Light Water Reactors
By Lee Byong-chul
The differences between North Korea and the U.S. have been recently drawn out in sharp tension over the light water reactors (LWRs) issue, perhaps more so than in any previous tit for tat. Pyongyang considers the LWRs as the impending issue for the present, while Washington thinks of it as one for the future.
Despite their vividly shared split in terms of diplomatic strategy, however, it goes without saying that the LWRs would stand in the way between the United States and North Korea, as the two have already experienced bitterly.
An international consortium had been building two light water reactors in North Korea to be used for power under the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework at a cost of more than $5 billion, most of it financed by South Korea. But the project was all of a sudden aborted in 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of operating a secret uranium enrichment facility.
In mid-2002, the Bush administration reportedly obtained clear evidence that North Korea had acquired material and equipment for a centrifuge facility that, if complete, could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year.
Furthermore, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), which was established under the Clinton administration to build the LWRs, had been derided and finally killed by the Bush administration along with the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework, since Washington and Pyongyang alike were dogged in their positions on the LWRs.
Many South Korean conservatives were and still are frankly contemptuous of the provisions of the LWRs, which they regard as softheaded. In contrast, liberal groups have strategically highlighted the peaceful use of nuclear energy _ not the weapons program _ that North Korea urgently needs while debating the destiny of the LWRs.
In the view of the Bush administration's national security staff, who underscore the continued importance to strengthened nonproliferation efforts, the LWRs are certainly looming threats _ a set of deadly challenges that are likely to emerge from North Korea.
Bush rightly worried in the West Point address in 2002 that even weak states and small groups could attain the catastrophic power to strike great nations such as the U.S., if the spread of nuclear and biological weapons, along with ballistic missile technology, occurred.
Did North Korea sense, however, an old truth that a single-issue policy would likely tend over time to yield to the more complex mosaic of a state's aggregate foreign policies?
Kim Gye-gwan, the North Korea's top nuclear envoy, first made an assertive request on July 21 that LWRs be urgently provided in compensation for dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
He assumed urgency and deserved timely attention. At the same time, Kim's comments implied that the dismantlement of the nuclear program would likely take place in parallel with the resumption of construction of the LWRs.
In other words, North Korea has forced U.S. policymakers to find an appropriate balance between evidently conflicting objectives with respect to nuclear non-proliferation and privileged diplomacy.
Expending considerable diplomatic and political resources in a largely half-baked effort to dismantle the nuclear weapons facilities to date, the U.S. reconfirmed that the LWRs issue was one that it would discuss only after denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula was completed.
Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator of the six-party talks, refuted Kim's claim on July 23 by referring to the September 19, 2005, statement: ``At an appropriate time we are prepared to discuss the subject of the provision of light water reactors to the DPRK.’’
He also pointed out that the appropriate time is when North Korea gets out of its dirty nuclear business and returns to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) from which it withdrew in 2003, before subsequently declaring itself to have nuclear weapons.
South Korea also took the same stance as the U.S. with regard to the provision of the LWRs. A South Korean official who refused to be named said, ``The time to offer LWRs will be the most difficult issue since the September 19 statement, but it is not the kind of thing that is negotiable.’’
Then, he predicted that it would be technically impossible to provide the LWRs to North Korea unless it disabled its entire nuclear weapons program and returned to the NPT.
Yet an expert's expressiveness stands in sharp contrast to the seasoned public official.
A senior analyst on North Korea, who once worked for the South Korean government said on the condition of anonymity, ``I think I am not alone in feeling that the U.S. holds the key of whether or not to resume the LWRs. But the timetable for their provision needs to be more detailed and set up in accordance with each stage of denuclearization to be made by the North.’’
And he took pains to point out that the principle of action for action should apply to the LWRs issue as well, as long as the cardinal rule for their supply requires North Korea to separate its civilian nuclear power reactors and open them to international inspections.
In order for the rule to be effective, in the end, the United States might need to make other concessions, since Pyongyang is likely to strike its demand to be able to reprocess spent fuel for the reactors on the civilian side, which has raised much concern in Washington about opportunities to generate weapons-grade plutonium for the country's military arsenal.
Thus, it is my judgment that the phased provision of the LWRs could be the touchstone for the idea that a broader strategic cooperation with North Korea would be good for the United States in the long run.
In other words, if neither one is satisfied with the status quo, it is necessary to consider selective cooperation and selective opposition, depending on which suits the interests of Washington and Pyongyang, as if they had allowed a young North Korean access to an American education.
A clear lesson has emerged _ the LWRs can be resisted and delayed, but cannot be denied.
Lee Byong-chul is a senior fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation, a nonpartisan policy advisory body based in Seoul. He can be reached at bcleebc@gmail.com.