Chris Hill Resignation Watch: N. Korea Halts Disablement, Balks at Verification, Accounting for Abductees
You had to know that verification was where this thing was destined to fall apart. And that certainly looks like what’s happening today.
North Korea said Tuesday it has suspended work to disable its nuclear reactor in anger over Washington’s failure to remove it from the U.S. list of terror sponsors. The North said it will soon consider a step to restore the plutonium-producing facility.
The announcement poses the biggest hurdle yet to the communist nation’s denuclearization process under a landmark deal last year.
“The U.S. postponed the process of delisting the (North) as a ‘state sponsor of terrorism,'” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “Now that the U.S. breached the agreed points, the (North) is compelled to take” countermeasures, it said.
The Foreign Ministry also said the government will “consider soon a step to restore” the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, but it did not elaborate. The disablement was suspended as of Aug. 14, it added. [AP, Jae-Soon Chang]
Contrary to the consensus of the grand viziers of Brookings, CFR, and the State Department, endless flexibility didn’t disarm the North Koreans after all, in much the same way that endless aid did not fundamentally alter the character of North Korean society or trigger economic reforms. But of course, our flexibility can’t really be endless when politicians have to be able to explain themselves to Congress and the voters. Taking Kim Jong Il’s word for it and dispensing with verification proved to be the thing the Bush Administration couldn’t explain:
The United States and North Korea have failed to break an impasse over measures to verify Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program in special talks held in New York, U.S. officials said Monday. [AFP]
Recall that last April, Secretary of State Rice had publicly stated her intention to lift sanctions up front, and to postpone verification until after North Korea already had what it wanted. Yet just three months before that, Chris Hill had an apopleptic fit at a reporter for even suggesting such “stupidity:”
“This idea that we would ignore the most contentious items and take them up later is ridiculous. I don’t believe in “˜carve outs’ and even if I did (which I don’t) how in the world would this work in practical terms? Do you really think we could make concessions on the basis of an incomplete declaration, then somehow we would be able to return to the contentious issues AFTER ““ AFTER!!!??? — giving away all our leverage? Why? I can tell you this stupidity has never been under consideration by anyone who is part of the process or truly close to the process. [James Rosen of Fox News, quoting Chris Hill, at National Review]
Whether Hill was angry that he was outed or simply being disingenuous, what actually happened in June was that — despite the absence of meaningful North Korean disarmament — Trading With the Enemy Sanctions were lifted, and President Bush notified Congress of his intent to de-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terror. He did not, however, actually de-list North Korea when the 45-day notice period expired, and that appears to be because of opposition in Congress and skeptical statements from both presidential candidates, both of whom conditioned their support for the move on verification.
Having failed to achieve most of their demands up front in exchange for illusory concessions, the North Koreans are naturally reasserting that they’ll build more nukes.
“The DPRK (North Korea) will bolster the war deterrent for self-defence… and resolutely foil any provocation with strong countermeasures,” the communist party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said. [AFP]
In North Korean, “war deterrent” means nukes, and U.S.-ROK military exercises are a perennial excuse for renouncing any North Korean obligation:
“The army and people of (North Korea) will never remain an onlooker to the U.S. military and the South Korean bellicose forces staging frantic anti-(North Korea) war moves,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted Gen. Kim Jong Gak as saying at a meeting in its capital. “Should the U.S. imperialists and their following forces misjudge (North Korea’s) will and act rashly,” North Korea’s people and army “will mercilessly wipe out the aggressors to the last man,” Kim said. [IHT, via AP]
KCNA’s denunciation came three days after Ulchi Focus Lens Freedom Guardian ended, but classic KCNA rhetoric like that is worth the wait. So where does that leave Agreed Framework 2.0? Let’s look at the key terms:
“A complete declaration of all nuclear programs ….” Not even close.
“[D]isablement of all existing nuclear facilities ….” Note the deal’s failure to specifically mention completed weapons or the uranium enrichment program they once admitted having, then later denied, but which was recently confirmed when they inadvertently provided the CIA with traces of enriched uranium in aluminum samples and “declaration” documents. Leaving those terms vague was supposed to, ahem, lubricate the negotiations, but what it did was build in vagueness that the North Koreans eventually took advantage of. A recent example is their repeated demands that we accept them as a nuclear power, which would seem to moot the whole point.
