KOREA: North Likely to Soften Stance on Reactors, Say Experts

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Mar 13 1995 (IPS) - North Korea’s stubborn refusal to accept nuclear reactors from the South has dealt a big blow to efforts to end the Korean nuclear crisis, but analysts predict the North will eventually cooperate.

“The road ahead is a rocky one, but sooner or later North Korea will have to accept South Korean reactors,” says Masahiko Nakagawa, an analyst at the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo.

The communist regime in Pyongyang has repeatedly rejected South Korea’s offer to supply two light-water nuclear reactors worth about four billion dollars.

North Korea must decide by Apr. 21 whether it will accept the offer or make good its threat to pull out of the nuclear accord it signed with the United States last October.

U.S. ambassador-at-large Robert Gallucci, who is charge of the nuclear negotiations, has said North Korea has “no alternative” but to accept the South Korean reactors.

Gallucci’s statement came after the United States, Japan and South Korea signed an agreement last Thursday creating the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO).

KEDO will finance and supply two light-water nuclear reactors as part of the October agreement, and will provide alternative energy to North Korea pending completion of the first reactor. The consortium has already received financial pledges from Canada and a technical assistance offer from France.

Korea watchers say there are indications that the Pyongyang government may yet soften its stance on the South Korean nuclear reactor issue.

“There is a little loosening in the way North Korea has been conducting its relations with the rest of world recently,” said Nakagawa.

The South Korean media reported over the weekend that Pyongyang may accept an offer made by South Korean President Kim Young Sam last week to loan food and other daily necessities to the North.

In the past, North Korea would immediately reject such overtures from the South, but this time, the communist regime made no comment when Kim made the proposal, noted an article in the Korea Herald.

The article quoted a political expert as saying that the North’s no-comment stance can be seen a sign that the cash- strapped nation is seriously considering receiving aid from the South.

The report said Seoul’s offer for food supplies may be more acceptable to Pyongyang since it was made on a long-term, low-cost basis rather than in the form of aid. This would allow the North’s communist leaders to save face, the article said.

The South Korean media have also reported that a high-level government delegation may visit the North in the near future.

Pyongyang has also invited senior leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Sakigake party — two of the three ruling coalition partners in Japan — to visit North Korea.

The visit, scheduled for next month, is considered a major step forward in the frosty relations between Japan and North Korea which have had no official contact since 1992.

“Since it is North Korea that proposed the meeting, it definitely is a new sign of a softening attitude on its part,” says Nakagawa.

Japan is eager to resume stalled negotiations on normalising relations with Pyongyang — seen as a major threat to East Asian security — but it must first resolve the issue of war compensation to North Korea.

An LDP delegation in 1990 promised Pyongyang that Japan would formally apologise and compensate North Korea not only for the 36 years of colonial rule but also for 45 years of ‘losses’ following World War II.

But the Japanese government later claimed that the joint declaration signed that year reflected a party view and not the official stance.

Nakagawa says the fact that North Korea has chosen to ignore this controversy in its latest invitation is a positive development for the East Asian region.

“It shows a new attitude on the part of the North,” he says. “The international community should work on these signs and keep the pressure up for the North to accept South Korean reactors.”

According to Nakagawa, one way of encouraging the North to accept the reactors is for Seoul to agree not to insist that the reactors carry the South Korean trademark.

“South Korean trademarks symbolise the superiority of the South over the North and is a irritant for the communist regime that wants to keep up the propaganda that it is stronger than the South,” he says.