Why Diplomacy With North Korea Is Mere Theater: Reason Number 1,267
The Flying Yangban, blogging for The Marmot, expresses disinterest in the latest North Korean nuclear machinations. Well, given the number of electrons I’ve spent on this, I don’t have that option. When it comes to diplomacy with North Korea, I consider myself a highly interested agnostic. Oranckay challenges anyone to show that the North Koreans’ statements really are inconsistent, and foolishly, I take him up on it:
Oranckay has thrown down the gauntlet:
If anyone out there wants to say publicly that they think the North is backpedaling, please help me with my reading skills on this much: Specifically in what way does the NK foreign ministry statement about wanting that LWR before it denounces/ abolishes everything else go against Monday’s joint statement out of Beijing?
OK, Pete, I’ll take you up on that. First, here are the relevant parts of the statement to which the North Koreans agreed yesterday (all emphasis my own):
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the treaty on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards. . . .
The DPRK stated that it has the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss at an appropriate time the subject of the provision of light-water reactor to the DPRK.
In other words, North Korea “stated,” and we agreed to “consider” it at some appropriate time. We didn’t agree to build so much as a pojang-macha or help them enrich makkoli. Now, here’s what Article III of the NPT says about the matter:
1. Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfilment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Procedures for the safeguards required by this Article shall be followed with respect to source or special fissionable material whether it is being produced, processed or used in any principal nuclear facility or is outside any such facility. The safeguards required by this Article shall be applied on all source or special fissionable material in all peaceful nuclear activities within the territory of such State, under its jurisdiction, or carried out under its control anywhere.
More on those safeguards and links to the NPT here. Needless to say, the IAEA considers North Korea noncompliant with the safeguards. Contrary to what North Korea says, it does not have an absolute right to “peaceful” uses of nuclear power. Its right is contingent on certified compliance with the safeguards, and for all my criticisms of the U.N. in some areas, the IAEA has drawn a fairly hard line on North Korea.
Now, here’s today’s North Korean version of what it agreed to do yesterday:
“We will return to the NPT and sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and comply with it immediately upon the U.S. provision of LWRs, a basis of confidence-building to us,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in the statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
In the context of the NPT’s plain meaning, it was clear from yesterday’s agreed statement that North Korea would not get any nuclear power facilities until it was NPT compliant. At a minimum, that would have meant shutting down Yongbyon, letting in inspectors, and handing over its centrifuges”“the ones that Pervez Musharraf recently told us he sold North Korea for its admitted-and-denied uranium enrichment program.
What All of This Means:
You can’t harmonize North Korea demand (today) for LWRs up front with its agreement (yesterday) to rejoin the NPT and its safeguards “at an early date,” and to get the LWRs at “an appropriate time. Today’s demand that the United States that has to build the reactors first”“something that one of my congressional sources assures me is a non-starter, and which would take years in any event.
Yes, the North Koreans’ statements really are inconsistent.