UN: Unknown If N Korea Diverting Nuke Material

by Thalif Deen

Image from N Korea web site

Mohamed El Baradei, director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Monday that his agency is "regrettably" unable to verify whether or not North Korea is diverting nuclear material to the production of nuclear weapons.

"This is clearly an unsustainable situation and sets a dangerous precedent, namely that non-compliance with non-proliferation obligations can be tolerated," he said.

The 35-member IAEA board of directors, which met in Vienna Monday, condemned North Korea's decision to expel IAEA inspectors which, it said, "renders the agency unable to verify" North Korea's nuclear program.

El Baradei said that the next few weeks and months will be important to the future of the non-proliferation regime.

"We can succeed only if all the parties to the regime understand that the settlement of disputes cannot be linked to the threat of the use of nuclear weapons, or other forms of nuclear brinkmanship," he added.

Last week, North Korea reneged on a 1994 bilateral agreement with the United States by publicly declaring its intention to revive its nuclear weapons program. At the same time, it expelled two UN arms inspectors monitoring its nuclear facilities under IAEA auspices.

The agency also "deplored in the strongest terms" North Korea's "unilateral acts to remove and impede" the functioning of UN surveillance equipment at its nuclear facilities.

Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France, current president of the UN Security Council, told reporters that the North Korean issue was not raised at Monday's closed door meeting of the 15-member Council.

"The problem is being dealt with in the IAEA," he said, but refused to speculate on whether or not the matter will be brought before the council.

The United States, which has threatened military action against Iraq over weapons of mass destruction, has backed away from this stance, possibly because of the chance of retaliation by Pyongyang against two American allies in the region: South Korea and Japan. Additionally, the United States has about 37,000 soldiers on South Korean soil who will be vulnerable to a North Korean counterattack.

Last week, President George W. Bush told reporters: "I believe this is not a military showdown; this is a diplomatic showdown."

Although the United States would welcome Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang, it is not likely to sponsor any resolution to penalize North Korea because of possible opposition by China, which is not only a veto-wielding permanent member but also a sometime political ally of North Korea.

Officially, North Korea has said it was restarting its nuclear reactor for badly needed electricity following a decision by the United States and other Western nations to cut off promised oil shipments.

The cut-off was prompted by reports that North Korea had been secretly making efforts to continue with its nuclear weapons program in violation of its 1994 agreement with the United States.

The speculation is that North Korea is close to producing nuclear weapons, and some think it already may have them.

Senator Joseph Biden, the outgoing chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has warned that the North Korean crisis "is a greater danger immediately to U.S. interests at this very moment, in my view, than Saddam Hussein". If the North Koreans begin re-processing operations, he said, they are going to be able to build four to five additional nuclear weapons within months.

In a commentary in The New York Times last week, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher expressed similar views, claiming that North Korea was a greater threat to the United States than Iraq.

"I am concerned that we seem to be lurching toward war without taking into account what our priorities should be," he added.

El Baredei said he was hoping that North Korea will understand that "it is compliance rather than defiance that will open the way to a dialogue to address its security and other concerns".

"Only through dialogue can differences be resolved or reconciled," he added.

But the United States has refused to resume a dialogue with North Korea, arguing that it would be a sign of caving in to blackmail.

Don Oberdorfer, journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, said that the United States "appears still hamstrung by the conviction that dialogue would be a reward for bad behavior."

Oberdorfer, author of the book, The Two Koreas: a Contemporary History, also says that if the United States sticks to its position, "a crisis in Northeast Asia is only a matter of time".