Left Flank

DPRK Forum creditably serves up the video facts and timeline on the Dayr az-Zwar reactor incident. The Economist is skeptical:

Many facts remain contested. White House officials told Congress that the reactor had «striking similarities» to North Korea's facility at Yongbyon. Footage presented to Congress is said to show Korean faces at the Syrian site. But David Albright and Paul Brannan, in an analysis for the Institute for Science and International Security, an American think-tank, note that evidence is missing for a Syrian weaponisation programme or for plutonium-separation facilities. The North Koreans may well have helped to build the site, but they say more evidence is needed to be sure that Syria had a bomb programme.

The target of Thursday's hearing was not Syria in the main. The Bush administration is divided over North Korea. Years of efforts to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme have been driven both by the American government and by six-party talks that involve China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, North Korea and America. Last year North Korea agreed to dismantle the Yongbyon facility, as part of a deal agreed in 2005 that requires it to declare and dismantle all of its nuclear programmes. However progress was stalled several times, including after a row over the release of funds claimed by North Korea.

A smooth-talking American diplomat, Christopher Hill, was deployed to persuade North Korea to take the steps needed to move ahead with the deal. North Korea has publicly acknowledged its plutonium-making but is reluctant to own up publicly to efforts to import equipment for producing uranium and about nuclear help to Syria. Mr Hill has been working on a deal that would let North Korea acknowledge America's concerns about both these activities, while pushing ahead with dismantling its plutonium-making reactor at Yongbyon. But hawks in the administration, and outside critics, dislike the idea of any concessions to North Korea and want to ensure that the country is compelled to account for and dismantle the parallel uranium programme, such as it was.

Congress began threatening to cut off funding for Mr Hill's efforts unless the administration produced all the information it had about North Korea's proliferation activity. This resulted in the hearings on Thursday. Some conspiracy theorists think that the briefing was designed to embarrass the North Koreans and to provoke them to flounce out of the deal, pleasing the hawkish types who never liked it.

But it comes at a curious time on several fronts. Another American diplomat was in North Korea as the briefing took place, and the country's news agency reported that talks were held «in a sincere and constructive manner». Jamie Metzl, a Korea expert at the Asia Society in New York (and a former National Security Council staffer under Bill Clinton), notes that the agreement with North Korea essentially forgives past sins and focuses on disarming North Korea in the future. Thus the North Koreans have an incentive to confess and get this behind them, in order to get promised aid and other concessions.

Nukes of Hazard also points readers to an April 24 ISIS statement on the US video:

The release of this information is likely to prompt a fresh wave of questions about North Korea's commitment to verifiably dismantle its nuclear arsenal and halt its proliferation activities. This new information confirms the need to be concerned about Syrian and North Korean actions, including their nuclear cooperation which dates back many years. However, it should not be seen as a casus belli against Syria or a reason to scuttle the progress being made at the Six Party Talks in disabling and dismantling North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

First, the United States does not have any indication of how Syria would fuel this reactor, and no information that North Korea had already, or intended to provide the reactor's fuel. This type of reactor requires a large supply of uranium fuel. The lack of any identified source of this fuel raises questions about when the reactor could have operated, despite evidence that it was nearing completion at the time of the attack.

Second, the United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation or nuclear weaponization facilities. The absence of such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor was part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent absence of fuel, whether imported or indigenously produced, also lowers confidence that Syria has an active nuclear weapons program.

If OFK's account of the Congressional hearings and this exchange on the Lehrer Newshour are any indication of the useless invective with which conservatives have infused this debate, it's hard to evaluate any of this. One aspect of the A.Q. Khan investigations troubles me in this regard. CIA knew of Khan's activities as far back as the 70s before Khan even assembled a centrifuge in Pakistan. Yet, intelligence officials refused to share their evidence with international agencies, like the IAEA, whose job it is to investigate and regulate, out of simple ideological pique.

WangKon936 asks, "So, is the Bush administration genuinely concerned about proliferation and North Korea, or is this a clumsy neocon plot?" The goal then, as now, is partisan, and not on improving the international regime, or even presenting a unified national position in a diplomatic negotiation.

Those 22 North Koreans returned to DPRK by the ROK National Intelligence Service (NIS) on February 8 have been apparently executed (Curiously, this fourth graph is omitted in the print version). It might be the NIS' swan song.

Rumors are spreading among North Korean defectors that the 22 have all been executed. The security agency in South Hwanghae Province reportedly put them in front of a firing squad. If this is true, our government has sent the 22 North Koreans to their death. Before these suspicions grow further, South Korean authorities must reveal what exactly the 22 North Koreans said during questioning and discover whether they are alive or dead.

Robert Koehler also reports on NIS' official explanation for the executions. I'll allow readers to discover the "humor" of it themselves. It's a travesty of intelligence-gathering. And, it's another reason to overhaul the NIS.

Putative GOP presidential candidate, Senator John McCain recently singled out DPRK as "…the most horrible regime probably on earth." But then, Jack goes too far, when he says, "That is one of the major things left out of the negotiating table throughout the six-party talks…" Yet, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill does talk, or will talk, about human rights.

