Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Wall Street Journal
September 4, 2008
Pg. 8
Reassembly Would Diminish Bush's Disarmament Gains
By Jay Solomon
WASHINGTON -- North Korea appears to be reassembling its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a move that could damage a central plank of the Bush administration's counterproliferation campaign just three months after it had made strides in negotiations with Pyongyang.
In recent days, North Korea has stopped discharging spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon facility, said U.S. officials involved in verifying Pyongyang's denuclearization activities. North Korean workers have also begun returning equipment to the site previously decommissioned as part of a broad agreement.
A breakdown in the North Korea disarmament process would rob the Bush administration of a signature foreign-policy success at a time of growing concern about proliferation, especially Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The State Department is also struggling to complete nuclear-cooperation agreements with India and Russia, both of which are designed to better control the trade in nuclear fuels and technologies.
This week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels to Libya to recognize Col. Moammar Gadhafi's efforts to dismantle his country's nuclear- and chemical-weapons programs, a trip that was designed to highlight the administration's success in this arena.
American officials said this week that Ms. Rice's trip to Tripoli, the first visit to Libya by a U.S. secretary of state in more than 50 years, might still serve as a signal to North Korea and other countries that there are rewards for giving up nuclear ambitions and cooperating with Washington.
"The secretary's visit is going to be a huge demonstration of the fact that by changing behavior, a country can change the nature of a relationship," said Paula DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance and implementation.
The State Department said on Wednesday that North Korea has begun moving around some previously stored equipment at Yongbyon. Officials differed over their assessments of Pyongyang's actions.
Spokesman Sean McCormack said: "To my knowledge, based on what we know from the folks on the ground, you don't have an effort to reconstruct, reintegrate this equipment back into the Yongbyon facility." He said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead U.S. negotiator with North Korea, would leave for Beijing Thursday to consult with officials in China, which is hosting the six-party negotiations concerning North Korea's nuclear program.
One U.S. official, however, said Americans stationed at Yongbyon to oversee the reactor's dismantling have seen North Korean workers returning equipment to the reactor from storage facilities.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il could potentially restore the Yongbyon facility to full operating capacity in three to six months if restoration work were to continue, the U.S. official said. "Our people are on the ground," said the official. "The North Koreans are letting them watch their activities."
South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement that North Korea has started work to restore its nuclear facilities. The ministry said Seoul is "seriously concerned" about the implications for the six-party diplomatic process aimed at disarming the northern regime. The statement added that Seoul, Washington and other members of the negotiating forum were in consultations to decide on how to respond to the North's movements at the site.
In June, Pyongyang handed over to the U.S. 18,000 pages of documents detailing the operating history of the Yongbyon facility as part of North Korea's agreement to allow the U.S. to verify the destruction of all the communist state's nuclear assets. North Korea that month also blew up the Yongbyon reactor's cooling tower as a symbol of Pyongyang's commitment to ending its program.
The U.S., in return, lifted some economic sanctions against North Korea and pledged to remove Pyongyang from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that also includes financial penalties.
In recent weeks, however, Pyongyang and Washington have traded public charges that each was responsible for stalling completion of the disarmament process. North Korea last week announced it was going to reactivate Yongbyon because the Bush administration "failed to keep its own side in the agreement" by not removing Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
U.S. officials said Washington hasn't taken the step because the government of Kim Jong Il has refused to agree to the comprehensive verification regime needed to ensure it is making good on its pledge. In particular, American officials say Pyongyang has balked at allowing snap inspections of its suspected nuclear sites or sampling of the infrastructure and reactor core that make up North Korea's nuclear program.
"There's been no movement at all on this," said the U.S. official working on the verification process. "We are at an impasse."
Senior U.S. officials questioned whether Mr. Kim has even decided to give up North Korea's nuclear assets. They also held out the possibility that the recent actions at Yongbyon are a negotiating ploy.
"Everyone has known from the beginning that the actions they were taking at Yongbyon were reversible," said Ms. DeSutter of the State Department. "The question is: Are they deciding that they just want to blow it off or are they just posturing? They like to posture."
