Pyongyang seizes on Seoul's nuke
dabbling By Seo Hyun-jin
SEOUL
- South Korea's long past nuclear experiments, only
recently disclosed, have undermined international
efforts to end North Korea's nuclear program and Seoul's
own efforts to improve North-South relations. Already
the prospect of useful talks - dim to begin with - has
become bleak. The North says Seoul's actions mean it
will never abandon its efforts to build the bomb.
Experts say the disclosure of two controversial
tests by the South - plutonium extraction in 1982 and
uranium enrichment in 2000 - undermines its mediating
role in Beijing-led multilateral negotiations to end
Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development program - and
complicates the entire negotiation process.
The
35-member board of governors of the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) is reviewing the issue of Seoul's
experiments, as it began a four-day meetings in Vienna
on Monday, September 13.
North Korea said
Saturday that South Korea's nuclear experiments make the
communist country even more determined to pursue its own
nuclear programs, and that it must link the case of
South Korea with the six-nation talks to defuse the
North Korean nuclear program. "It is self-evident that
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea can never
abandon its nuclear program under such a situation," a
spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry said.
"There is strong suspicion that the disclosed
experiments might be conducted at the instruction of the
United States as they assume military nature," the
North's Foreign Ministry spokesman told the official
North Korean Central News Agency. The spokesman, who was
unidentified, asked rhetorically whether Washington
intended to overlook Seoul's alleged development of
nuclear weapons, just as it ignores its ally Israel's
nuclear weapons.
The revelation of the nuclear
experiments by the South also is expected mean a
protracted chill in the Seoul-Pyongyang relationship,
despite South Korea's fevered courting of the North.
Pyongyang already has warned of an arms race in
Northeast Asia and accused Washington of applying double
standards to North and South Korea - tolerating nuclear
experiments by the South, while demanding an end to
nuclear programs in the North. South Korea has
emphasized that its experiments were just that -
experiments - and that they were tiny, completed long
ago, never restarted and did not not lead to weapons
development. Still, the two sides confront each other
along a heavily fortified border.
The US, South
Korea's ally, has expressed concern and tried to appear
even-handed while noting the difference between
experiments in the South in the past and an ongoing
nuclear program in the North.
Negative impact
on six-way talks "The news will affect talks on
the North Korean nuclear issue because the North will
use it as a pretext to boycott the talks, or blur the
main objective of the talks even if it agrees on the
next round of the talks," said professor Yun Duk-min at
South Korea's Institute of Foreign Affairs and National
Security, who spoke to Asia Times Online.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon has said it is
difficult now to remain optimistic about holding
six-party talks before the end of September, as
participants had earlier promised. The talks, aimed at
persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms
programs, are organized by China and include North and
South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US. The
nuclear experiment issue erupted as the parties
struggled to schedule a fourth round of the talks to
discuss how to resolve the prolonged standoff over the
North's nuclear weapons development. The basic idea is
to persuade North Korea to agree to dismantle its
weapons program - with international verification - in
return for massive economic aid, energy alternatives and
security assurances.
North Korea and the US have
locked horns over the North's nuclear weapons
development since the issue flared up in October 2002
when US officials said the North had admitted to
harboring a clandestine nuclear program using highly
enriched uranium. The North now denies any uranium-based
nuclear development program, while acknowledging a
plutonium program. "The issue puts the South in a
disadvantageous position and the nuclear dialogue may
suffer a major setback," Yun said.
Regardless of
the seismic difference between the Koreas in the nature
and scale of nuclear tests, the North is expected to
continue to question why the US is generous with the
South while taking a harsh line against its communist
regime. Washington has demanded that Pyongyang dismantle
its nuclear programs in a "complete, verifiable,
irreversible" manner before expecting any rewards -
security assurances or aid - from its old Cold War foe.
North Korea's nuclear facilities have greatly
concerned the international community because the
isolationist country was believed to have reprocessed
some 8,000 nuclear fuel rods, which can produce
weapons-grade plutonium. And all its nuclear activities
are now veiled because it expelled inspectors of the
IAEA early on in its standoff with the US.
But
the experiments in the South produced only an
"insignificant" portion of nuclear materials and the
South has worked with the UN nuclear watchdog agency,
the IAEA, in a transparent manner, according to Seoul
and Washington. After the initial news about the South's
nuclear experiments, the US State Department said there
was no cause for concern because the South was
faithfully cooperating with the IAEA, though it also
called for a thorough investigation because the
experiments "should not have occurred and must be
eliminated".
