North Korean nuclear weathervane
UNITED NATIONS — With the predictability of a weather vane in a windstorm, the North Korean regime has let fly rhetorical gusts regarding their nuclear program. During the
course of one week, Pyongyang’s delegates sent the vane spinning from peaceful palaver concerning negotiations to rash claims that they are reprocessing plutonium and making nuclear bombs! Given the political atmosphere on the divided Korean peninsula, the barometer is falling and urgent diplomatic steps are called for.
Choe Su Hon, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Vice Foreign Minister told the UN General Assembly, “It is the consistent position of the DPRK to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue and negotiations. De-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula is the ultimate goal and initiative of the DPRK.”
He added, “In order to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully through dialogue, the policy hostile to the DPRK should be changed fundamentally.” This would include a “package deal” where Washington would abandon its “hostile policy to the DPRK” and would sign a non-aggression treaty with North Korea. “Simultaneous action is a realistic way to for de-nuclearizing the Korean peninsula,” Choe said.
Not two days later, North Korea’s neo-Stalinist government announced that it is producing atomic weapons from the 8,000 spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor, which would continue to be “churned out in an unbroken chain.” Though likely bellicose bluster, the CIA estimates that the Pyongyang communists have the capability to build six bombs over a six-month period. Hardly comforting given that the DPRK has had two nuclear devices for a decade.
Secretary of State Colin Powell advised, “This is a matter of the most serious concern” but conceded, “This is the third time they have told us they had finished reprocessing the rods. We have no evidence to confirm that.”
Pyongyang knows that nuclear proliferation — no matter what their actual technical capacity — concentrates its adversary’s attention and prepares the groundwork for blackmail. And given the ongoing controversy concerning Saddam’s proscribed weapons, the North Koreans are deliberately muddying the waters to cause maximum confusion.
Jeong Se-Hyun, ROK Minister of Unification told a gathering of the prestigious Korea Society in New York, “In convincing North Korea to attend the multilateral dialogue (Recent talks in Beijing among the Koreas along with the USA, People’s China, Japan and Russia) efforts by the United States and China have played an important role.”
The parallel track to this he advised, “In addition to such diplomatic efforts, we have maintained the inter-Korean dialogue channel to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear development program.”
Minister Jeong stressed, “We will have to juggle improving inter-Korean relations while resolving the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully through international cooperation.” He added significantly “I would like to stress that the long term and solid-U.S.-ROK relations will not be affected negatively by the process of improving Seoul- Pyongyang relations.”
While outlining that the Seoul government is pursing this policy “within the framework of close cooperation with the United States,” Minister Jeong added, “My own conviction is that the best option is to create conditions for North Korea that will encourage it to abandon its resort to military threats, including nuclear weapons and missiles, and instead encourage it to pursue reform and opening.”
Jeong advised, “It would be our realistic option for stabilizing situation in Korea that we pursue inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation while handling North Korean’s bad behavior through international coordination.” He added, “History shows that economics spearheaded the process of integrating divided countries.”
Realistic moves in dealing with a rational state player, but can this apply to the bizarre Marxist dictatorship in the quaintly titled Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?
While most sources clearly ascribe Pyongyang’s proliferation stance as a negotiating tactic in the DPRK’s grand strategy, the possession of nuclear weapons remains sine qua non with regime survival. Confronted by its own political paranoia, Pyongyang may not be so willing to “negotiate away” its rogue nukes.
Survival of Kim Jong-il’s neo-Stalinist rule sits at the core of the argument. That the South Koreans have surpassed their communist cousins economically, socially, and politically stands undisputed. Still in Pyongyang’s political never-never land this is not the issue — rather it’s an ideological interpretation of reality.
The signals are decidedly mixed. The players are reading different scripts. The dangers of miscalculation are frightfully apparent.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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