September 4, 2008
Pg. 8
Reassembly Would Diminish Bush's Disarmament Gains
By Jay Solomon
WASHINGTON -- North Korea appears to be reassembling its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, a move that could damage a central plank of the Bush administration's counterproliferation campaign just three months after it had made strides in negotiations with Pyongyang.
In recent days, North Korea has stopped discharging spent fuel rods from the Yongbyon facility, said U.S. officials involved in verifying Pyongyang's denuclearization activities. North Korean workers have also begun returning equipment to the site previously decommissioned as part of a broad agreement.
A breakdown in the North Korea disarmament process would rob the Bush administration of a signature foreign-policy success at a time of growing concern about proliferation, especially Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The State Department is also struggling to complete nuclear-cooperation agreements with India and Russia, both of which are designed to better control the trade in nuclear fuels and technologies.
This week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels to Libya to recognize Col. Moammar Gadhafi's efforts to dismantle his country's nuclear- and chemical-weapons programs, a trip that was designed to highlight the administration's success in this arena.
American officials said this week that Ms. Rice's trip to Tripoli, the first visit to Libya by a U.S. secretary of state in more than 50 years, might still serve as a signal to North Korea and other countries that there are rewards for giving up nuclear ambitions and cooperating with Washington.
"The secretary's visit is going to be a huge demonstration of the fact that by changing behavior, a country can change the nature of a relationship," said Paula DeSutter, assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance and implementation.
The State Department said on Wednesday that North Korea has begun moving around some previously stored equipment at Yongbyon. Officials differed over their assessments of Pyongyang's actions.
Spokesman Sean McCormack said: "To my knowledge, based on what we know from the folks on the ground, you don't have an effort to reconstruct, reintegrate this equipment back into the Yongbyon facility." He said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the lead U.S. negotiator with North Korea, would leave for Beijing Thursday to consult with officials in China, which is hosting the six-party negotiations concerning North Korea's nuclear program.
One U.S. official, however, said Americans stationed at Yongbyon to oversee the reactor's dismantling have seen North Korean workers returning equipment to the reactor from storage facilities.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il could potentially restore the Yongbyon facility to full operating capacity in three to six months if restoration work were to continue, the U.S. official said. "Our people are on the ground," said the official. "The North Koreans are letting them watch their activities."
South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement that North Korea has started work to restore its nuclear facilities. The ministry said Seoul is "seriously concerned" about the implications for the six-party diplomatic process aimed at disarming the northern regime. The statement added that Seoul, Washington and other members of the negotiating forum were in consultations to decide on how to respond to the North's movements at the site.
In June, Pyongyang handed over to the U.S. 18,000 pages of documents detailing the operating history of the Yongbyon facility as part of North Korea's agreement to allow the U.S. to verify the destruction of all the communist state's nuclear assets. North Korea that month also blew up the Yongbyon reactor's cooling tower as a symbol of Pyongyang's commitment to ending its program.
The U.S., in return, lifted some economic sanctions against North Korea and pledged to remove Pyongyang from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that also includes financial penalties.
In recent weeks, however, Pyongyang and Washington have traded public charges that each was responsible for stalling completion of the disarmament process. North Korea last week announced it was going to reactivate Yongbyon because the Bush administration "failed to keep its own side in the agreement" by not removing Pyongyang from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
U.S. officials said Washington hasn't taken the step because the government of Kim Jong Il has refused to agree to the comprehensive verification regime needed to ensure it is making good on its pledge. In particular, American officials say Pyongyang has balked at allowing snap inspections of its suspected nuclear sites or sampling of the infrastructure and reactor core that make up North Korea's nuclear program.
"There's been no movement at all on this," said the U.S. official working on the verification process. "We are at an impasse."
Senior U.S. officials questioned whether Mr. Kim has even decided to give up North Korea's nuclear assets. They also held out the possibility that the recent actions at Yongbyon are a negotiating ploy.
"Everyone has known from the beginning that the actions they were taking at Yongbyon were reversible," said Ms. DeSutter of the State Department. "The question is: Are they deciding that they just want to blow it off or are they just posturing? They like to posture."