N.Korea's Reactor Dreams Should not Grow Further

Six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear arms program on Monday adopted a statement of principles after all. Its gist is that North Korea will scrap all its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs, and that the United States will guarantee the North's security and start normalizing relations with the North. On the point that had threatened to derail the talks once again until the last minute, the statement acknowledged North Korea's right to a peaceful nuclear program, and the other participating countries agreed to discuss the issue of offering North Korea light water reactors at an appropriate time.

The statement comes a grueling two years since the six-party talks started in August 2003. Had the current round failed to reach agreement, that would have essentially been the end of their credibility and created yet another crisis. That danger has been averted, and a fresh round of six-party talks in November is tasked with working out the details of what the participants have agreed on in the statement and formulating an order of priorities and schedule for them, which would then be the formula for resolving the nuclear dispute to replace the 1994 Geneva Accords. The steps Pyongyang takes in scrapping its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs will be answered with a timetable for rewards such as diplomatic relations with the U.S. and Japan and free electricity from South Korea.

But whether or not things will ever get that far depends on the reactor problem. The international community shares a view that although the provision of light water reactors to Pyongyang was promised a decade ago on the assumption that it is very difficult to make weapons-grade nuclear materials from this type of reactor, it can be done, and it is therefore better for North Korea to have no nuclear facilities at all.

At the latest round of the talks, the government persuaded the U.S. to include in the statement of principles a recognition of the North’s right to civilian use of nuclear energy and that commitment to “discuss” the question of the light-water reactors. The concessions may have been inevitable to prevent the talks from collapsing altogether.

But our government must now cease the next phase, where the details of give-and-take are worked out, to persuade the North. It must make Pyongyang clearly understand that the provision of 2 million kilowatts of free electricity is premised on North Korea giving up any thought of nuclear reactors. North Korea must be made to realize that any notion it may have entertained of taking the free electricity from the South and getting the reactors as well is a pipe dream.

from chosun