Well, people who are well informed on this issue understand that as we get through this declaration, we will then go to something called the Third Phase. Now what we would like in the Third Phase is for North Korea to not only dismantle all of their programs, but also to give up, to abandon, pursuant to the September 2005 agreement, to abandon their separated plutonium, and any other fissile material they have. Now, in order to get that, we're going to put a few things on the table. And one of them is normalization with the United States, a bilateral normalization process. As part of normalization, we will of course be discussing human rights, and we have been discussing human rights. And I don't think we should ever be afraid to discuss human rights.

Human rights needs to be understood by the North Koreans as really the price of admission to the international community. So as we discuss our normalization, of course this subject will be discussed. But what we would like the North Koreans to come to understand is that human rights is something that they don't have a choice on, that if they want to join the international community, they have to start living up to some human rights standards. This is not just some desiderata on the part of the United States. This has to do with international obligations. And so, to the extent that we can convey this, of course we'll convey it through this bilateral process of leading to normalization.

Obviously, neither Hill nor McCain can save these 22 North Koreans the NIS improperly identified. And, even President-elect Lee Myung-bak's putative Unification Minister (or "Un-Minister") will be too late to join the bureaucratic battle against unification policy in ROK.

Dread of a DPRK collapse at Belmont prompts Westhawk to rally the six nations for an intervention.

I have described reasons why China, South Korea, and the U.S. could get sucked into the North Korean tar pit in spite of the risks and costs of doing so. With all sides having strategic interests in the problem and obvious reasons for wishing to minimize their own costs and risks, it would seem to make sense for China, South Korea, the U.S., Japan, and others to cooperate now on planning for a post-Kim North Korea.

Although strict defenders of national sovereignty will object to the idea of a group of countries scheming over the collapse of another, the case of North Korea is too dangerous to ignore. Cooperative planning now might prevent a chaotic response later.

But even if these countries provide a smooth response to the collapse of the Kim regime, the strategic conflicts described above will still occur. A coordinated international relief expedition could provide humanitarian relief to North Korea, maintain order, prevent a refugee crisis, control the WMD stockpiles, and begin reconstruction. Yet it will take another level of diplomacy to prevent strategic conflict in the region, even after all of this important work is done.

And, US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill (for the conservative rebuttal, read OFK) responded to US Senator Joseph Biden's query about a Northeast Asian security arrangement with a feeble affirmation.

In contrast, I side with the Chinese.

Chinese analysts widely assert that the North Korean system remains stable and they are confident that it will remain so for at least several years absent the sudden death of Kim Jong Il or external interference aimed at destabilizing the regime. In the long run, however, sustainable development through economic reform remains an essential prerequisite for stability, and North Korea's ability to move down that path is not yet assured.

No amount of wishful thinking will change this.

Ambassador Christopher Hill discusses his last gig in Beijing, and there's not much controversial to add - except about his love for the Red Sox - until the last few minutes. Hill endorses the argument, that the Koreans did not play a role in their own division. And then, he talks briefly about why the US has abandoned its previous diplomatic strategy, CVID or bust.

Two major events concerning the Korean peninsula hit the public in the last few days, the Second DPRK-ROK Summit and the latest installment of the Six Party talks in Beijing. As usual the ball is in Pyongyang's end of the court, and even I won't place bets, at least not on one prediction.

In Pyongyang, not even ROK President Roh Moo-hyun can get respect (and, who's really complaining?). During the course of the media bomb, I was concerned about the inordinate attention on economic issues. Seeing Chung Mong-koo in Pyongyang on South Korean TV made me wonder if the entire reason the ROK Supreme Court exonerated him was, so he could grab his share of loot from the North Koreans.

Among the top three business topics expected for discussion - natural resource developments, roadway and railway distribution system expansions and dockyard construction - Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group is said to be interested in building railroad cars through its shipping affiliate Glovis, and also measure the feasibility of SOC businesses, while POSCO showed interest in forestation.

Although company officials said forestation is just a possibility, as the steel maker has shown its interest in securing carbon credit overseas, industry insiders say the opportunity will be advantageous for POSCO if cooperation comes through.

And as speculations rose that SK Group may be considering communication and energy projects in the North, company officials said plans are open for review if the right offer is made.

LG and Samsung, which are said to be mulling over their specialty areas of electronics, seem to be in the same scouting stages as others.

I think the first piece I wrote on Korea was about Samsung turning the DPRK into a giant industrial park. If Graph 5 of the «Declaration for Advancement of South-North Korean Relations, Peace and Prosperity» are any indication, it seems Chairman Chung's time was wasted.

From what can be gleaned of their substance, talks between the two leaders on October 3rd only emphasised the distance still to travel. Mr Kim may be willing to squeeze the outside world for aid?but on his terms. So Mr Roh?s offer of what amounted to a Marshall Plan to transform North Korea?s economy in pursuit of Chinese-style liberalisation met with blank dismissal. Mr Kim does not even like a showcase industrial park at Kaesong, where South Korean manufacturers employ cheap North Korean labour, to be described as a model of successful ?reform?. Once again, Mr Kim showed how he puts his own survival over that of the North Koreans he brutalises.

