By Tong Kim
The six party talks have definitely picked up momentum after the constructive July meeting of their chief negotiators in Beijing. U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill is still hopeful that the remainder of the February 13 agreement will be completed by the end of the year, an ambitious but not impossible goal.
The last meeting was held after a series of positive steps toward denuclearization, including the complete resolution of the BDA issue, Hill’s surprise visit to Pyongyang, which no remaining Neocons in Washington were able to stop as they did in 2006, and most importantly the actual shutdown of the nuclear facilities at Youngbyon that was officially verified by an IAEA inspection team on the site.
Seen from North Korea’s position the closure on the BDA issue was a demonstration of U.S. will to remove hostile policy. Hill’s visit to Pyongyang affirmed the recently transformed U.S. bilateral approach to the point of no return. Washington had refused to talk directly to North Korea for six years. These are two significant political gains for the North.
So far what North Korea has done is very much a repeat of what it did under the old Agreed Framework _ a freeze and seal of the Youngbyon reactor and other facilities _ including a reprocessing plant, a fuel rod fabricating facility and two much larger graphite reactors under construction _ and allowing IAEA monitoring.
Now that the initial actions of the February accord are completed, a ministerial meeting of the six party talks will likely be held in September to confirm implementation and to explore ways to ``promote security cooperation in Northeast Asia.’’ However, such a ministerial meeting will not produce any detailed plans. It would probably welcome the results of negotiation and provide continuing support for the six party process.
The heads of delegations agreed in Beijing to resume their plenary talks in September to negotiate ways to implement the second phase of the February accord _ disablement of the Youngbyun facility and a full declaration of all the North Korean nuclear programs. This is the uncharted water the North had never sailed in the past. Therefore it would take harder work and more elaborate negotiation.
Disablement will first require agreement on an exact definition of what it means. The United States and its allies would prefer that ``disablement’’ would permanently incapacitate North Korea’s nuclear facilities for no further use. In this case the final stage of dismantlement would be simply tearing down the useless facilities.
On the other hand North Korea would wish to disable them only temporarily so that the disabled facilities could be reinstated after some work or refurbishing, if the corresponding measures _ such as the provision of economic aid from the five countries or tangible progress on the process of normalizing U.S.-DPRK relations _ are stalled.
The best venue to discuss the detailed requirements for ``disablement’’ will be the next working group meeting on denuclearization scheduled for the first week of August to be chaired by China, as it would entail mechanical technicality. Only after agreement on how to disable the facilities, actual disablement will be implemented.
As for North Korea’s obligation to file a complete declaration of all its nuclear programs, the focus of attention is centered on whether the North will include its controversial uranium enrichment program. North Korea is not expected to confirm the existence of an HEU program, but will have to account for what was done with the equipment, materials and technology it acquired for uranium enrichment.
The North Koreans may choose to discuss this matter solely with the United States, as it is an integral part of the nuclear issue from the American perspective, whereas other parties of the six party talks appear to be less concerned. An acceptable explanation of this issue is important to satisfy the U.S. political needs as well.
Also if the North produces an accurate account for all its nuclear programs, it should show exactly how much plutonium it has produced to this point. Such an account should include the amount of plutonium it was suspected of having hidden during the first nuclear crisis of 1994. An honest account should show how much plutonium was used for the last October’s nuclear test, how much was used on weaponry and how much remains still in the state of fissile material.
Verification of such an account would require access by IAEA inspectors to the storages _ presumably located in multiple underground facilities. In contrast the verification of disablement would appear to be relatively simple, since the facilities and their locations are known. It would be just a matter of agreeing how verification and monitoring would be conducted before implementation. This will be done between IAEA and North Korea.
In Seoul, there is much talk of a peace regime that will replace the 53 years old armistice agreement to be concluded even before the complete resolution of the nuclear issues. Some even talk about a four party summit meeting among the two Koreas, the United States and China in this connection. The proponents of this proposition argue that a peace mechanism would be conducive to denuclearization as it would make the North Koreans feel secure as to give up their nuclear weapons.
Such suggestion is unrealistic and unlikely to come true from the perspective of North Korea’s strategy that puts prime importance on diplomatic normalization with the United States, as well as from the point of U.S. preference in sequencing of the related issues.
However, as all six parties accepted the North Korean proposal of ``action for action,’’ all other issues, including normalization and economic and energy cooperation, will have to be addressed in parallel with the process of denuclearization.
If everything goes well as intended by the two landmark pieces of agreement _ the 2005 9/19 joint statement and the February agreement _ hopefully by the end of this year, we will get a full picture of North Korea’s nuclear programs. What’s your take?
Tong Kim is former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a research professor at Korea University and a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).