By Kim Young-jin
A prominent U.S. scientist urged regional players Wednesday to swiftly resume nuclear negotiations with North Korea, saying in the absence of talks the Stalinist state was advancing its program to increasingly risky stages.
Dr. Siegfried Hecker, to whom the North disclosed its uranium enrichment program (UEP) last year, pointed to its progress in constructing a light water reactor (LWR) and advancing weapons delivery systems as signs that “confidence-building steps” were urgently needed.
“The first and most important thing is that it does not get worse. And it got worse in 2011,” said Hecker, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University during a forum in Seoul. “We (need to) engage to stop the threat escalation.”
The scholar, who has toured North Korean facilities several times at Pyongyang’s invitation, said the most urgent need was to prevent further nuclear and missile tests, which he believes would help it build warheads small enough to mount on a missile in the near future.
Seoul and Washington are facing off with the North over how to resume stalled six-party negotiations, with the allies trying to coax Pyongyang into taking concrete steps to prove its intent to denuclearize.
Pyongyang is believed to have stockpiled enough plutonium for around six nuclear bombs. Last year, it displayed a road-mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile called Musudan during a military parade that Hecker said could be mounted with a nuclear warhead if the program continues unabated.
"If another of the North's nuclear tests is successful, I believe that North Korea will succeed in the necessary miniaturization within a few years,” he said.
The completion of the light water reactor would carry with it major safety concerns as it would be difficult for the isolated country to obtain the needed know-how to run such a facility, Hecker said. It would also allow Pyongyang to claim it is operating the UEP to fuel the reactor while secretly producing uranium for nuclear weapons.
The Stanford professor prescribed a “three no’s and one yes” approach to reestablish trust among the players and address what he believes to be the most pressing concerns. Under the scheme, the North would refrain from building more bombs, nuclear tests and proliferation in exchange for Washington’s willingness to address Pyongyang’s security concerns.
His call came as the Barack Obama administration could hold a third meeting this month with the North in a bid to resume the six-party talks, according to sources here. Washington and Seoul have been calling on the North to halt the UEP in a verifiable manner, while Pyongyang insists on resumption without preconditions.
The six-party talks, which also involved China, Japan and Russia, aim to dismantle the program in exchange for aid and security guarantees for the impoverished state. But the North walked away from the talks in 2009 in response to international sanctions.
It raised the stakes for their resumption last November by disclosing the LWR and uranium enrichment centrifuge plant that left Hecker “shocked.”
Last month, the North said it was making solid progress in efforts to produce low-enriched uranium intended to power the LWR.
Regarding his role visiting the North and delivering information to the outside world, he said he is always carefully weighing whether the messages he carries out are useful to the United States and the international community.
“It’s much better for me to see (the North’s program) and tell the world than for them to do it and nobody (really) knowing. I view my role as bringing the best possible technical assessment out,” he said.