Korea's Nuclear Impasse

For a number of years the issue of North Korea's covert program to develop nuclear weapons has been the most controversial issue in the area of nuclear non-proliferation. It is also the primary challenge to the International Atomic Energy Agency's widely accepted verification procedures.Pyongyang flatly denies that it is developing nuclear arms. However, for nearly 15 months Pyongyang has refused to allow full inspections of the reactors at the Yongbyon nuclear research complex. According to some reports, North Korea possesses the capability to produce up to six atomic bombs annually. The addition of a new, more powerful nuclear reactor in the near future will enable North Korea to build an additional 12 nuclear warheads per year.It is also evident that North Korea has been hanging about in the black market of nuclear weaponry and know-how and is always ready to sell to any potential buyer its current stock of processed weapons-grade plutonium. CIA experts estimate that North Korea can already produce up to 65 kilograms annually. Security policy planners in neighboring nations note that the North Korean armed forces have commissioned two types of medium-range missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to targets between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers away.In going ahead with their clandestine nuclear program, the North Koreans are undermining an agreement they signed in 1992 with South Korea to ban nuclear arms on the Korean Peninsula. They have ignored suggestions from the Russian Federation as early as 1991, even before the disintegration of the Soviet Union, that both Koreas form a permanent nuclear-free zone.Suspicions over North Korea's real intentions concerning its nuclear schemes escalated in recent weeks when it unloaded fuel from an experimental reactor by removing fuel rods in such a way that prevented international inspectors from determining how much fuel might have been diverted in the past. Following a vote by the IAEA's governing body last week suspending technical aid to North Korea, Pyongyang ordered the agency's remaining inspectors, who have been observing refueling procedures, to leave the country on short notice.It would now appear that there is no alternative to imposing international sanctions -- primarily, economic ones -- against Pyongyang. More and more nations are now inclined to use this approach. Even Russia, which initially was too cautious in recommending such arrangements against violators of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, now seems ready to impose sanctions. Such sanctions, complemented by a curtailing of cultural exchanges, official visits and technical cooperation, seem much more promising than the idea of convening an international forum to tackle the nuclear deadlock on the Korean Peninsula.Earlier this year, Moscow proposed such an eight-party conference that would include three UN Security Council members (Russia, the United States and the People's Republic of China), plus Japan, the two Koreas and representatives of the United Nations and the IAEA. Unfortunately, the chances that such a meeting will actually be held are not good. A Chinese proposal to hold a set of three bilateral talks appears to be ineffective and impractical. The proposal envisions bilateral negotiations between North Korea and the IAEA, between North Korea and the United States and, finally, between the two Koreas. This complex architecture will counterproductively consume a lot of time without any solid prospects for success.So, sanctions appear to be inevitable. Moreover, taking into account the current situation, they should also be enforced without delay.China, a long-standing and ideological ally of North Korea and a major economic supplier of President Kim Il-Sung's regime, can do more than anyone else to persuade Kim to act reasonably and not to test the tolerance of the world community. If China refuses to support sanctions, it will bear tremendous responsibility for the fate of nuclear non-proliferation principles that have prevented the spread of nuclear arms throughout the world for the last several decades. Even if Beijing uses its UN veto power to kill the resolution on sanctions against North Korea, other industrialized nations -- including Russia -- should impose sanctions independently.The punitive sanctions must be consistent and tough. They should be implemented at one go, rather than gradually, despite Pyongyang's threat to quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to continue its ambitious nuclear program and to regard sanctions as "an act of war." Despite criticism of sanctions from a number of conservative-minded factions in the Russian Parliament, Russia should fully cooperate with other nations in efforts to win the UN Security Council's approval of the sanctions resolution. Pyongyang has recently been trying to establish links with the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia -- which is neither liberal nor democratic -- and its ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who hopes to be elected president of Russia in 1996.While imposing sanctions on North Korea, the world community must continue to leave Pyongyang room to compromise. The sanctions must hurt, but they must also be reversible, giving North Korea a chance to back away from the position it has adopted.The interested states should either jointly or individually give North Korea security guarantees of non-interference in its internal affairs in exchange for its agreement to cooperate with on-site inspection of its Yongbyon nuclear facility. Pyongyang in turn must adopt the IAEA's nuclear safety norms. The IAEA then could resume offering technical assistance to help North Korea maintain its nuclear installations and keep them technically feasible and ecologically safe.The most important thing is that the nations concerned in sorting out the North Korean nuclear impasse must act as a united, concerted front in order to stem the dangerous proliferation of nuclear weapons in Asia and throughout the world. Pyongyang's decision to quit the IAEA should be a serious reminder that the world must act decisively on this crisis. Time is of the essence.Vladimir Kozin is a Moscow-based foreign policy commentator. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.