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Half A Cheer... If North Korea Doesn’t Cheat

Bhuwan Thapaliya - 7/23/2007

The ruling leaders in North Korea certainly know how to stir up a crisis and fool the world. It has been fooling the world and it has had plenty of practice. But out of the blue, North Korea on 14th July said that they had shut down their main plutonium producing pant, at Yongbyon. Is it a sham? Only time will reveal. Given the complexity of the North Korea , nobody now dares predict the eventual result with any confidence.

But the headline news is something which the world has wanted to hear since ages. And the news looks true because it was confirmed by the head of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) too. On July 16th Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), confirmed that his inspectors in North Korea had indeed verified that the Yongbyon reactor has finally been closed.

Most analysts yet take a cynical view of the North Korean development but they nonetheless state that the closure of Yongbyon reactor is a milestone in a deal with North Korea which would accelerate the removal of nuclear weapons from the isolated state. Furthermore according to the experts, it symbolizes the first silver lining of a deal struck in February between six parties, including China , Russia , South Korea and Japan .

But the deal has its critics, particularly in America , who has suffered a serious North Korean hypocrisy in the past. Nonetheless, yet diplomats based in America are prepared to give it a chance, to welcome it as a step forward- so long as it is not rigged. North Korea ’s action will be closely scrutinized, but, if it were open to the world, it could re- establish a measure of confidence. This is a prerequisite for ending the nation’s hermit status. It could even provide a small opening leading, one day, to a democratic transformation.

But there are enough reasons to doubt that behind the veil, North Korea will keep on building its nuclear reactors, but nonetheless, it has completed its first stage, and this is a welcome sign. So where is North Korea heading. Does its recent closure return North Korea to the point reached in a 1994 deal?

May be, perhaps. “Since 1994, North Korea is believed by some to have started enriching uranium. After America confronted North Korea over this in 2002, the North flounced out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and switched Yongbyon back on. In October it also tested a small nuclear device, perhaps a partial dud, produced at Yongbyon,” as reported by the Economist.


Thus considering previous North Korean well orchestrated political drama, there are enough reasons to doubt that North Korea will advance efficiently towards nuclear disarmament and declare before the world, otherwise its clandestine nuclear activities.

Today, North Korea has a chance to wash itself with the holy waters and it should not let this opportunity to swab itself. If it does so, then it could transform itself from a hermit nation and raise the standard of living of its people. Financial aid, International trade, security helps and many other options are also available if North Korea shows real progress towards dismantling its nuclear activities.

But the North Korean is a rigid nation, and non understanding the North Korea is a fairly common complaint heard especially in the West. Yet, for all the pushing and shoving, North Korean government still seems to be functioning. No doubt, North Korea is hungry for energy and other resources. Although the situation is not yet a crisis, it could become one.

Privately, Pyongyang won’t dismantle all its nuclear activities so soon because if anything, North Korea is more eager than ever as a member of the nuclear military club and demand a high price to abandon its reactors, including perhaps the completion of a light-water civilian nuclear reactor promised to it in 1994, according to the media reports.

However, in the meantime, the North’s aim is probably to get the Bush administration to supply more aid and diplomatic recognition. South Korea on the other hand, wants to convince the North that only by making peace with the South will it get economic help. So the South it seems is keen to block northern overtures to America .

As expected, North Korea has called for security talks with America . Perhaps, this could be the perfect platform for the North Korea to shake hand with the West and propose procedures to formally end the Korean War in return for high economic aid and security guarantee.

“George Bush’s administration, humiliated by Iraq may give a green signal and opt for the diplomacy to get the end result,” according to some observers.

However critics seems unlikely that many concrete policies will emerge from all this chatter and communing. North Korea has been careful not to let America turn many of its words into actions. Virtually everybody dealing with North Korea agrees that the country’s tricks are many but such squabbles now seem less pressing than the need to work out how the closure of Yongbyon reactor could be the beginning of an end of the North Korea ’s vast arrays of nuclear reactors.

If the North does not get what it wants now, it is sure to up the ante. And with their survival at stake, North Korea ’s rulers may be prone to reckless miscalculations. Is the world listening?