[imText1]The news of a possible nuclear connection between North Korea and Syria is “complete nonsense,” asserts Leon Sigal, North-South Korea expert with the U.S. Social Science Research Council (SSRC).
In a phone interview with the Daily NK on September 24th, Leon Sigal responded strongly to suspicions of a nuclear tie between Syria and North Korea. “The Syria story is complete nonsense. No one in a position to know has said anything about nuclear transfer. If you go read carefully what officials have been saying, they have not said that.”
According to Sigal, the person “not in the position to know” who had been spreading rumors of a connection is John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador in UN. “This is another one of those games that the Boltons of the world play when they see the negotiating track getting serious,” Sigal explained, “which is they throw some threat on the table to try to derail talks that turns out not to be quite the threat they made of it. They exaggerated the uranium enrichment program…and tried to use it to block negotiations, and they did so successfully for a while.
“From what I have seen, there is simply no evidence what so ever of any North Korean nuclear connection to Syria. My guess is that at the end of the day we will learn the Israelis found something quite different.”
Other topics addressed in the interview with Sigal included the U.S.’s changed attitude toward North Korea, the peace regime, negotiations for light water reactors, and the North-South Korea Summit (which commenced on October 2nd).
Regarding the U.S.’ changed attitude toward North Korea, Sigal stated that “people assumed President Bush was a hardliner; but in fact, on a number of occasions he had gone along with some steps that Powell had wanted to take to open up negotiating options [with North Korea] and then turned around and backed Cheney and Rumsfeld. So he was always kind of wavering back and forth between the hardliners and the engagers.” Sigal explained that it was Secretary Rice who persuaded the president that the U.S. might make progress with the North by trying diplomatic give-and-take in earnest for a change and that it was worth trying.
When asked about the South Korean government’s view on establishing a peace treaty with North Korea, he responded that South Korea is not looking to “negotiate a Peace Treaty and complete it immediately; they’re talking about a peace declaration or peace agreement, which the North has also talked about for a long time, as a first step to building a Peace Regime.
Sigal was careful to differentiate between the two terms, stating that “a peace treaty, if it’s going to mean anything, has to talk about permanent borders; the Northern Limit Line would have to be agreed before you have a peace treaty. It has to talk about reducing and moving back the forces arrayed on both sides of the DMZ.” On the other hand “a peace declaration or peace agreement says, in effect, we are willing to negotiate and have a formal peace treaty at the end of this process and we are willing to start talking about that now,” he clarified. “One of the key steps in a peace declaration is to replace the Military Armistice Commission, the UN Commission, with a three-way peace mechanism, which is essentially a negotiating forum involving South Korea, the United States, and the DPRK to deal with issues like helicopters straying into the DMZ or fishing vessels crossing the Northern Limit Line, and negotiating confidence-building measures of all sorts. That is what the North is proposing…and presumably they are willing to do something in return on the nuclear front.”
Thirdly, in the Six Party talks, North Korea officials have insisted on the provision of light water reactors in lieu of dismantling their nuclear facilities. As this relates to the relieving the energy crisis in North Korea, the Daily NK asked Sigal to expound on this issue. “There are many ways of providing energy assistance to the North, and I think you will have a negotiation in the working group on assistance,” he said. “South Korea earlier on in the Six Party Talks proposed that it provide two million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent energy assistance. I think the North will not be interested in a wholly South Korean provision of energy assistance. They want to see the United States and Japan participate. The U.S. has agreed to provide the next traunch of heavy fuel oil, but the Japanese have not yet said they’re going to provide assistance.
“The provision of energy assistance in the equivalent of a million tons of heavy fuel oil is one way that the United States and Japan can show that we are moving to a fundamentally new relationship with the North,” he asserted. However, he emphasized that there are a number of ways to supplement North Korea’s energy needs without the provision of light water reactors. “North Korea will keep the provision of light water reactors issue on the negotiation table. Whether or not North Korea will continue to obsess over the provision of light water reactors issue even after denuclearization succeeds and they get substantial energy assistance in return we have to wait and see.”
Finally, in reference to the North-South Korea Summit, the Daily NK inquired as to whether President Roh Moo Hyun should discuss the North Korean nuclear issue at the talks.
Sigal replied that the North has made it abundantly clear that the nuclear issue is between North Korea and the U.S. Therefore, it is unrealistic to assume that any fundamental decisions will be made regarding nuclear dismantlement at the North-South Korea Summit. “The most important thing, however, is that President Roh, at the summit, can address a number of important issues which will make it easier to resolve the nuclear issue and to make future progress in Six Party Talks. This is a rare opportunity to find out what Kim Jong Il himself, not his diplomats or the people who deal with the South, but Kim Jong Il himself is thinking about when he talks about the peace regime in the Korean peninsula or economic assistance. Giving him some of what he wants in return for further steps toward denuclearization may facilitate progress in Six-Party Talks.”
