North Korean bust-up over Syrian 'links' By Donald Kirk
WASHINGTON - The recent Israeli air incursion over Syria appears the most
likely reason North Korea has postponed six-nation talks due to begin on
Wednesday at which it was to have revealed all the details of its
nuclear-weapons program.
The postponement came as US nuclear envoy Christopher Hill prepared to take off
for Beijing with high hopes of hearing everything there is to know about all
North Korea has done to
become a nuclear power. North Korea agreed in February to a complete rundown on
its nuclear activities as part of the agreement to abandon the entire program -
something Hill believes can happen by early next year.
While neither Syria nor Israel has given full details, speculation is high that
the Israeli air incursion might actually have been a raid on a base at which
Syria may have been developing nuclear weapons with North Korean aid and
expertise. This has thrown off optimistic calculations of when to expect North
Korea finally to give up its nuclear-power status in return for an enormous
package of economic aid.
Hill, as reports were circulating in Washington of the Israeli action and North
Korea's possible role in Syria's nuclear program, tried to paper over what may
be the devastating impact of revelation of a nuclear deal between North Korea
and Syria.
Hill did not confirm the reports but said the purpose of the six-party process
was "to make sure the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business" - and that
"we have always been concerned about the issue of proliferation". He sought,
however, to play down a Syrian connection.
"Denuclearization involves any issue of proliferation," said Hill. The Syrian
report "does not change the goal". At the same time, he said, "We would need to
know what all their programs are in proliferation," and "We would have to know
if they're engaged in proliferation."
Although Hill avoided any hint of accusing North Korea of spreading its nuclear
secrets, his remarks in a briefing at the US State Department were his
strongest comments to date on the topic of North Korean proliferation. North
Korea informed China of a delay in this week's talks even as Hill was to go to
Beijing in a mood of achieving another breakthrough in dealing with Pyongyang.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared more emphatic than Hill on the
significance of the Syrian connection, saying it would be "a matter of great
concern" if North Korea had been supporting a Syrian program. Gates' tone was a
reminder of the differences among senior US officials of how to deal with North
Korea's nuclear weaponry.
Proponents of negotiations, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have
over the past year gained the upper hand in a debate in which the US has
appeared eager for good news on North Korea to counterbalance the bad news from
the Middle East, notably Iraq. Hill, with Rice's blessing, is credited with
advancing the process in bilateral talks with his North Korean counterpart, Kim
Kye-gwan, after hardliners had opposed any contacts outside a multilateral
setting.
President George W Bush and some of his most influential advisers feel they
have to be able to claim success in North Korea before the next presidential
election in November of next year. A claim of having persuaded Pyongyang to
display good behavior on the nuclear issue would provide a useful antidote to
failure and disappointment elsewhere.
Hill hinted at at least two rewards, aside from aid, that North Korea would
receive if it made good on the nuclear deal.
Asked about North Korea's demand for removal from the State Department's list
of "terrorist" nations, Hill replied, "This is a goal the North Koreans are
very much interested in." Moreover, he went on, "We've identified a way it can
happen - but it hasn't happened yet." Hill did not specifically link the
terrorist label to North Korea's nuclear program but said there had been "a
very detailed discussion of what needs to be done".
The other reward, he suggested, would be a peace treaty to replace the
armistice that ended the Korean War in July 1953. Again, Hill did not
specifically link the treaty to the nuclear program but said talks on a peace
treaty could begin this year. The actual conclusion of a treaty, he said, could
wait until the "disabling of their nuclear program".
It was just as US officials, led by Hill, were citing the need for "momentum"
in the six-nation talks on Pyongyang's nukes, that US and Israeli intelligence
sources began talking about North Korean nuclear aid and advice to Damascus.
The Syrian connection, if true, represents another step in escalation of North
Korean nuclear proliferation in which Pyongyang has acquired nuclear advice
from Pakistan, in the days when now-disgraced physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan was
running Pakistan's program, and is said to have exchanged nuclear secrets with
Iran.
The Syrian revelation comes at an awkward moment. Some observers suspect that
hardline opponents of the six-party process may have dreamed up the Syrian
story in which Israeli warplanes bombed out a mysterious Syrian base.
John Bolton, who had to resign as US ambassador to the United Nations after the
Democratic-controlled Senate refused to approve his appointment, has led the
hardliners in opposing talks with North Korea. In recent days he has seized on
reports of the Israeli action to buttress his argument.
Could it be, however, that the base - even if there was an attack on one - had
nothing to do with North Korean nukes, that it was a storehouse for arms
destined for al-Qaeda or Sunni forces in Iraq or Hezbollah in Lebanon or
elsewhere? Or was North Korea sending missiles, not nukes, to Syria, as it has
to a number of other countries? Analysts have advanced both these
possibilities, noting that North Korea has the right to export arms, notably
missiles, as it has been doing for years.
Hill talked about proliferation in much the same way that he responds to
questions about North Korea's highly enriched uranium - the program that US
negotiators say Pyongyang acknowledged in October 2002 but that it has been
denying ever since.
"Clarity" is Hill's word for what's needed about North Korea's budding scheme
for building warheads with highly enriched uranium rather than the plutonium
that everyone knows was used at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
North Korean negotiator Kim was expected to go to Beijing armed with the same
formal denials already issued by his country's Foreign Ministry and officials
at Pyongyang's United Nations mission. Now the question is when six-party talks
will resume - and what kind of list Kim will offer on North Korea's nuclear
activities.
Hill strove to give the impression that the US, despite its eagerness for
success in the nuclear debate, will not yield on critical issues.
A team of US, Russian and Chinese inspectors had indeed seen what they wanted
to see in an inspection of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, he said, but that
visit "doesn't mean Yongbyon is the only nuclear facility". No one, he noted,
had visited the site where North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test
last October 9.
Nor, said Hill, was "disablement" of nuclear facilities the final goal. "The
end phase is complete dismantlement," he said, using a hardline term that may
have been one more reason the North Koreans preferred to stop talking.
Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of
forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.
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