NoKo Deal? Stay tuned for November
The headlines are large: North Korea agrees to drop its nuclear programs. This is great news, though a closer look suggests the real deal amounts to agreeing to agree on talks in November. Still, China has stepped up and used its political influence. NoKo has said it will end nuclear programs — but note Pyongyang specifies nuclear energy programs. Getting China to nudge the North has been a US diplomatic goal, so perhaps China’s push is a small plus for Washington. (See this Washington Post article.) One huge strategic point not mentioned in the article, but a real concern of South Korea: What happens when North Korea finally collapses? South Korea sees Germany’s economic struggles — West Germany absorbed East Germany but the economic and social costs were (are) huge. North Korea is in much worse shape than East Germany. This is why sending North Korea power from South Korea can be viewed as “getting a leg up” on the future. At some point South Korea will have to “re-wire” North Korea. Building generation capacity at the border and running new transmission lines north is a pay-off to Kim Jong Il’s shakedown scam. It’s also preparation for his regime’s collapse. Call it a dicey little game played with a terrorist regime. There is no perfect answer.
Key graf in the WashPost article:
The agreement, although vague, was the first real achievement of the six-party negotiating process sponsored by China since the talks began here in August 2003. Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and the chief U.S. negotiator, called it a “turning point” in the United States’ long quest to prevent a nuclear-armed North Korea from becoming part of the Northeast Asian landscape.
The WashPost lede:
North Korea pledged Monday to abandon its entire nuclear energy program, but U.S. officials including President Bush and other diplomats participating in six-party talks warned there would be a long, difficult road of detailed negotiations before achieving the goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
“Now there’s a way forward, Bush said after a Cabinet meeting Monday called to discuss the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“And part of the way forward is for the North Koreans to understand that we’re serious about this and that we expect there to be a verifiable process,” he added.
“In other words, they have said, in principle, that they will abandon their weapons programs. And what we have said is, great. That’s a wonderful step forward. But now we’ve got to verify whether or not that happens . . . The question is, over time, will all parties adhere to the agreement?”
Here’s the November nitty gritty:
Diplomats from the six nations promised to return to Beijing in early November to start the detailed talks in which Hill said verification procedures will be the first priority. In other words, he indicated, the next step will be lining up how the United States and other nations can confirm North Korea really is shutting down its Yongbyon research reactor and dismantling its secretive weapons program.
Given past experience, that could be the beginning of the hard part, making the last two years of on-again, off-again six-party talks seem easy. Before expelling them in late 2002, North Korea was extremely reluctant to allow access to U.N. inspection teams assigned to monitor its nuclear programs under an earlier accord reached in 1994. The government of Kim Jong Il is so closed that it has even restricted World Food Program officials from monitoring distribution of food aid..
The rub, restated:
In the upcoming negotiations, North Korea will be asked to reverse the long-established pattern of concealment and deception by agreeing to highly intrusive U.N. inspections. Increasing the difficulty, specialists pointed out, North Korean diplomats are likely to seek immediate economic and energy aid in return for each step toward verification…
I agree that this leaves most of the thorniest issues unresolved, such as “Where are your centrifuges?” “How ’bout that uranium program?” “What’s in the cave?” and “Who are those skinny people behind the fence?” We’ve kicked the can into November, perhaps because we intend to deal with Iran first. If you’re wondering why the North Koreans agreed to this modest last-minute reversal when they’d previously showed no fear of us, I have one possible theory. It begins with a sequence of fascinating and nearly unreported events relating to U.S. financial pressure on both North Korea and China. The story begins with a “wedding” between two undercover FBI agents, leads to a stash of North Korean supernotes, and today leads us to a possible bank failure in Macau.
Comment by Joshua — 9/19/2005 @ 1:04 pm
No doubt they will be just as trustworthy as they were with a similar pledge back in the nineties.
Comment by Buster — 9/19/2005 @ 1:24 pm
Asking China to help restrain NK is kinda like asking your neighbor to put a leash on his attack dog. China’s plan is to sic it’s dog on your child ( South Korea ), and while you are busy protecting your kid, your neighbor ( China ) rapes your wife ( Taiwan ). You can’t be both places at once, so your wife is ravished. Don’t bother asking the police (UN) for help either, cause your neighbor has them under control with veto powers…
Comment by Robert — 9/19/2005 @ 2:43 pm
Another possible influence.
Comment by RPD — 9/19/2005 @ 3:22 pm
North Korea nuke deal? Color me sceptical. Austin bay agrees.
Trackback by Gibbie's Bioscience World — 9/19/2005 @ 3:24 pm
"N. Korea Pledges to Drop Nuclear Program" From the AP:North Korea agreed Monday to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, a breakthrough that marked a first step toward disarmament after two ye…
Trackback by protein wisdom — 9/19/2005 @ 3:37 pm
Kim Makes an Agreement Speaking of North Korea, the country’s jailer leader dictator Kim Jong Il has made yet another agreement regarding his country’s nuclear weapons: he’s agreed to talk about ceasing production of them.BEIJING-North Korea agreed Monday to stop buildi…
Trackback by baldilocks — 9/19/2005 @ 5:18 pm
NK will say anything, promise anything, agree to anything in order to obtain the aid it needs to continue for a little longer. However, none of the promises or agreements mean the NK regime will actually carry through with whatever they were supposed to do. In time, they will claim that the US violated some aspect of the deal and demand further aid in order to be coaxed back into the negotiation process. The only point worth remembering in this endless courtship dance is that the NK regime is composed of psychopaths who have no shame, no inhibitions about lying, no ethical standards other than remain in power by whatever means for as long as possible. As for SK, screw them. They’ve been spitting in our face for years now. If there weren’t other significant issues involved, I wouldn’t mind it if that malignant dwarf in NK took them over for a while. Let the little darlings see what life is like on the other side for a change, away from big, bad Uncle Sam.
Comment by veryretired — 9/19/2005 @ 5:26 pm
What About the Film Actors Guild The best part about this is the fact that the reputation of the Chinese is on the line. If Kim makes them look foolish on the world stage, there would likely be serious repercussions as China does not like to lose face. Of course, this whole things i…
Trackback by Another Rovian Conspiracy - St Wendeler — 9/19/2005 @ 10:02 pm
NoKo Demands US Reactors Although this looks like a setback, when you look at it from the bigger perspective, the fact that North Korea is participating in multilateral six way talks is a score, as evidenced by the reactions from the other parties to the negotiations
Trackback by Bruised Orange — 9/20/2005 @ 10:36 am
Dawn Patrol Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our daily roundup of information on the War on Terror and other topics - from the MilBlogs, other blogs, and the mainstream media. If you’re a blogger, you can join the conversation. If you link…
Trackback by Mudville Gazette — 9/20/2005 @ 11:19 am
I wonder if talk about Japan having to re-arm and it an South Korea developing their own nukes had anything to do with China’s muscling the NoKo. If this is the case, I think it will be much tougher for Kim Jong-Il to wiggle out of this. I also think that once South Korea gets into the north, whether it’s by supplying power or anything else, it will be irreversible. If they attack their main benefactor who’s going to subsidize the in the future.
Comment by AST — 9/20/2005 @ 4:04 pm