“[S]hut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility.” The North Koreans disabled one ancient 5-MW reactor that overuse and age had already just about disabled anyway. Now that they’re throwing the tantrum I forecast here, maybe the North Koreans can make good on their word to reverse the disablement, but I’m betting that it would be easier to fire up that nearly completed 50-MW reactor right next door, or even restart construction on that 200-MW reactor 13 miles to the north (note, by the way, that the agreement mentions “graphite-moderated reactors” — plural — but zero progress was made on disabling the larger reactors; I’ve previously posted satellite photos of all of these facilities here). By now, some of you are thinking that the North Koreans can’t afford all this construction. You assume too much.
“[S]tart bilateral talks aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations.” Our State Department didn’t see the operation of a concentration camp system that would have made Stalin wince as an impediment to full diplomatic relations, but one man with courage did, at least for a moment, make a majority. Full diplomatic relations may be more than America can stomach for the moment.
“The US will begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK.” As the North Koreans themselves love to stress, all of the obligations in this deal are mutual. Simply stated, they haven’t performed, yet we’ve delivered hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel oil and lifted TWEA sanctions. But did anyone really think the North Koreans would perform at all, even if — no, especially if — we gave them everything they wanted up front?
“[T]he Parties agreed to cooperate in economic, energy and humanitarian assistance to the DPRK.” Leaving aside whatever the Chinese are giving, or the South Koreans gave, in economic assistance, the U.S. has delivered both energy and humanitarian assistance. Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the end of last month, Hill said, “To date, the DPRK has received approximately 420,000 tons of [heavy fuel oil] and equivalent assistance, including 134,000 tons of HFO provided by the United States.” That’s nearly half of the million tons we’d promised the North Koreans in exchange for their performance.
“The DPRK and Japan will start bilateral talks aimed at taking steps to normalize their relations … on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern.” Which is code-talk for North Korea’s abduction of Japanese right off the shores and streets of their own country. For a moment, it looked as if the North Koreans, having decided that the Bush administration was a dry tit, would try to court Japan. They had even hinted last May that they might just “find” a few more abductees in North Korea. Today, that’s also falling through. North Korea is now refusing to “re-investigate” the abduction allegations:
Japan has never been satisfied with North Korea’s investigation of the issue, in which Pyongyang determined in 2004 that eight of the 17 alleged abductees on Japan’s list had died. With hopes fading that North Korea can be persuaded to put aside those results and start over, unnamed sources said Japan has agreed only to urge the North to conduct a reinvestigation as swiftly as possible, the Kyodo news agency reported Sunday.
Sources told Kyodo the latest round of negotiations in the Chinese city of Shenyang was seen by Japanese officials as chance to get North Korea to agree to re-investigate the cases from scratch. But Pyongyang’s latest stance suggests it may want to uphold the results of its past investigation, which raises concern little new light would be shed on the abduction issue as a whole, the news agency said. [UPI]
I wonder where all of this leaves the regime’s finances. North Korea appears to have become seriously dependent on the South Koreans over a decade of leftist rule in the South, and the loss of unconditional South Korean aid seems to be having a significant effect. Their access to international finance remains spotty at best. Kim Jong Il was probably counting on a substantial infusion of aid from the Americans, but his own intransigence could jeopardize the continuation of new fuel oil deliveries. Japan probably can’t give significant aid or trade without progress on abductions.
Aside from the possibility of Vladimir Putin looking eastward for new ways to make mischief, that leaves just one major potential contributor, and so Lee Myung Bak is in Beijing chatting with Hu Jintao this week. I wonder if Chinese aid to North Korea will be mentioned.
Just imagine what some real pressure could do right now. With the North Koreans stalling and with America preoccupied with its own election, the political climate is right for it. With the regime on the verge of bankruptcy, the economics would amplify its efffectiveness. And with a presidential transition on the horizon, sanctions imposed today might have a way of lingering for a year or so before all of the new political appointees get moved into their new offices and get around to easing them.