Two questions arise immediately upon watching the news that Thai authorities have seized a cargo aircraft carrying North Korean weapons: How could the North prepare to smuggle missiles and grenade launchers abroad while a U.S. presidential envoy was in Pyongyang for talks; and why did it choose U.S.-friendly Bangkok instead of an anti-American capital, like Yangon, for a refueling stop?
Granted, almost everything concerning this reclusive country is a mystery in which guesstimating is often all one can do, as is now the case.
Considering the North Korean leadership has cited U.N.-led sanctions as the reason for its boycott of the multilateral denuclearization talks as well as the nullification of the 2005 agreement, however, one might assume the suspected arms exports are Pyongyang's way of defying the international pressure. Kim Jong-Il's presumed logic might be: ``If the United States takes a two-track tactic of sanctions and dialogue, we will hit back with a two-track tactic of armament ― if non-nuclear ― and dialogue."
On why the plane picked the Thai capital for a stopover, Pyongyang seems to have used Bangkok airports with little problems in the past, probably before U.N. Resolution No. 1874 went into effect, and might have thought it would be okay this time, too.
As it turned out, however, the isolationist regime is learning its lesson the hard way that not just the U.S. but other members of the United Nations are no longer what they used to be. So the best thing Pyongyang can do to minimize its loss is doing likewise: Behave as a U.N. member by respecting its resolution.
It is of no use for North Korea to try to deny or avoid responsibility for what has been exposed to broad daylight. Instead, the ongoing incident should serve as a stern reminder for Pyongyang that there is no other way to get out of international sanctions than hurrying the denuclearization process. North Korean officials, who have openly defied the U.N. resolution, might say that the U.S. hostile policy toward the communist country and decades of economic embargoes have left them with few other sources of overseas income but the arms industry.
If Pyongyang has not yet realized that it is stuck between a rock and a hard place, it should now. The North Korean leadership has nobody but itself to blame for the dire economic and diplomatic problems facing the country and its people.
That said, the latest seizure of North Korean weapons is feared to pose another stumbling block to the already painstaking negotiation toward disarmament in this part of the world.
All parties involved should do their utmost not to allow this incident to repeat the nearly two years of stalemate caused by the controversy on North Korea's money laundering through a Macau-based Chinese bank, right after the six nations reached a landmark agreement in September 2005. The United States, which first raised the ``Banco Delta Asia" issue, eventually failed to present material evidence and unfroze the North Korean accounts before restarting the denuclearization process.
The confiscation of weapons could either be a maker or breaker of the negotiations depending on how the parties involved handle it. For now, only one thing seems certain: the quicker its settlement, the better for the talks.