By Kim Young-jin
The United States, despite its recent nuclear deal with North Korea, may have to allow the communist state to keep its nuclear weapons in order to manage the growth of its program, an expert said Thursday.
The remark from Kookmin University expert Andrei Lankov came amid widespread skepticism over whether the North will completely abandon its atomic ambitions despite efforts return to multilateral denuclearization talks.
“Under no circumstances will the North Korean government consider relinquishing its hard-won nuclear capabilities,” Lankov wrote on a Foreign Policy blog.
“Sooner or later, one would expect the United States to relent and provide the North with regular ‘compensation’ for its willingness to freeze its nuclear program, without surrendering its existent nukes.”
The U.S.-North Korea deal, announced last week, paves the way for the resumption of six-party talks if Pyongyang follows through by shutting down its uranium enrichment program at Yongbyon in exchange for nutritional assistance and other considerations.
Many analysts say the North is unlikely to give up the nuclear weapons program in light of the recent fall of the Moammar Gadhafi regime in Libya, which came after Tripoli ceded theirs.
Lankov noted that Washington’s stated goal, the complete disarmament of the North, was further hampered by an inability to implement international sanctions with teeth due to China’s consistent cooperation with Pyongyang.
Beijing, which fears instability in the North, shielded Pyongyang from international censure over its provocations in 2010.
Lankov said the recent deal showed Pyongyang’s willingness to freeze its program and not produce more weapons in exchange for light-water reactors and continuous food aid. The country continues to struggle with a mismanaged economy and power shortages.
“The only practical solution is for the United States to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea ― and wait until the regime crumbles under the weight of its own inefficiency,” the scholar said.
Though such a solution may be “unacceptable to Washington because it amounts to an admission of North Korea's nuclear status” Lankov said that in lieu of such an arrangement the program would grow larger and more sophisticated.
Commercial satellite imagery released this week by a U.S. think tank shows the North has made progress on a light-water reactor at the Yongbyon plant.
The Feb. 3 image courtesy of the Institute for Science and International Security shows that the reactor’s turbine appeared externally complete, showing progress compared to images released in September.
The North walked out of the six-party talks, which also includes the South, Japan, Russia and China, after being slapped with international sanctions for its nuclear testing.