The government has confirmed that North Korea has shut down its 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon. Recently Selig Harrison of the American Center for International Policy visited Pyongyang and met with officials there. He says the North told him it will halt its Yongbyon reactor for the next three months to unload its fuel rods. Removing spent fuel rods requires halting a reactor, and reprocessed fuel rods can be used to extract the nuclear fuel plutonium.
It looks like this move on the part of North Korea will negatively affect discussions about restarting the six-party talks, because it might be interpreted as preparing to take action on the North's threat to increase its nuclear arsenal. It is of course not completely rejecting the talks. Harrison asked Pyongyang's First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju whether the North would be satisfied if the US secretary of state said the US would respect North Korea's sovereignty and territory and, despite differences in systems of government, would be willing to coexist peacefully, and Kang said that "would be worth accepting." That means the North would be willing to return to the talks if mood is right. That being the case there is no reason for the US not to act accordingly.
The North might think it needs to give itself more to negotiate on and so needs to improve its nuclear capacity. You can see that in how it told Harrison that it could freeze its production of nuclear arms through negotiation but will discuss getting rid of the nuclear weapons it already has only after normalizing ties with the US. That kind of attitude, however, could act as another obstacle to restarting the talks. On March 31 the North Korean foreign ministry issued a statement saying the six-party talks should be about disarmament, with all participating countries working to that end from equal postures.
All the parties to the six-party talks agree that the North Korean nuclear issue must be solved peacefully and diplomatically. That being the case, everyone should keep from doing anything that would make matters worse. Hard-line moves lead only to hard-line responses.
The Hankyoreh, 19 April 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
NK Must Not Make Matters Worse |
