North Korea seems set to submit its declaration to China officially on the 26th, and the U.S. is to simultaneously start the process of removing North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. On June 27 or 28, a show of the explosion of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor cooling tower is supposed to be held and the Six Party Talks are set to be resumed.
December 31 of last year was the original deadline for the nuclear declaration. With that six month delay, North Korea screwed up the promised termination of the country from the U.S. state sponsoring terrorism list. North Korea’s slow motion progress effectively broke the patience of the Department of State and Condoleezza Rice, who wants diplomatic achievements by the end of her term of office.
When Secretary Rice made an hour long speech to the Heritage Foundation on U.S. policy toward Asia on the 18th, she gave over thirty minutes to the North Korean nuclear issue. She said that “President Bush would… notify Congress of our intention to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and to cease the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In the next 45 days after that, before those actions go into effect, we would continue to assess the level of North Korean cooperation in helping to verify the accuracy and completeness of its declaration.”
She emphasized that in the event of failure, “We will re-impose any applicable sanction that we have waived and we will add new ones,” and “No final agreement can be concluded unless we verify the elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and its programs.”
Therefore, there are three questions that we should ask: first, is North Korea going to submit an accurate and complete declaration to China; second, will North Korea cooperate with the U.S. and IAEA to verify the submitted declaration on the basis of sincerity; and third, will North Korea disable all its nuclear materials and nuclear weapons in the 3rd phase?
There can be no diplomatic official in the related six countries who believe that these procedures will go smoothly. Regarding the declaration of nuclear programs, the total volume and uses of the plutonium, the completed nuclear weapons and related issues, public criticism will be raised. According to the Asahi Shimbun, the delegates of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan agreed on the 19th at the Tokyo meeting that they will accept the declaration of the nuclear programs, as long as North Korea submits it by a certain fixed deadline, even though it will not contain information on nuclear weapons.
How many nuclear weapons North Korea has is a very high level secret. The people who know the exact number are the Supreme Commander of the People’s Army Kim Jong Il, the secretary in charge of the munitions industry of the Central Committee of the Party Jeon Byung Ho, and the person in charge of the nuclear development of the 2nd Academy of Science for Natural Science, which is the national defense and science institute. The Army Chief of Staff Kim Gyeuk Shik, the Director of Military Operations Kim Myung Kook, and other core officials in the Army, only roughly know the number.
Unless Kim Jong Il is a moron, the possibility of him unveiling the top national secret is “zero.” The nuclear weapons have been laboriously developed with great personal and material resources for over 4 decades, since departments related to nuclear fission were founded in Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology. In bilateral meetings, repeated several times by Christopher Hill and Kim Kye Gwan, the U.S. tried to discover not how many nuclear weapons North Korea has developed, but how much plutonium should be declared as enough for the other 5 countries of the Six Party Talks and the U.S. congressmen to accept.
Nuclear experts estimate that North Korea produced 45 kg of plutonium and developed at least 5 to 10 nuclear weapons.
President of the Committee for Democratization of North Korea Hwang Jang Yop, who used to be the secretary in charge of diplomacy for the Chosun Workers’ Party said, regarding the amount of nuclear weapons North Korea has developed, that “It may have at least five, because Kim Jong Il’s targets for the nuclear threat would not be the U.S. or China but South Korea and Japan. He may think two weapons are for South Korea and three for the three big islands, Japan.”
Regarding the plutonium amount, President Hwang said “Kim Jong Il would never declare the exact and accurate quantity of plutonium.” He explained that Kim does not want international nuclear and military experts to find out precisely the North Korean nuclear strategy.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration would not want to pass over this issue, and end up getting tricked by Kim Jong Il just like the U.S. did in 1994. For the same reason, Rice said that “The goal of our verification effort must be to deter cheating by North Korea, to make cheating as hard as possible.”
North Korea and China want Secretary Rice to participate in the audience at the exploding of the Yongbyon cooling tower that is to be held on the 28th.
This current situation looks like the state of things in October, 2000, when Director of the General Political Department of the People’s Army Cho Myung Rok visited the U.S., Secretary of State Albright also visited Pyongyang, and both agreed provisionally the missile negotiations and President Clinton asked Kim Jong Il to visit the U.S. through President Kim Dae Jung.
That is, an atmosphere in which the nuclear issue looks set to be smoothly solved shortly before the end of the Bush administration’s term of office is being created. However, I predict the North Korean nuclear issue will not go as the U.S. hopes this time, but also not as North Korea wants.
Many experts on North Korea who have been studying or working on such issues for a long time, such as Robert A. Manning, former Asian policy adviser to the State Department, and Robert Gallucci, mentioned that North Korea often seems to be trying to do something but it always misses good opportunities at the last moment.
I believe that although it seems that Kim Jong Il missed the opportunity, actually he did not have any intention of taking the opportunity to give up his nuclear weapons. No matter how good the conditions provided to him, the deal to exchange the nuclear weapons themselves cannot succeed. Outsiders wonder why Kim Jong Il will not take such a good chance, but Kim Jong Il is basically fearful of his regime security after abandoning his nuclear capability.
For Kim Jong Il, he wants the U.S. to secure his regime and guarantee his nuclear weapons, but it is unacceptable for South Korea, Japan, and China, let alone the U.S. People say that as long as he gives up the nuclear bombs, he will get really fabulous opportunities, but it is hard to find an alternative condition for Kim to substitute for having nuclear capabilities.
From this point of view, we need to watch carefully progress in the 45 days after North Korea’s submission of the nuclear declaration. This is because Kim Jong Il may plan to write a document stating that “DPRK will not transfer nuclear weapons and nuclear materials to any other countries under any circumstances,” a document which can easily be turned into trash at any time, in order to achieve a long-cherished dream, that of the termination of North Korea from the state sponsored terrorism list.
Anyhow, the North Korean denuclearization process under the principle of “action for action” wouldn’t likely be so easily achieved. If Kim Jong Il is trying to go this way, he will miss another good chance, at the last moment of the Bush administration.
After North Korea’s submission, a new vista for the nuclear issue is impending.