Yet a joint agreement was announced on October 4th, something Mr Roh will be able to take home with relief. Gone were his hopes for great involvement in the North, but there was agreement to allow freight trains into Kaesong. There was a recommitment to help families divided by the civil war to meet (though a word from Mr Kim is all it would take to solve that sad problem). Talks will be sought with America and China to put a formal end to the civil war (though peace on the peninsula, these countries are likely to argue, can only come after its denuclearisation). Steps were promised (as, fruitlessly, they were at the 2000 summit) to reduce military tensions: defence ministers would meet, while a disputed western maritime area would see its fisheries jointly mined.

And, it's even more disconcerting to read DPRK Vice Foreign Minister Choi Su-hon at the UN say, that «...there was no need for the UN as a go-between in inter-Korean affairs, as inter-Korean dialogue is 'going well.'» I hope dialogue is much more multi-voiced, and includes as many «go-between's» as possible.

Vice Minister Choi also called the latest agreement in Beijing, agreeing to the disablement of Yongbyon by the end of the year, a «courageous decision». It remains for Pyongyang to manifest its courage. But, there are plenty of other ways the enthusiasm could get punctured.

At the request of the other five parties to the nuclear deal, the United States will lead disablement activities and provide initial funding. It will lead an expert group to North Korea, probably next week, to prepare for disablement.

North Korea also reaffirmed its commitment not to transfer nuclear materials, technology or know-how, the statement issued in Beijing added.

But the statement skirted the issue of when the country would be removed from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list, one of Pyongyang's key demands, saying only Washington would fulfill its commitments to begin that process in parallel with action on the ground.

Last week, Bush authorized $25 million in aid for the North, which would cover the cost of up to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

China and South Korea have delivered initial fuel shipments and Russia is expected to do so too. But Japan has indicated it will not participate unless North Korea addresses the issue of Japanese citizens the North abducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

And, to be fair, there is substantive opposition to the entire process.

Nowhere, however, in the new agreement was what Reagan-era diplomats called a «third basket» ? a set of exchanges and commitments regarding how the communist regime treats its citizens, a feature of the Helsinki accords first signed in 1975 by 35 nations, including America and the Soviet Union.

A third-basket negotiation was the hope of a left-right coalition of human rights and religious leaders who on May 25 warned Secretary of State Rice that it «would oppose the provision of significant financial assistance to North Korea without progress on human rights issues.» The coalition included Human Rights Watch, the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, Freedom House, and the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute.

One of the organizers of the coalition on North Korean Human Rights, Michael Horowitz, yesterday said the denuclearization agreement would lead to war. «This policy has increased the risk of war on the Korean peninsula. If we give Kim Jong Il money for his weapons programs, the future will bring more weapons not fewer weapons,» Mr. Horowitz said. «I fear that if this deal goes through, Kim Jong Il will seek to blackmail the world in less than two years with what may be the world's largest chemical and biological stockpile and missiles capable of delivering them.» Mr. Horowitz pointed out that when North Korea tested missiles last July, both Democrats and Republicans called for a military strike.

«It is sad and ironic that President Bush, the most forceful advocate of North Korean human rights, has signed off on a policy approach that seeks to legitimize and finance the Kim Jong Il regime in exchange for mere weapons promises on its part.»

Mr. Bush yesterday praised the agreement and said North Korea would provide a «complete and correct» accounting of «all its nuclear programs, nuclear weapons programs, materials, and any proliferation activity.» Mr. Bush also said the new agreement would «help secure the future peace and prosperity of the Northeast Asian region.»

Mr. Lefkowitz yesterday said human rights and national security are two complementary objectives in the administration's North Korea policy. «It is a false choice to say the United States policy should focus either on nuclear security or human rights; indeed, the two go hand and hand. We have very serious imminent interests in North Korea disarming,» he said.

There is also this choice Roh quote:

The talks left Roh with an impression that progress remains hindered by Kim's deep suspicions.

«North Korea still has some skepticism about the South and doesn't trust it enough,» the South Korean president was quoted as saying at a Wednesday luncheon after his first two-hour session of talks with Kim. «We need greater effort to demolish a wall of mistrust.»

Roh said the North Korean leader was suspicious about terms such as «openness» and «reform,» suggesting that he sees any rapid move toward Chinese-style economic reforms as a threat to his autocratic rule.

Mistrust also was evident in observers' reactions to the nuclear deal struck in Beijing. Many experts raised concerns over whether the deal would fully disable the North's nuclear facilities, or merely leave them easy to reassemble.

One can learn a lot through a child's eyes.

Alright, no Left Flank post would be complete without criticism of the Bush administration, even as it is praised. Ed Morrissey is refreshingly pragmatic, when he argues that «...A few million dollars to ensure security is a small price to pay, and besides, we can then ensure that the facilities really cannot be reused for a very long time.» Dilworth at KUS puts it a little more colorfully than I would, and Richardson is skeptical.

As my wife often says in these times, Korean events lurch two steps forward, and then one step back. Is this the progress, or the reaction? Let's meet again on December, 31!