high-ranking officials be held to discuss
various issues, including the memorandum issue. (...) If the memorandum becomes void, there will be a possibility that about 120 South Korean
workers who are staying at the construction site for maintenance and repair of half-finished facilities and people concerned with the governments of
Japan and the United States will be deprived of privileges that are similar to diplomatic privileges, including immunity from arrest.
After the project was suspended, North Korea has told KEDO that it will not allow KEDO to remove about 275 pieces of heavy equipment such as
bulldozers and cranes from the site. Therefore negotiations between North Korea and
KEDO, which wants to remove the heavy equipment, have bogged down. (...)
by Marie Frail, Reuters, Beijing, 5 April 2005
A strain of bird flu previously undetected in Asia has been found in North
Korea, which has culled thousands of chickens to contain the outbreak, a top UN
expert said on Tuesday. The secretive state, struggling with widespread famine
after natural disasters and bad harvests in the 1990s, has so far culled 219,000
chickens and clamped down on bird movements. Hans Wagner, a senior official with
the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Reuters Television in
Beijing after a week-long visit to North Korea the strain was H7.
"We have a new situation, because H7 has so far not occurred in Asia,"
he said. "We don't know where the virus came from, so we have to trace
back... how did the virus come into the farms," said Wagner, who has played
a prominent role in Asia's battle against the deadly H5N1 virus. H5N1 has killed
49 people since late 2003, 16 since the disease erupted anew in December, and
has proved extremely difficult to stamp out in Thailand, Vietnam and
Cambodia.
North Korea has clamped down on bird movements since the first outbreak was detected on a large poultry farm in Hadang, outside the capital, Pyongyang. Outbreaks were found on two other farms within a 4-km radius of the first case. It was unclear whether culled chickens were being cooked and eaten. Aid experts say more than 1 million North Koreans have starved to death since the mid 1990s.
There were no indications so far of human bird flu cases in North Korea, Wagner
said, "(but) the country has to continue to be vigilant to survey those
farms and check if there are no new outbreaks occurring." China has
tightened quarantine controls on its border with North Korea, and stepped up the
fight against poultry smuggling. South Korea, which has also stepped up
quarantine measures at poultry farms near the border, believes the outbreaks in
North Korea are extensive.
Most of the 25 million birds North Korea produces annually come from larger farms, one of the few growing sectors in a country battling severe food shortages. Bird flu has become entrenched in several other Asian countries because the virus can circulate among small, backyard farms where chickens often mix with wild ducks, believed to be silent carriers of the disease, experts say. Apart from H5N1, H7 is one of two other avian strains which can cause illness in humans, but outbreaks have not been as severe as those caused by the H5N1 strain.
