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Six-Parties Adopt Steps For North Korean Denuclearization But Uranium Enrichment Controversy Looms As Major Obstacle

Daniel A. Pinkston and Leonard S. Spector

Copyright © WMD Insights. All rights reserved

April 2007.

On February 13, 2007, after 17 months of deadlock at the “Six-Party Talks” on ending the North Korean nuclear weapon program, China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States adopted an “action plan” for the implementation of the September 2005 “Joint Statement” among the parties. Under the Joint Statement, North Korea had “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning, at an early date, to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards.” [1] The action plan establishes a 60-day initial phase during which North Korea is to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities in Yŏngbyŏn, invite inspectors from the IAEA to verify and monitor the status of the facilities, and “discuss with other parties a list of all its nuclear programs as described in the Joint Statement, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods, that would be abandoned pursuant to the Joint Statement.” [2] Those programs would be dismantled in subsequent phases of implementing the action plan.

In return, the United States and Japan are obliged to begin talks with North Korea aimed at normalizing relations, and the parties agreed to provide energy assistance to North Korea in exchange for progress in denuclearization. In addition, the United States agreed to the release of some $25 million in North Korean assets held at the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia, which were frozen when the United States threatened to impose sanctions against the bank in September 2005 under the USA PATRIOT Act, after the Treasury Department had declared the bank to be a “primary money laundering concern.” [3] The action plan also established five working groups to address the process of implementation.

Ending the North Korean nuclear program in a manner that convinces the other parties that it has been dismantled in its entirety will pose a number of difficult challenges, in particular with regard to the country’s activities in the area of uranium enrichment. In South Korea, a number of former officials and analysts have expressed concern that the United States has overestimated North Korea’s accomplishments in this sphere. They fear that by demanding disclosure of activities that may not, in fact, exist, the United States could derail the Six-Party process at a time when it appears to be making important progress.

U.S. Allegations of North Korean Uranium Enrichment “Program”

Whereas the facilities involved in North Korea’s production of plutonium are well known, considerable controversy surrounds work that North Korea may have undertaken in the field of enrichment. The United States and other parties expect North Korea to include its “highly enriched uranium” or HEU program on its list of nuclear programs to move into the next phase of implementing the February 13 action plan, which will include the delivery of 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil (HFO) following the provision of 50,000 tons of HFO within the first 60 days of implementation. [4]

The controversy surrounding North Korea’s HEU “program” began in mid-2002, when the United States obtained what it then considered to be convincing evidence that North Korea was pursuing such a program. A key piece of evidence was, apparently, Pyongyang’s purchase from Russia of 150 tons of aluminum tubes that the United States then believed were designed to serve as the stationary outer casings of uranium enrichment centrifuges. [5] At the time, Pyongyang had frozen its plutonium production program, pursuant to a 1994 arrangement, known as the “Agreed Framework.” The United States believed that the North was attempting to by-pass the freeze by secretly building a facility capable of producing HEU, the alternative material usable for nuclear weapons, in violation of the Agreed Framework.

At a bilateral meeting in Pyongyang in October 2002, the United States confronted North Korea with the charge that it was pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program. In subsequent statements about the meeting, the U.S. negotiators asserted that North Korean representatives had defiantly admitted that their country was, indeed, pursuing such a program. [6] North Korea denied making the admission, however. Within months, the Agreed Framework collapsed, and in 2003 the North once again began producing plutonium in Yŏngbyŏn.

