By Tong Kim
Given the slow ― albeit important ― progress that has been made in the process of North Korean denuclearization, it is clear by now that the task of finding a final verifiable resolution will inevitably be handed over to the next U.S. administration. Simply there is too much work to be done and not enough time left for the Bush administration.
Perhaps one of the toughest hurdles in the path to complete denuclearization is the same lack of trust between Washington and Pyongyang that triggered the first nuclear crisis in 1994 and the second crisis after a nuclear test in October 2006.
Since an about-face in North Korean policy after the last midterm Congressional elections, the Bush administration has been working hard on the nuclear issue. Yet the light at the end of the tunnel is not in sight, and the prolonged nuclear saga continues amid the unyielding skepticism of the anti-engagement conservatives who do not believe that the DPRK will ever give up its nuclear weapons.
It would probably take at least three or four more years of ``action for action" engagement with the DPRK to remove its last nuclear weapon, if the next U.S. administration stays on the current course of engagement without a big change in approach and even if the DPRK at last makes its strategic decision for denuclearization.
The question for now is how much more progress will be made by the end of this presidential election year and in what state will the next administration inherit the issue from the Bush administration.
The Bush administration has come a long way to see its yield on the North Korean nuclear issue. The DPRK's plutonium production facilities at Yongbyon were shutdown and are approximately 80% disabled. The current state of disablement alone is a significant step forward from where the Clinton administration had left off with the Agreed Framework in place, which had kept Yongbyon under freeze until the Bush administration bungled affairs.
The DPRK is not producing additional fissile material to increase its nuclear arsenal. Whatever the real reason may be for North Korea's apparent decision to abandon or to dismantle the Yongbyon facilities _ which are decades old but still working, they seem to believe they have enough plutonium in their hands for survival and for use for political and negotiation purposes.
The disablement of the nuclear facilities and a declaration of Pyongyang's nuclear programs are five and a half months overdue according to the Phase II requirements of the February 13, 2007 agreement. This delay was believed to have been caused largely by the North's failure to address U.S. concerns about its suspected uranium enrichment (UE) program until a recent disclosure of the North Korean nuclear collaboration with Syria.
The Bush administration belatedly but rightly started to focus on plutonium. The 1,800 pages of documents the North Koreans turned over to Washington are still being reviewed as part of an effort to verify the correct amount of plutonium that the North Koreans had extracted from spent fuel rods.
According to widely reported press accounts of the Singapore agreement reached between DPRK chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan and his U.S. counterpart, assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill, the North would acknowledge U.S. concerns about its UE program and its alleged proliferation of nuclear technology to Syria.
This sort of a vague formula, if true, might serve as a face saving ploy for Pyongyang, while signaling a U.S. willingness to go around the nagging issues of a UE program that had never fully developed to an industrial scale and Pyongyang's involvement in a Syrian reactor that was destroyed. That said, it makes sense to move on to the more tangible issue of the North's nuclear programs ― plutonium.
As William J. Perry and Siegfried S. Hecker recently wrote in their article printed by the Washington Post, ``It's the plutonium, stupid." In my view the Phase II requirements for a declaration should have been built in over two phases: a declaration on the plutonium program in the Phase II and a separate declaration of Pyongyang's UE program in a Phase III agreement, which should also include agreed conditions for final dismantlement of the facilities and disposal of all fissile materials and nuclear weapons.
A two-phase declaration could have enabled the six-party process to move forward to Phase III of negotiations more quickly. Discussion of a light water reactor for North Korea is to be taken up at ``an appropriate time" according to the September 19 Joint Statement. ``An appropriate time" could come when the plutonium weapons program is completely resolved in a verifiable manner. The UE issue could be dealt with more effectively at that point.
The idea of requiring the DPRK to file a complete declaration was rational from the perspective of process, and even necessary for Washington politics of North Korean policy. But it was not a pragmatic plan as it was predictable that the North Koreans would not acknowledge in the six party talks that they have or had a UE weapons program.
When Jack Prichard, a former U.S. nuclear envoy, visited Pyongyang last April he was told by his North Korean interlocutor Kim Kye-gwan, vice foreign minister of North Korea that the North promised to be ``very cooperative" on plutonium but refused to ``acknowledge the validity of U.S. UE concerns. Pyongyang wants to take three years to dismantle its plutonium facilities, during which it would ask the United States and other parties in the nuclear talks to build a light water reactor.
Prichard also brought back a message from Pyongyang that North Korea wants to be recognized as a nuclear power and that it did not agree to disclose information regarding its weaponization of plutonium or how many nuclear weapons it has. Without getting rid of the plutonium and nuclear weapons, denuclearization would not be complete. I believe a negotiated settlement of these issues should be included in the next agreement of the nuclear talks, perhaps after agreeing on the terms for dismantlement.
In any case the six-party talks clearly have a long way to go yet. This multilateral format of talks has merits and demerits, while much of critical negotiation is done bilaterally between the United States and the DPRK. Regardless of who becomes the next president of the United States, this process is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully, North Korea will complete its Phase II obligations soon so that it would be removed from the U.S. list of sponsors of terrorism ― which would take 45 days after the administration notifies Congress of its decision to do so and which would require Congressional acquiescence as a minimum.
Lifting of the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act to North Korea is less complicated for the administration to implement.
Even after freeing North Korea from these two legal sanctions, the United States will retain many other statutory measures and institutional influence to press North Korea for progress on denuclearization or even to punish it if necessary without using force.
Washington politics is as much a problem as Pyongyang's persistence is to the completion of denuclearization. What's your take?
Tong Kim is former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor with Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. He can be reached at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.