Should a UN inspection team ultimately verify that North Korea has really closed down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, then one big step has been taken in peacefully persuading North Korea to give up its membership in the nuclear club. The shutdown would be the Pyongyang’s first step in nearly five years toward scaling backs its nuclear weapons program, and would come after lengthy international talks. If the shutdown were confirmed, North Korea would then declare and disable all its existing nuclear facilities. The North would also agree to invite the IAEA to return to the country to monitor the agreement. And it also says it will begin talks to normalize its diplomatic relations with the US and Japan. This is progress in the extreme for a country that President Bush five years ago labeled part of the “Axis of Evil”, and the same nation whose nuclear ambitions have the potential to become the most serious threat to the short and long-term security of East Asia and beyond. But the truth is despite the announced shutdown at Yongbyon, negotiators are at the start of a very long process and there is still a lot of hard work ahead. Some of the most difficult questions have not yet been raised, such as whether North Korea has an undisclosed uranium program, or what happens to any existing North Korean nuclear weapons. The pot can be further stirred when pointing out that the February’s agreement is similar to the 1994 Agreed Framework which broke down after the US accused the North over its uranium program, and the North accused the US of reneging on a deal to supply two light water nuclear reactors.
For now, though, the power of talk has defeated the language of threat, and the way assistance can influence a country that desperately needs economic aid is being established. Saturday’s delivery of 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea was the first of 50,000 tons promised to the North in exchange for shutting down its reactor. If Pyongyang keeps up its cooperation and transparency, it will eventually get one million tons of oil and other financial and political concessions. Such aid is crucial for a country that, while priding itself on its armory, has one of the world’s poorest populations. This new rapprochement with the UN and indeed the world could be showing the North to be just as concerned about its people as about its uranium and plutonium. Now, for once, North Korea will realize that not only does it have responsibilities under a new nuclear disarmament agreement but also that Pyongyang is also responsible to its own people.
North Korea watchers cautiously welcome this possible step toward a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, yet nearly everyone who has closely followed the protracted effort will add it is far too early to assume North Korea has taken nonnuclear route for good. It is not always easy to understand what lies behind North Korea’s moves. Pyongyang has a mercurial leader, Kim Jong Il, who does not always stick to the playbook. Suspicion on both sides remains and there is huge potential for pitfalls and further delays. It seems likely that North Korea has been trying to use the nuclear issue as a hard-line ploy to negotiate a nonaggression pact with the US and improve economic aid. As UN watchdogs began yesterday to see for themselves whether North Korea is telling the truth about Yongbyon, Pyongyang’s tactics have apparently succeeded. And the world is breathing a bit easier.
