The United States has announced the full restoration of diplomatic relations with Libya. The move comes about 25 years after the Reagan Administration ordered Libyan diplomats in Washington D.C. to leave. Libya is an oil-producing nation in North Africa that is eight times the size of the Korean peninsula but has a population of less than 6 million.
Libya and North Korea have certain similarities. Libya is a socialist country, and its head of state, Muammar Gadaffi, has been in power for some 37 years. It has had a hostile relationship with the U.S. for decades. Together with Iran and Cuba, the two are regulars on the U.S.'s yearly list of countries involved in state-sponsored terrorism. They are also similar for having developed nuclear weapons for security reasons during the 1990s, while simultaneously trying to improve relations with the Americans.
In December 2003, Libya suddenly agreed with the U.S. to scrap its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Nuclear equipment was then reportedly moved to the U.S. In exchange, the U.S. established an interest section in the capital city of Tripoli in February 2004 and has announced that it will remove Libya from its list of nations involved in state-sponsored terrorism and open a full embassy there. The "Libya model" that the U.S. suggests Iran and North Korea should follow is about the same process of surrendering nuclear capabilities first, and only then be compensated.
However, a lot differs between Libya and North Korea.
North Korea borders China and Russia, and occupies a strategically important spot in Northeast Asia, while Libya lies in the outer part of the Middle East. They differ in value for U.S. global strategy. North Korea's government feels a much greater sense of crisis. It suspects the U.S. is trying to achieve regime change by making an issue of human rights and through financial sanctions. Libya, on the other hand, felt far less pressure in terms of its ability to maintain its government. As an oil producing nation, Libya still has something to bargain with, even without its nuclear program, but North Korea likely thinks it would be unilaterally pushed around if it gives up its nuclear capabilities without definite guarantees. Another difference is that Libya's nuclear weapons program was still in its early stages, whereas North Korea has already declared that it possesses nuclear arms.
These differences show you how a "North Korea model" would inevitably have to be different from the Libyan model. Indeed they are already different, because the main goal of the six-party talks is to simultaneously have North Korea give up its nuclear weapons programs while the U.S. and the other nations in the talks compensate it for doing so and come to an agreement and guarantee its application. The reason the six-party talks has been stalled for more than half a year is not because of lack of a "model," but because the U.S. and North Korea are not concentrating on that process. American hard-liners are engrossed in pressuring Pyongyang, and Pyongyang again shows signs it is preparing for a showdown. Both sides have to change if there is to be progress on the "North Korea model."
The Libya Model, the North Korea Model |
