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press hardly mentioned it, but this week North Korea pretended to
live up to its Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) pledges by
announcing it would allow international inspectors to visit one
of its nuclear-isotope research laboratories. Never mind that the
facility is so benign and minor it does not require international
nuclear inspections — or that Pyongyang is allowing it only
to be "visited" rather than examined. The NPT's inspectorate,
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has already praised
the move as a promising sign.
What's going
on here? Clearly, Pyongyang is feeling the heat after President
Bush's November 26 press comments put the spotlight on Iraq and
North Korea as international nonproliferation violators who "need
to be held accountable."
There's plenty
of history here. For almost a decade, North Korea has refused to
allow international inspectors to check on evidence uncovered in
1992 that it cheated on its commitment not to develop nuclear weapons.
At that time, Pyongyang announced that if pressed it would pull
out of the Nonproliferation Treaty altogether. The NPT, to which
North Korea had adhered in 1985, of course requires members to allow
such IAEA inspections. Pyongyang's refusal put it in violation,
and still does.
In 1994, the
Clinton administration, spooked by the possibility that North Korea
would get access to far more plutonium for bombs, offered the North
two large modern power reactors and a supply of oil, in return for
a freeze on its plutonium production and a agreement to eventually
comply with the NPT. This, of course, involved glossing over the
existing violations. Under the 1994 agreement, the two reactors
wouldn't be completed unless the North resolved past violations.
But the Clinton administration's diplomatic body language left the
North unfazed.
Fortunately,
the Bush administration has taken the need for nuclear inspections
a lot more seriously.
This is vital
because, after a lot of preliminary negotiation and site preparation,
an international consortium known as the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization (KEDO) has started excavating the promised
reactors' foundations. Their plan is to pour concrete next year,
and then begin to install equipment. In about three years, the project
could be ready to install key nuclear equipment. But the 1994 agreement
says that the North can't get them until IAEA inspectors have determined
that Pyongyang is out of the nuclear bomb-making business, and has
not hidden nuclear explosives.
This is not
a simple sign-off. The IAEA estimates that it would need at least
three years after it gained full access to North Korea's
nuclear sites to be able to make such a determination. In other
words, North Korea needs to open up to IAEA inspectors now to comply
with the l994 deal. The l994 agreement says North Korea "will
come into full compliance" with its IAEA when a "substantial
portion" of the reactor project is completed. And "substantial
portion" is defined to be the point the project is now expected
to reach in — about three years.
Not surprisingly,
Pyongyang does not share this view. Its officials insist that "substantial
portion" designates only the point at which they have to begin
to talk about IAEA inspections. That doesn't sound like the
response of someone with nothing to hide. Pyongyang is obviously
trying to drag out the process, in the hope that we'll let the nuclear
inspection issue go rather than risk provoking a crisis.
North Korea's
refusal to acknowledge the inspection issue also involves violation
of the power-reactor supply contract it signed with KEDO. Under
the terms of that agreement, a reactor construction schedule —
including all of the nuclear-inspection requirements of the l994
deal — must be agreed to by all parties involved in the reactors'
construction. The sticking point here is the scheduling of inspections.
KEDO's way around this has been simply to ignore the requirement,
and hope nobody notices.
All of this
suggests the need for a tougher approach to securing North Korea's
compliance with its NPT obligations — to hold up further work
on the reactors until it does comply. After all, North Korea is
bound to the terms of the NPT and to its IAEA agreements, with or
without the reactor deal the U.S. cut with Pyongyang.
In addition,
proceeding without full inspections is risky. Incredibly, our negotiators
did not realize that the new reactors are so large that each could
produce some 50 bombs' worth of essentially weapons-grade
plutonium during the first 15 months of operation. If we can't get
the North Koreans to open up as they should now, how can we trust
them with such machines later? It seems only sensible to hold up
construction until North Korea meets all of its NPT commitments.
Certainly this
much is clear: What's needed — and what President Bush is now
calling for — is far more than what Pyongyang is offering.
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