Since that time, doubts have arisen within the U.S. government as to whether the aluminum tubes obtained from Russia were, in fact, intended for use in uranium enrichment centrifuges. [7] One reason for these doubts is that the United States made similar charges – which ultimately proved to be erroneous – that aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq in the 1990s were proof that Saddam Hussein had a uranium enrichment program. Other evidence has emerged, however, to indicate that North Korea did, in fact, acquire equipment for uranium enrichment, namely about 20 centrifuges that were provided by the nuclear smuggling network of Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, in the mid- to late-1990s. [8] It is not known, however, what North Korea then did with this equipment or whether the transfer included detailed technical information, which might have facilitated its use. In a more recent episode, in April 2003, Egyptian customs authorities seized 22 tons of aluminum tubes destined for China and transshipment to North Korea. The tubes were reportedly ordered by Mr. Yun Ho-jin, who had served as North Korea’s ambassador to the IAEA, in Vienna, in the early 1990s, for the North Korean firm Namch’ŏngang. [9] Unlike questions that may have arisen about the tubes North Korea purchased from Russia, European enrichment specialists have testified in German court proceedings that the tubes seized in Egypt, indeed, had the precise specifications of tubes used for the outer casings of enrichment centrifuges. [10]

In 2002, a CIA estimate provided to the U.S. Congress declared that North Korea was building an enrichment facility that would be able to produce enough “weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year as soon as mid-decade.” [11] More recent U.S. assessments, however, have been more cautious. In public testimony in February 2007, for example, a senior U.S. intelligence official summarized current thinking on the status of the North Korean enrichment program by declaring, “We still have confidence that the program is in existence — at the mid-confidence level.” [12] A portion of a U.S. intelligence estimate declassified in late February stated that the intelligence community still had “high confidence that North Korea has pursued a uranium enrichment capability, which we assess is for a weapon.” It continued that U.S. intelligence agencies “judge — most with moderate confidence — that this effort continues. The degree of progress towards producing enriched uranium remains unknown, however.” [13] Thus, the United States still maintains, albeit with less confidence, that North Korea has pursued an HEU program, indicating that it will need to divulge the particulars of that effort and convincingly demonstrate that such activities have ended.

Divisions in South Korea on DPRK HEU Program

In South Korea, however, there is concern in some quarters that the United States may insist that the uranium enrichment program is more advanced than it is, a stance that could make it very difficult to establish that all work in this area has been terminated.

For example, many South Koreans believe there was miscommunication during the October 2002 meeting and that the North never admitted to having a uranium enrichment program – or that U.S. officials exaggerated intelligence findings in order to sabotage the Agreed Framework, which many in the Bush Administration believed to be deeply flawed. [14] Ohmynews, a popular South Korean online newspaper, for example, reported in a March 12, 2007, article that former President Kim Dae-jung’s forthcoming memoirs will reveal his suspicions over U.S. intelligence regarding the North Korean HEU program. In a December 9, 2006, interview with Ohmynews, former President Kim said Washington has failed to produce any clear evidence of an HEU program, and that the U.S. accusations were an important turning point that led to North Korea’s nuclear test of October 9, 2006. [15]

Im Dong-wŏn, former director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) and a former South Korean Minister of Unification, also accused the Bush Administration of fabricating intelligence in order to kill the Agreed Framework. Im said the U.S. allegations of a North Korean uranium enrichment program came as a surprise to the South Korean government in 2002. Im claimed, moreover, that there could have been misunderstandings due to the North Korean dialect when U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kelly spoke with North Korean Vice Foreign Minster Kang Sŏk-chu at the October 2002 meeting. Im also claimed the South Korean government had requested a transcript of the Kelly-Kang discussion but Washington has refused to provide one. [16]

According to The Daily NK, an online daily published by the North Korean Democracy Network, a vehemently anti-North Korean group of North Korean defectors, reported that when Kelly presented Kang with evidence of a North Korean HEU program, Kang responded, “We can have something even more than that.” The Daily NK claims that the U.S. delegation understood this to be an indirect admission. [17] Kim Tong-hyŏn, the U.S. State Department interpreter who accompanied the Kelly delegation to Pyongyang, had a similar view. When Kelly confronted Kang Sŏk-chu with the accusation of an HEU program, the interpreter said that Kang responded, “We are in the position to make something even more than that.” [18] Taken out of context, these accounts seem to suggest the possibility of miscommunication; this is how the incident is widely perceived in South Korea. [19] It is quite possible, for example, that Kang was making reference to North Korea’s “military first politics” and the country’s “single-minded unity behind the Great Comrade General Kim Jong-il,” which the North Korean media cites as “being more powerful than nuclear weapons.” [20]

