Is North Korea Seriously Disarming?
In shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor just as it was receiving the first oil shipment, North Korea has demonstrated exquisite timing and a fine eye for a deal.
The Six Party Talks will now reconvene in Beijing in an attempt to secure further progress. But having come good on its initial commitment, Pyongyang now has the option of playing hard to get once again. It has made the only concession it really needed to make to keep negotiations (and hopes) alive and the US and others off its back.
Pyongyang gets top marks for timing and for generating the impression that it will act quickly when its grievances are addressed. As a shrewd negotiator, North Korea made the reactor shutdown, agreed to at the last round of talks in February, contingent on the release of some dodgy funds it had deposited in a Macau-based bank. This process took several months, even testing the patience of the normally indefatigable US envoy Christopher Hill. But as soon as these funds were unfrozen, the ice began to melt very quickly. And once the first shipment of oil to North Korea was on the way, another part of the deal hatched in February, the Yongbyon shutdown was underway: the most significant bit of progress since the Six Party Talks began in 2003.
North Korea also deserves credit for bringing home the initial bacon. It has got the better part of the deal – not just the oil, but negotiations with the other members of the talks (including the United States) on security assurances and the prospect of normalized relations.
In return it is closing down a reactor it has been able to reactivate before. And all along it has retained the plutonium extracted from the same reactor in earlier years. Last year it even tested a nuclear device – perhaps not a fully-fledged nuclear weapon or a fully successful test, but a clear sign at least that it had done everything but cross the threshold.
The next stage, as Mr Hill has cautioned, is going to be much tougher. Pyongyang is now required to produce a full inventory of its nuclear facilities. Included in that list, in Washington’ eyes at least, must be any details on North Korea’s suspected work on highly enriched uranium – a second path to the production of bomb-making material. It is an almost certain bet that North Korea will stall on producing the inventory. It is even more likely that Washington will find any such list worryingly incomplete. Additional rounds of the talks may be needed to haggle on the finer details.
The Yongbyon shut-down may not create momentum for this next stage. Instead it may have removed the pressure from North Korea to act quickly on any subsequent steps. This second stage can be expected to move well into 2008 which also happens to be a presidential election year in Washington – and it would take any new administration months to get its act together and reapply significant pressure on Pyongyang. North Korea may also have now done enough to get its traditionally friendly neighbour China off its back a little. And the supply of fuel may help reinvigorate cooperation with South Korea.
The reactor shutdown is hardly the end of the beginning. The eventual and much more difficult aim of dismantling and removing all of North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure remains a rather distant prospect, if it really exists at all. At least some of the parties to the Six Party Talks are probably reconciled to the idea of living with some sort of nuclear North Korea. But they may be hoping that the reactor shutdown signals the possibility of freezing Kim Jong-il’s program before it becomes more dangerous.
Robert Ayson is Director of Studies at the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre and can be contacted at robert.ayson@anu.edu.au
The est should take a page from Pyongyang’s book and surprise them with new demands: no new aid until Yongbyon is dismantled. Otherwise they’ll inevitably restart it to demand new concessions from us in order to shut it down again.
The key to understanding North Korea is that it’s a bandit state. The only way to make progress is to treat like one. Any concession without solid, certain, irreversible reciprocity does nothing but encourage more extortion.
Kim Jong Il is so ronery, he just wants us to pay attention to him.
South Korea is a quagmire. When are we getting the hell out of there?
sounds like Charlie Brown and the football again to me…
It’s the Clinton/Carter deal, except that North Korea has plutonium-based nukes they didn’t have before Bush took office.
You can smell the desperation in spin like this:
And all along it has retained the plutonium extracted from the same reactor in earlier years.
That’s arguably true only if you equate the plutonium fuel rods that were stored and monitored under IAEA seal when Bush took office, as required by the Clinton/Carter deal, and the plutonium that is now in atomic bombs.
They’re reliably untrustworthy. Give them train-loads of grain and they insist the trains were part of the deal.
I’ve blogged about NorK several times, but nothing really profound. Mostly making fun of Kim’s trousers and other snarky topics.
But serioulsy, you know, it IS hard to tell. They could be lying and sneaking about like they were previously, making a good show to the world that they are complying. We can’t believe anything out of the media, because of the agenda blinders. But if they continue down this road, sincerely, and diplomatic relations improve, sincerely, I might not hold my breath so hard.
But being the cynic I am, I doubt it. It IS Charlie Brown and his football again and again and again.
After reading this it has become almost certain to me that N.K. is just stalling for time. They’ve got something for pretty much nothing and want to keep it that way. Having said this, I the still optimistic that the reactor will stay closed but the common-sense part of my brain tells me otherwise.
Of course North Korea is playing us for suckers. Because we are suckers. We believe in diplomacy and hope. They belive in the art of the deal. Get all you can get and then ask for more. Create an atmosphere of doubt. Be vague on the questions of compliance and honesty. Give the sucker a little tease and then stick it to ‘em.
Same song , second verse. Suckers never learn. The Commies have been milking this scenario all of my lifetime and we are still falling for it .