Page 2 of 5
CHINA AND THE US PART 9: The North Korean
perspective By Henry C K Liu
Ilbo on July 15, 1985, said that the US had deployed a nuclear-missile
battalion in South Korea, becoming the first such overseas base outside Europe.
In addition to listing the above US provocations, the KCNA report asserted:
Turning
South Korea into a [US] nuclear base has rendered it into a direct and crucial
threat to peace
not only on the Korean Peninsula, but to Asia and the rest of the world. The
gravity of the nuclear threat to North Korea was further increased by the
nuclear-weapons development maneuvers of South Korea's Yusin regime [of South
Korean president Park Chung-hee's "Revitalizing Reforms"]. In the early 1970s,
the Yusin regime invited nuclear physicists from the US and promoted the
purchase of atomic reactors from many countries. In 1976, [the Yusin regime]
founded the Atomic Power Technology Corporation and the Nuclear Fuel
Development Corporation. It began to build a large-scale research facility for
developing atomic-power technology in the central region [of South Korea]
starting from 1977, as reported in South Korean monthly Wolgan Choson's 1983
October edition.
The report further asserted that in the
beginning of 1978 when the Kori Atomic Power Plant launched operations, South
Korea had already obtained the capability of annually extracting 139-167
kilograms of plutonium-239. Such an amount is enough to manufacture 23-28
20-kiloton nuclear bombs, as reported in the South Korean magazine
International Affairs No 2 in 1985. In a paper titled "Nuclear Proliferation
and US Diplomatic Policy", made public on November 9, 1980, the US Brookings
Institution noted that South Korea and Japan could possess nuclear weapons
within the next 10 years.
The KCNA report concluded that the aforementioned historical facts prove that
the US has long deployed nuclear weapons in South Korea and incessantly posed a
nuclear threat to North Korea by instigating South Korean bellicose elements.
The report asserted that even "perceiving the elimination of nuclear threat
which has long been posed to us [North Korea] as a crucial issue related to the
survival of the nation, the government of the Republic [DPRK] has not
suspended, for even a moment, the denuclearization and anti-nuclear struggle on
the Korean Peninsula".
At the 12th session of the first DPRK Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) in
November 1956, an official position was announced opposing the introduction of
atomic weapons to South Korea. When the US attempted unilaterally to scrap
Paragraph 13d of the Armistice Agreement and orchestrated to bring atomic
weapons to South Korea, the North's Foreign Ministry on May 30, 1957, strongly
called for suspending actions that aggravated tense situations on the Korean
Peninsula.
The first session of the second SPA in September 1957 reiterated that the
articles of the Armistice Agreement would be honored and that the armistice
should be transformed into solid peace, and demanded once again that South
Korea not be allowed to become a US nuclear base.
At the Military Armistice Commission's 91st and 100th meetings on December 19,
1958, and April 27, 1959, respectively, North Korea strongly protested the
introduction by the US of nuclear missiles to South Korea, and asserted that
all nuclear weapons such as illegally brought-in nuclear missiles and atomic
artillery be withdrawn and that US forces be withdrawn. Both in the 1960s and
1970s via meetings at the SPA, the North-South Coordinating Committee, the
Military Armistice Commission, and via various other opportunities, North Korea
reiterated its position against the South being turned into a US nuclear base.
On December 20, 1974, the North Korean Foreign Ministry warned against South
Korean moves for nuclear-weapons development. In the 1980s, the danger of
thermonuclear war on the Korean Peninsula increased because of the annual Team
Spirit joint military exercise involving nuclear-war scenarios. On March 16,
1981, a joint statement with the Japanese Socialist Party was announced by
Pyongyang on establishing a denuclearized and peaceful Northeast Asian region.
On January 10, 1984, the Central People's Committee and the SPA Standing
Committee held a joint meeting and adopted official letters that were sent to
the US administration and Congress and the South Korean authorities. The
letters proposed a
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
