hankyoreh

By Selig S. Harrison

Recently, while visiting New York City to give a lecture, I had lunch for the first time in many months with Ambassador Han Sang Ryol, the North Korean Deputy Representative at the United Nations.

He dutifully presented the North Korean version of the dispute with the United States over Pyongyang’s alleged use of Banco Delta Asia in Macao for laundering counterfeit U.S. "supernotes." But I was struck by how relaxed he seemed. He acted as if he were on holiday and expected his vacation from the six-power nuclear negotiations to continue indefinitely.

For North Korean, South Korean and U.S. diplomats alike, this is indeed an interval of relaxation, with none of the frantic flights back and forth across the Pacific that accompanied the buildup to the Beijing talks last September and the initial attempts in October and November to keep the process going. Now it is painfully clear that Vice-President Cheney and his hard-line underlings in the Administration have firmly shifted the focus of U.S. policy to the pursuit of "regime change" through financial sanctions.

Banco Delta Asia was only the beginning. The Treasury Department is warning banks throughout the world that handling North Korean-related funds could compromise their access to U.S. financial networks. Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey told Newsweek that the use of financial sanctions will have a "snowballing, avalanche effect" as the U.S. warning sinks in. Newsweek said that "Washington has finally found a strategy that is putting real pressure on the regime."

The Treasury is trying to use the same tactics toward Iran and did get two big European banks, Credit Suisse and UBS, to stop dealing with Iran in January. But isolating Iran financially would be much more difficult than isolating North Korea because Iran had 98 billion USD in imports and exports last year and is much more integrated into the global financial system. What Treasury hopes to do is to undermine North Korea’s ability to conduct even its relatively limited amount of foreign trade and investment and thus put significant strains on the Kim Jong-il regime.

White House correspondent David Sanger reported in the New York Times in late March that the current U.S. strategy is "to squeeze them, but to keep the negotiations going." Of course, Pyongyang won’t play that way, and is prepared to wait out the Bush Administration. Sanger reported two weeks ago that the Administration may offer to open negotiations on a peace treaty in parallel with a resumption of the six-party nuclear dialogue. When I told him that the Treasury would have to drop financial sanctions before Pyongyang would respond favorably to such an offer, he replied that the dominant hard-liners believe they can have it both ways, continuing to push sanctions while trying other inducements to get Pyongyang back to the bargaining table.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice used her clout to enable Ambassador Christopher Hill to meet bilaterally with North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan last September. But she backed off when Cheney immediately sabotaged the September 19 declaration by getting Treasury to begin sanctions. Cheney’s point man in the State Department, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Robert Joseph, who is even more hard-line than his predecessor John Bolton, talks about "turning out the lights" in Pyongyang as the goal of U.S. policy, according to State Department officials who attend policy meetings where Joseph plays an increasingly assertive role.

The idea of opening a dialogue on a peace treaty in parallel with the six-party talks is a good one. Should China and South Korea succeed in getting the White House to lift the new financial sanctions, Seoul should push for discussions on a peace treaty. This would help the atmosphere for negotiations, but Pyongyang is not likely to make significant concessions on a step-by-step denuclearization process until all sanctions are lifted, including the previously-existing U.S. sanctions dating back to the Korean War.

When and if negotiations are resumed and the United States agrees to end all of its sanctions, remove North Korea from the terrorist list and provide a substantial energy aid package, Pyongyang is prepared for a new freeze of the Yongbyon reactor, coupled with a commitment to stop construction of its two big new reactors. But to get a comprehensive denuclearization agreement completely ruling out the future production of weapons grade plutonium and uranium under adequate inspection, much more significant changes in U.S. and South Korean policy would be necessary.

As I argued in detail in my book, "Korean Endgame," North Korea cannot be expected to give up its nuclear weapons option completely until the U.S. nuclear umbrella over South Korea is lifted.

Although the United States says that it has removed its tactical nuclear weapons from the South, it continues to deploy ICBMs and nuclear capable cruise missiles in its Pacific submarine fleet and nuclear-capable aircraft on its Pacific aircraft carriers. Washington has not ruled out the reintroduction of nuclear weapons to the South or to its Pacific aircraft carriers, and their use in any new Korean conflict. For this reason, North Korea has repeatedly called for lifting the U.S. nuclear umbrella over the South as a prerequisite for movement toward a nuclear-free Peninsula. When Ambassador Robert Gallucci met First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju in June 1993, following North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT, Pyongyang agreed to suspend its withdrawal only after Gallucci accepted the "principle" of "assurances against the threat and use of force, including nuclear weapons." This pledge was strengthened in article 3, section 1 of the 1994 freeze agreement, with its direct statement that "the United States will provide formal assurances against the threat or use of nuclear weapons by the United States."

If the Agreed Framework still existed and United States did agree to give unilateral assurances to North Korea in fulfillment of Article Three, such assurances would conflict with the pledge of nuclear protection implicit in the US-South Korea Security Treaty, since China, which still has a security treaty with the North, possesses nuclear weapons. The only way to lift the nuclear umbrella over the South without endangering South Korean security would be to conclude a six-power agreement in which the United States would join with China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas in ruling out the use or deployment of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons by the four outside powers and the development or deployment of nuclear weapons by the two Koreas.

Kim Dae Jung should sound out Kim Jong-il about such an agreement during his visit to Pyongyang. Roh Moo-hyun should declare his support for the concept and lead the way in getting China, Japan and Russia to back it and to move toward the conclusion of such an agreement, if necessary without the United States. Removing the U.S. nuclear umbrella should be a political winner for Roh in South Korea. Would any South Korean government actually permit the United States to use nuclear weapons against the North?