U.S. President George W. Bush aptly said that it was only a “first step” in the right direction when he referred to Pyongyang’s handover to Beijing of a document detailing its nuclear program. He was warning against having high expectations for an early breakthrough in negotiations with the North. Indeed, the Kim Jong-il regime has time and again proven to be one of the hardest nuts to crack for members of the international community.
The document is flawed. Glaringly absent is the number of nuclear weapons North Korea has developed. Pyongyang, which conducted a nuclear test in 2006, will have to disclose how much plutonium it has diverted for the manufacture of bombs. The ultimate goal of the ongoing six-party talks is to persuade Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons and commit itself to not making bombs in the future.
Another serious problem is the yawning gap between the amount of plutonium North Korea is presumed to have produced and the amount that it reported. News reports say that North Korea put the amount at 36 to 37 kilograms, well below the U.S. estimate of 60 kilograms.
If it fails to convincingly account for the discrepancy during the next phase of verification, North Korea will be suspected of hiding a substantial amount for future use in manufacturing weapons, or underreporting the number of weapons it has already produced. That could derail the six-party talks.
Those talks, which are set to resume in the near future, have other issues to address, including the uranium-enrichment program, which is not mentioned in the document, and North Korea’s Syria connections.
Given all these problems, sincerity and patience will be the virtues most required of North Korea and the other participants in the talks.
분류:Editorial