North Korea's envoy to the UN, Han
Sung-ryol, told South Korea's national news agency,
Yonhap, that his country considered the US "worthless"
as a dialogue partner because it was applying "double
standards" to the two Koreas. "We see South Korea's
uranium enrichment experiment in the context of an arms
race in Northeast Asia," Han said. "Because of the South
Korean experiment, it has become difficult to control
the acceleration of a nuclear arms race."
A
South Korean Foreign Ministry official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said the North seemed to be
attempting to play down the contentious issue of its
highly enriched uranium program by insisting its nuclear
activities are the same as those in the South.
Seoul rebuts talk of nuclear
ambitions Persistent suspicions about South
Korea's ambition to develop nuclear weapons are
complicating the issue, Seoul officials believe. The
government has rebutted such speculation, saying the
experiments were far short of producing weapons-grade
materials and there was no intention to develop nuclear
arms. South Korea had tried to develop nuclear weapons
in the 1970s but scrapped the program under pressure
from the US.
Chang In-soon, president of the
state-run Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)
, said it was nonsense to speculate that South Korea was
attempting to make nuclear bombs when both of the
experiments involved a very tiny amount of nuclear
materials. "I cannot help but interpret the
international hype as an intention to drive South Korea
to a corner," Chang said.
A group of scientists
in the KAERI separated 0.2 grams of uranium with about
10% enrichment level in a one-time experiment in 2000,
officials said last Friday. About 10 to 15 kilograms of
90% enriched uranium is needed to make a nuclear bomb,
experts say.
Seoul officials said the one-time
experiment was not subject to compulsory reporting to
the IAEA four years ago, but became so under an
Additional Protocol to the nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty which South adopted in February.
The
government said it learned of the experiment in the
Taejon-based institute, 160 kilometers south of Seoul,
when scientists there informed the Science Ministry in
June of the research. The South reported the experiment
to the IAEA on August 17.
The nuclear experiment
issue erupted last week when the South announced that
IAEA inspectors were in the country to look into Seoul's
voluntary declaration that scientists had carried out
nuclear experiments in 2000. Adding fuel to unabated
international suspicion, it was disclosed a week later
that scientists carried out the extraction of a few
milligrams of plutonium at the institute in 1982,
working on a now defunct "TRIGA-Mark III"-type research
reactor in northern Seoul.
Plutonium and uranium
are two key ingredients for nuclear weapons, but
officials insist materials produced in the experiments
were too small to produce any atomic bombs and were the
result of pure academic curiosity. Seoul adamantly
denied news reports from Washington Friday that it
carried out secrete nuclear experiments more than six
years ago.
"We have complied fully to the
nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that we signed in 1975
and maintained our commitment to remain nuclear free. We
will not let accusations such as those hinder the trust
we have built up with the international community,"
another senior Seoul official told a news briefing.
Inspectors from the IAEA last week investigated
South Korea's admitted work on plutonium and uranium and
will investigate whether it seriously violated the
nuclear safeguards and whether that matter could be
referred to the UN Security Council in November.
Continued efforts on nuclear
talks Despite the political fallout of the
South's nuclear experiments and the North's negative
responses, efforts are continuing to bring the North to
the dialogue table. But many believe the next round of
six-party talks will yield little - like other rounds -
even if they are resumed.
Diplomatic officials
from South Korea, the US and Japan met in Tokyo late
last week to discuss measures to help defuse tension
surrounding the North's nuclear weapons development.
Timed to commemorate the 55th anniversary of diplomatic
relations, a delegation of top Chinese government and
Communist Party leaders visited Pyongyang last Friday to
discuss pending issues, including the nuclear issue. The
Chinese officials are believed to have tried to persuade
the North to participate in the nuclear talks. There was
no official word on the outcome.
Despite the
international efforts, expectation is low about the
outcome of the fourth-round talks. "North Korea will
drag on the process of resolving its nuclear issue
because it believes it cannot gain much before the US
presidential election [in November] anyway," Koh
Yu-hwan, professor at Dongguk University, told Asia
Times Onlline. Many think it will be difficult to find
any breakthrough on the North Korean nuclear issue
before the US election as Washington may not provide any
concrete plan on the North prior to the crucial vote.
Also, some believe the North may be waiting to
see if Democratic challenger John Kerry wins in the hope
he will take a softer line than President George W Bush.
It is not only nuclear talks but also
inter-Korean relations that experts think will be
negatively influenced by the nuclear experiments in the
South. "I think the cold spell in inter-Korean relations
will be extended because of the nuclear experiments,"
Koh said. "But this depends on how the South will try to
persuade the North and prevent misunderstanding."
Inter-Korean governmental exchanges have been
almost stalled since a massive defection of more than
400 North Koreans to the South and Seoul's refusal to
allow some South Koreans to visit Pyongyang to attend
the 10th anniversary of the North Korean founder Kim
Il-sung's death, both in July.
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