Nukes as deterrent
Given regional pressures, the Beijing meeting between the US and North Korea may set a historical precedent, writes Faiza Rady
Following much haggling and backstage political finessing between Washington and Pyongyang, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) finally got what it had asked for all along: diplomatic negotiations with the United States. In effect, North Korean delegates are meeting this week with their American counterparts to diffuse the crisis that erupted last October. At that time, the US halted oil shipments to the DPRK, which retaliated by pulling out of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and reactivated its mothballed nuclear programme.
In a conciliatory mood after having spread much "fear and awe" in the wake of their sweeping thrust into Iraq, the Bush administration has avoided further sabre-rattling in North-East Asia. Opting for diplomacy, the US has heeded Pyongyang's persistent calls for negotiation over the resumption of its contested nuclear programme.
Regional pressures may also have helped to restrain the Bush administration's zealous warmongering. Although Pyongyang recently suspended ongoing talks with Seoul to protest against the latter's dispatching of non- combatant forces to Iraq, South Korea made no bones about its support for the North. "US negotiators need to show a flexible attitude towards North Korea," warned Oh Seung Yul, a senior official with the Unification Ministry, responsible for South Korea's dealings with the North.
It is also telling that Japan refused to pressure the DPRK to suspend its nuclear programme, instead advising Washington to accept Pyongyang's demands for dialogue.
Hosted by China and scheduled to be held between 23-25 April in Beijing, the meeting is expected to secure North Korean demands for trade normalisation and security guarantees in exchange for a new commitment to deep-freeze its nuclear programme. The DPRK's apparent aim is revive the spirit of the 1994 Agreed Framework (AF) it co- signed with the US in October 1994.
The AF stipulated that the North stop construction of its graphite nuclear reactors, which, according to US intelligence information, could eventually be used to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. In exchange, the US committed itself to "the full normalisation of political and economic relations" with the DPRK, and pledged to install two electricity-generating light water nuclear reactors by 2003. The AF also guaranteed the North an interim annual purchase of 3.3 million barrels of oil and fuel until the reactors were built.
After signing the AF, the US reneged on its obligations with Congress dismissing Pyongyang as not worth the effort. Congress agreed to the sale of oil and fuel, but refused to ratify construction of the reactors. At the time, Washingtonian wisdom predicted the inevitable collapse of Socialist North Korea in the wake of the Soviet Union and its East European satellites.
Although backed by its giant neighbour China, the DPRK effectively remained weak and isolated due to its status as the sole Stalinist country in the region. Accordingly, the US defined the agreement as politically dispensable and promptly scrapped any attempts to normalise relations with the North. Dismissed as irrelevant, if not passé, Pyongyang was left out in the cold.
While cash-strapped and subjected to a rigourous US-imposed trade boycott in lieu of normalisation, North Korea only reneged on its part of the agreement when the Bush administration moved to withhold oil and fuel shipments last October.
Meanwhile -- and despite the stubborn US refusal to engage in direct negotiations, until its very recent turnabout -- the DPRK has consistently and readily offered to scrap its nuclear programme in exchange for security guarantees and trade normalisation. A Japan- based North Korean newspaper the Chosun Sinbo reiterated this offer on Sunday. "If the United States ends its hostile policy to stifle our country and clears its nuclear threat, North Korea will verify to the United States that it will not build nuclear weapons," said the paper.
While the Bush administration responded in kind, professing a rediscovery of diplomacy and negotiations, the Europeans surprisingly echoed the Bush administration's right-wing at their hawkish best. Mimicking US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's stock neo- conservative posturing, EU Commissioner Chris Patten warned that North Korea represented, "a real danger to the world". "None of us want North Korea to turn into a sort of bomb-making factory, selling off weapons to any group or country that can afford to buy them," declared Patten.
In this context, North Korea served as a convenient bogey man to justify the exorbitant cost of developing a second generation "Star Wars" production line. Peddling research and development projects for the "Son of Star Wars" to Congress, Donald Rumsfeld successfully sold the anti-missile programme, which is intended to intercept incoming long- range missiles as a deterrent package against attacks from hostile nations like North Korea. "When Cold War politicians like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney discuss the nuclear deterrent policy, they always mention North Korea," commented analyst Maria Tomchick in the alternative news Web site Alternet.
Beyond the imaginary, US threats of nuclear and conventional warfare have cast their shadow over the DPRK since its inception as a country.
Most recently, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun revealed that the Americans had seriously considered going to war against the North in 2000. "At the time of the elections some US officials, who held considerable responsibility in the administration, talked about the possibility of attacking North Korea," said Roh. And as recently as last year, US President George W Bush ranked North Korea along with Iraq and Iran as, "sworn foes of the US" -- a threat that Pyongyang takes very seriously. Given the Iraqi precedent, it is evident that North Korea will adamantly press the US to include a non- aggression clause as part of its Beijing package deal.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 24 - 30 April 2003 (Issue No. 635)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/635/in6.htm