Wooksik Cheong/2008-01-23

North Korea missed a deadline to declare all of its nuclear programs, and is also yet to receive the economic and diplomatic corresponding measures that the Bush administration has promised in return for the declaration. This failure raises fresh doubt over the U.S. policy toward North Korea. Some argue that it is time for the U.S. to impose sanctions and containment policies on Pyongyang.

Among them is Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation. In his Jan. 10 web article "North Korea: Clouds Block the Sunshine at the Six-Party Talks," Klingner argues that the U.S. and other Six-Party Talks participants should revise their current approach to North Korea.

He said, "The most recent joint statement called on North Korea to desist, disable, declare and dismantle its nuclear weapons programs," and, "Pyongyang has added deny, deceive, and delay to the mix." He also claimed that U.S. negotiators, who he believes concealed the fact that North Korea made an inadequate declaration so as to shield the Six-Party talks, are partly to blame for it.

Klingner suggests that the five participants of the talks should "withhold additional economic or diplomatic benefits for North Korea until it fully complies with these obligations and allows verification inspections."

He says it's unclear whether Pyongyang's intransigence reflects negotiating tactics or its goal of giving up only the capability of producing nuclear weapons in the future. But he believes the latter seems more likely.

At the end of his article, Klingner proposes the following solutions: Do not remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism until it meets all the promises; insist on adequate monitoring requirement to verify the data declaration; call on South Korea and China to announce the linkages between their economic incentives and the concrete steps North Korea must take toward nuclear compliance.

He further recommends asking South Korea to join the Proliferation Security Initiative; closely integrate U.S., South Korean, and Japanese initiatives toward North Korea and implement U.N. Resolution 1718 sanctions against Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs; and bring the North Korean Nuclear issue back to the U.N. Security Council if the North does not comply with its obligations within two months.

He concludes that the cut-off of unconditional aid and business activity, as well as funding from illicit activities would lead North Korea to face "a fundamental choice between isolation and economic stagnation or conditional engagement with benefits."

Backing the Wrong Horse Again?

Klingner's view on the North Korean nuclear issue reflects the most U.S. hardliners' attitude toward Pyongyang. They don't see the Six-Party Talks as a proper way to realize the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, whether it isout of the self-fulfilling prophecy that "North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons" or simply due to their disapproval of U.S.-North Korean normalization of relations. The recent delay in North Korea's nuclear declaration emboldens their voice once again.

Such suggestions, however, are not much different from the Bush administration's already-failed policy on North Korea. The administration labeled North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" and "outposts of tyranny", refusing any compromise with it and maintaining the "malign neglect" of the North Korean nuclear issue. Meanwhile, North Korea resumed its plutonium program, and eventually, tested its nuclear devices in October 2006. Given that precedent, it is unreasonable for the Bush administration to try this strategy again.

The U.S. hardliners view the transition of the South Korean government as a window of opportunity to change the situation as they see fit. It is not. South Korean voters chose president-elect Lee Myung-bak because of their deep dissatisfaction with the incumbent government's handling of the economy. This time, relations with North Korea barely registered among voters. And virtually the majority of the electorate supports engaging North Korea, according to various polls conducted after the presidential election.

In addition, it is not worth for the South to join the Proliferation Security Initiative or withhold humanitarian and economic aid to the North, given that the confrontational mood and security instability on the peninsula would take their toll on both the two Koreas' economies, which is the last thing Mr. Lee wants.

The different stances between the U.S., South Korea, China, and Russia on North Korean nuclear issue stem from their different geopolitical situation. If some crisis happens in North Korea due to the sanctions or containment policies against Pyongyang, it has less to do with the U.S., which is thousands of miles away across the Pacific Ocean, than it does with North Korea's immediate neighbors -- South Korea, China and Russia. It is then unavoidable for them to face considerable security, economic and political uncertainty, the possibilitythat the U.S. hardliners are overlooking.

Moreover, in North Korea, an 'economic ordeal' is nothing new, which means additional U.S.-led sanctions against the North may have little impact on Kim Jong-il's regime. As always, North Korea may be able to "muddle through," sometimes playing brinksmanship with its opponents.

Then What To Do?

As I said, it is no good considering what Klingner and his fellow conservatives insist. Their ideas are nothing more than giving up denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and being insensitive to the situations of the principal U.S. partners in Northeast Asia such as South Korea, China and Russia.

What is the alternative then? To begin with, I would like to make clear about two things. First, there are two stumbling blocks to resolving North Korean nuclear declaration issue: the dispute over its uranium enrichment program and the U.S. allegation against Pyongyang's assistance in Syria's nuclear program. This allegation has not been proven and may be resolvable through adequate verification. The U.S. should not halt nuclear negotiation with North Korea just because of these issues.

Second, the Bush administration's friendly gesture towards Pyongyang has made, if not satisfactory, some progress that nobody has ever seen during his presidency. Again, it was Mr. Bush's hard-line policy that led North Korea to enhance its nuclear capability and conduct nuclear test. In early 2007, Washington changed its tune and entered into direct talks with North Korea, give-and-take negotiations in accordance with the principle of "action for action."

In these negotiations, North Korea agreed to shut down, seal and disable its Yongbyon nuclear facilities, the outcome that would have been otherwise impossible to achieve without the Bush administration's policy change. Even if North Korea has already developed seven or eight nuclear bombs, it would not be able to produce dozens more nuclear weapons in the future thanks to this agreement.

It goes without saying that North Korea should get rid of all the existing nuclear weapons and fissile material as well. And to do so, North Korea's full nuclear declaration is imperative. The U.S. should not impose the ineffective sanctions or containment policy against the North. Instead, it should accept North Korea's declaration only if Pyongyang signs and ratifies IAEA Additional Protocol, which would enable the agency to carry out thorough inspections on North Korean nuclear programs and activities.

The verification procedure would take a long time. Therefore, it is desirable for the U.S. to remove North Korea from the list of terrorism-sponsoring nations or terminating its application of the Trading with the Enemy Act immediately after North Korea declared its nuclear programs.

It will be better if U.S. high-ranking officials such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pay a visit to Pyongyang and discuss this plan. Returning to the failed policy just means that the U.S. gives up the denuclearization of North Korea.

* Wooksik Cheong is the representative of Peace Network. Hyo-sun Jang contributed to the translation of this article.