POLITICS: North Korean Atomic Deal a ‘Diplomatic Coup’

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis by Praful Bidwai

NEW DELHI, Sep 21 2005 (IPS) - Despite snags over the supply of a light-water reactor, Monday’s atomic disarmament deal with North Korea represents a major diplomatic coup say observers in India,now an acknowledged nuclear player.

The six-party Beijing agreement, involving China, the United States, Japan, Russia and South Korea, not only holds the potential of defusing regional tensions, running high ever since North Korea confirmed its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2002, but would have a bearing on Iran’s equally difficult case.

Monday’s agreement in Beijing says that Pyongyang will end its nuclear weapons programme in return for economic and energy benefits and assurances of military security and return to the nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty (NPT).

In 2003, Pyongyang defiantly walked out of the NPT. In February, it announced that it possessed nuclear weapons and although many South Korean analysts doubted that claim, others believe it could have two to seven nuclear weapons.

As an incentive to dismantling its nuclear weapons, North Korea insisted on being provided with a light-water nuclear power reactor for civilian use. This had become the biggest sticking point in the four rounds of talks but, unlike in the past, the U.S. has indicated willingness to discuss it.

A six-party joint statement clearly says: ”The other parties expressed their respect and agreed to discuss, at an appropriate time, the subject” of a light-water reactor (LWR) for North Korea.

Equally important in the agreement is the pledge, by the U.S. and North Korea, ”to respect each other’s sovereignty and right to peaceful coexistence, and also to take steps to normalise relations”. The U.S. has ”affirmed that it has no nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula and has no intention to attack or invade (North Korea) with nuclear or conventional weapons”.

”This is probably the key to understanding how the breakthrough took place,” Prof. R.R. Krishnan, India’s foremost expert on the Korean peninsula, who was until recently with Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of International Studies in New Delhi, and is now setting up a Korean studies centre in the southern city of Chennai.

”As Pyongyang saw it, the U.S. recently adopted an extremely hostile posture towards it by calling North Korea a ‘rogue state’ and an ‘outpost of tyranny’. That generated enormous insecurity in Pyongyang. Now, these concerns are beginning to be addressed with Washington’s new assurances,” Krishan told IPS in a interview.

Krishnan sees the Sep.19 breakthrough as ”the most substantial step towards normalisation of the situation in the Korean peninsula” since a landmark U.S.-North Korea agreement was signed in 1994.

The peninsula is the site of the last major cold war-era confrontation between East and West most of which were fought out in third countries in the developing world.

That said, the six-party deal is yet to be hammered out into specific agreements which have an agreed sequence and this could pose a problem in the near future.

Most importantly, the U.S. insists it wants to see North Korea’s weapons programme totally dismantled before delivering material assistance to it, especially anything like a civilian reactor. Pyongyang has since declared that the U.S. ”should not even dream of North Korea dismantling its ”nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs”.

The timing of the different steps agreed to by the six parties could cause some problems. But sincere and purposive diplomacy should be able to sort that out. ”What North Korea is looking for is normalisation of relations with Washington”, says Krishnan. ”Pyongyang itself says it would not need a single nuclear weapon if its relations with Washington were normalised”.

Therefore, Krishnan adds, ”It would be most appropriate if the U.S. moves towards formally recognising Pyongyang, and welcomes the recent thaw in North-South relations”.

North and South Korea have narrowed their differences and improved relations in a sustained manner over the past six years. Washington has been lukewarm to the improvement.

Optimistically, the latest breakthrough could pave the way for a winding down of the fierce military rivalry on the Korean peninsula where military budgets, relative to population, are among the highest in the world.

North Korea is the world’s most militarised state relative to population, with active forces of 1.14 million and reserves of 7.45 million. South Korea has about 650,000 active forces and 3 million reservists. It is also backed by 37,000 U.S. troops on its soil.

”All those who favour peace and negotiated dispute-resolution will be heartened by two other potential consequences of the Sep.19 deal in Beijing,” said Prof. Achin Vanaik, expert on nuclear disarmament at the Delhi University and internationally-known peace activist.

If and when fully fleshed out to the satisfaction of all concerned, the agreement could establish the basis for the de-nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and for a North-east Asia that is free of nuclear weapons, he said.

South Korea would be tempted to develop a nuclear weapons capability only if the North has one. (It has reportedly experimented tentatively with a nuclear programme.) If the North abandons its nuclear weapons verifiably, Seoul too could be persuaded to foreswear the nuclear option permanently. Japan is bound under its constitution not to make, acquire or bring in nuclear weapons.

”If these obligations and agreements could be sewn up into a legal agreement for a nuclear weapons-free zone, that would make for a secure and stable North-east Asia,” Vanaik said adding that such a demand has long been voiced by peace movements in Japan and South Korea.

A major implication of the recent deal goes beyond the Korean peninsula and to the growing confrontation over Iran’s nuclear programme.

If North Korea has been called the ”Hermit Kingdom” and an oppressively autocratic, closed society, with only a slippery and sketchy record of abiding by its international agreements, the same cannot be said about Iran.

And if North Korea can be persuaded to give up nuclear weapons, then Iran offers even greater hopes for a negotiated settlement because Iran’s is not an isolationist regime and the country is emerging from extremism and changing into a normal and vibrant society.

After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared, last Saturday, at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that Iran had an ”inalienable right” to make its own nuclear fuel, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convened a week-long, closed door meeting from Monday to decide whether to refer Iran’s case to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Tehran has already made it clear that it looked for support from India as a non-Western country, which not only makes its own nuclear fuel but is also a self-declared nuclear power-all without being a signatory to the NPT.

But India, which recently entered into a civilian, nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S., ending decades of international isolation in nuclear technology, is now expected, as a result of the North Korean deal, to vote with the European Union at the IAEA.

”India is not holding any brief for Iran’s nuclear programme. We believe that another nuclear weapon state in our neighbourhood is not desirable. We also believe that Iran, as signatory to the NPT, must honour all its commitments,” said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as he left New York after the UNGA.

But given the success of diplomatic and conciliatory approaches to the Korean nuclear crisis, some pressure could now mount on Washington not rush down the path of placing Iran under UNSC sanctions.