There are also disagreements within South Korea over the nature of the North Korean HEU program. For example, inter-agency differences of opinion on the program caused a stir in South Korea following National Assembly hearings in late February 2007. During a closed Intelligence Committee hearing on February, 20, 2007, NIS Director Kim Man-bok responded affirmatively when committee members asked whether North Korea had an “HEU program.” [21] NIS officials at the hearing also said that they believed North Korea would have to include the HEU program on the list of nuclear facilities for the upcoming April 2007 deadline for the Six-Party Talks “action plan.” [22] However, on February 21, in testimony before the Unification, Foreign Affairs, and Trade Committee, Unification Minister Yi Jae-jŏng said he had no information about the existence of any North Korean HEU program or any concrete plans for one. [23]

Conclusion

The debate in South Korea over the North’s HEU program underscores the difficulties that lie ahead in establishing the actual extent of the program and the level of evidence that will be considered sufficient to confirm that it has been eliminated. The newly cautious U.S. estimate of the scale of this program may help facilitate a workable solution to this conundrum, but the history of opacity and secrecy surrounding the North’s nuclear efforts – and its military activities more generally – suggest that difficult negotiations lie ahead.

SOURCES AND NOTES

[1] U.S. Department of State, “North Korea Agrees to Abandon Its Nuclear Weapons Programs,” September 19, 2005, http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/Sep/19-187747.html?chanlid=washfile. [View Article]

[2] U.S. Department of State, Office of the Spokesman, “North Korea - Denuclearization Action Plan,” Media Note, February 13, 2007, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/february/80479.htm; [View Article] U.S. Department of State, “Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks, Beijing, September 19, 2005,” September 19, 2005, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/53490.htm. [View Article]

[3] U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Treasury Designates Banco Delta Asia as Primary Money Laundering Concern under USA PATRIOT Act,” Press Release JS-2720, September 15, 2005, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/js2720.htm. [View Article]

[4] The other five parties have agreed to provide “initial emergency energy assistance equivalent to 50,000 tons of HFO” within 60 days of the February 13th action plan.

[5] Glenn Kessler, “New Doubts on Nuclear Efforts by North Korea,” Washington Post, March 1, 2007, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/28/AR2007022801977_pf.htm]. See also Nobuyoshi Sakajiri and Yoshihiro Makino, “U.S. Knew of North Nukes Plan in 2002,” Asahi Shimbun, June 6, 2005, in Lexis-Nexis.

[6] Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals, Washington, D.C., Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005, pp. 282-283.

[7] Kessler, “New Doubts on Nuclear Efforts by North Korea,” see source in [5]; David Sanger and William Broad, “U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive,” New York Times, February 28, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com

/2007/03/01/washington/01korea.html? ei=5088&en=37430b9fcca9512c&ex=1330405200&pagewanted=all.uu.

[View Article]

[8] The incident is reported in, among other sources, the autobiography of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire , New York, Free Press, 2006, p. 296.

[9] Georg Mascolo, “German Officials Identify Former DPRK Diplomat as ‘Ringleader’ in WMD Export Deal,” World News Connection, September 22, 2003, in Lexis-Nexis; Pak Yong-ch’ae, “Mi, puk alluminyumgwan suipp’och’ak 2002 nyŏn pukhaeg’wigi paltan twoetta” [U.S. Discovery of the North’s Aluminum Tube Imports in 2002 Started North’s Nuclear Crisis], Kyŏnghyang Sinmun, June 6, 2005, in KINDS [http://www.kinds.or.kr].

[10] Georg Mascolo, “Germany: Attempted Sale of Tubes to DPRK Believed for Nuclear Program,” World News Connection, July 7, 2003, in Lexis-Nexis; Mark Hibbs, “Customs Intelligence Data Suggest DPRK Aimed at G-2 Type Centrifuge,” Nuclear Fuel, Vol. 28, No. 11, May 26, 2003, p. 3, in Lexis-Nexis; Mark Hibbs, “Germany Deliberately Abetted Export of Aluminum to DPRK, Suspect Says,” Nuclear Fuel, Vol. 28, No. 22, October 27, 2003, p. 3, in Lexis-Nexis.

[11] Kessler, “New Doubts on Nuclear Efforts by North Korea,” see source in [5].

[12] Sanger and Broad, “U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive,” see source in [7].

[13] Ibid.

[14] See, “John R. Bolton, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, ‘Lessons from Libya and North Korea’ s Strategic Choices,” Yonsei University, Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul, South Korea, July 21, 2004. On the Agreed Framework, Bolton stated, “The U.S. government tried the bilateral route, and it failed. It was called the Agreed Framework of 1994. Contrary to what critics of the Bush Administration suggest, the Agreed Framework did not resolve the issue, it simply postponed it and ultimately made it worse. We tested Kim Jong Il’s intentions when we rewarded him with carrots at the time and our reward was that he temporarily froze one nuclear weapons program based on plutonium, but started another based on uranium enrichment in secret. Eight years later, he was able to almost quite literally flip a switch to unfreeze and restart his plutonium program.”

[15] Kim Dang, “Im Dong-wŏn – Yang Sŏng-ch’ŏl – Mun Chŏng-in ‘HEU pŭrogŭraem’ŭn chenebahab’ŭi kkaegi wihan neok’on chŏngbojojak’ “ [Im Dong-wŏn – Yang Sŏng-ch’ŏl – Mun Chŏng-in, ‘Neo-cons Fabricated Intelligence in Order to Destroy the Geneva Agreement’], Ohmynews, March 12, 2007 [http://www.ohmynews.com].

[16] Ibid.

[17] Yang Chŏng-a, “[Haesŏl] Mibuk ch’oedaejaengjŏm ‘HEU’…nugunyanŏn?" [ [Commentary] HEU, the Greatest Issue Between the U.S. and North Korea…What Is It?], The Daily NK, February 22, 2007 [http://www.dailynk.com].

[18] Kim Sŭng-ryŏn and Ha T’ae-wŏn, “Puk HEU p’ŭrograem, kwajang’inga…sasilin’ga…[The North’s HEU Program, Exaggeration…or fact…], Donga Ilbo, March 5, 2007, in KINDS [http://www.kinds.or.kr].

[19] Kim Dang, “Im Dong-wŏn – Yang Sŏng-ch’ŏl – Mun Chŏng-in ‘HEU pŭrogŭraem’ŭn chenebahab’ŭi kkaegi wihan neok’on chŏngbojojak’ [Im Dong-wŏn – Yang Sŏng-ch’ŏl – Mun Chŏng-in, ‘Neo-cons Fabricated Intelligence in Order to Destroy the Geneva Agreement], see source in [15].

[20] “DPRK Ready to Punish Yankees in Singlehearted Unity More Powerful Than A-Bomb,” Korean Central News Agency, December 14, 2002 [http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm].

[21] “Seoul Believes N. Korea Has Uranium Program,” Chosun Ilbo, February 21, 2007, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200702/200702210035.html; [View Article] Im Sŏk-kyu, “Puk koch’ug’yuranyum p’ŭrogŭraem itta” [North Korea Has an HEU Program], The Hankyoreh, February 21, 2007, KINDS [http://www.kinds.or.kr].

[22] Yi Dong-hun, “Kukchŏng’wŏn ‘puk uranyumhaek kaebalgyehoek itta’ ” [NIS ‘North Has Development Plan For Uranium Nukes’], Han’guk Ilbo, February 20, 2007, KINDS [http://www.kinds.or.kr].

[23] “Minister ‘Knows Nothing’ of N. Korean Uranium Program,” Chosun Ilbo, February 22, 2007, http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200702/200702220032.html; [View Article] Cho T’ae-gŭn, “Yi Jae-jŏng ‘Puk HEU ittanŭn ŏddŏn chŏngbodo ŏpta’ ” [Yi Jae-jŏng ‘There’s No Intelligence to Say the North Has HEU’], Minjungŭisori [Voice of the People], February 21, 2007 [http://www.voiceofpeople.org].