Korean Peninsula Today, 16 June 2009

Biden reaffirms pledge to push ahead with sanctions (Yonhap News Agency)

WASHINGTON -- The United States is determined to keep pressure on North Korea with tougher sanctions to prevent the North from proliferating nuclear weapons and missiles, Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday.

Appearing on NBC's Meet The Press, Biden said, "It is important that we make sure those sanctions stick and those sanctions prohibit them from exporting or importing weapons. This is a matter of us now keeping the pressure on."

He was discussing the resolution adopted by the U.N. Security Council Friday for Pyongyang's nuclear test on May 25, the first of its kind since October 2006, to impose financial sanctions and an overall arms embargo that includes search and seizure of North Korean ships suspected of carrying illicit weapons banned under the resolution.

Some doubt the viability of such seizures as China and Russia have insisted that force should not be used in the process in international waters, where ships cannot be interdicted under international law unless consent is given by the vessel's flag state.

North Korea has responded strongly to the resolution, saying it will start enriching uranium for production of more nuclear weapons. It was the first acknowledgement by the reclusive communist state that has run a uranium program aside from its plutonium-based nuclear reactor, which had been in the process of being disabled under a six-party deal for the North's denuclearization.

North Korea had vehemently denied the existence of the uranium-based nuclear program since late 2002, when the Bush administration scrapped a 1994 nuclear deal with Pyongyang citing the uranium program.

David Straub, associate director of Korean Studies at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University, said the North's "announcement itself will not have a major impact."

"The United States already believed that North Korea was at least experimenting with uranium enrichment," he said. "A significant concern is that North Korea and countries such as Iran are sharing nuclear weapons technology."

Richard Bush, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, agreed.

"The dangers are somewhat greater, but this only confirms what many suspected," Bush said. "It's impossible to know how significant the capability is, so we can't guess."

Pyongyang has also said it will consider any interdiction of it ships an act of war and threatened a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.

Biden rebuffed North Korea's threats and reaffirmed Washington's intent to push ahead with the sanctions.

"North Korea is a very destabilizing element in East Asia," he said, but added, "There is a coalescing of that conclusion on the part of the Chinese, the Russians, Japanese, South Koreans, Americans like never before."

The five countries he mentioned are all members of the six-party talks, along with North Korea, aimed at the North's nuclear dismantlement, Pyongyang has said will boycott the talks unless the U.N. apologizes for its condemnations of a recent North Korean rocket launch.

Straub, former head of the Korea Desk at the U.S. State Department, said "The prospects for North Korea returning to those talks any time soon are not good." He added, however, "The other five will continue to support the Six-Party Talks for a long time to come."

Bush was more pessimistic about North Korea returning to the nuclear talks. There is "zero possibility for the foreseeable future," he said.

Biden's remarks follow similar ones by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said Saturday that Washington will "do all we can to prevent continued proliferation."

Clinton also hailed the U.N. resolution as "a tremendous statement on behalf of the world community that North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community."

North Korea's recent provocations are widely seen as an attempt by its leader Kim Jong Il to make way for his third and youngest son, Jong-un, to consolidate power following reports that the senior Kim is in failing health due to a stroke he suffered last summer.

Biden would not speculate on Kim Jong Il's intentions.

"Whether this is about succession, wanting his son to succeed him. Whether or not he's looking for respect. Whether or not he really wants a nuclear capability to threaten the region. We can't guess his motives," he said. "We just have to deal with the reality that a North Korea that is either proliferating weapons and or missiles, or a North Korea that is using those weapons."

Bush, the Brookings expert, advised the Obama administration to have "measured firmness, patience, and preparation for any violent episodes" from North Korea.

"They believe that nuclear weapons are the safest way to preserve their security," he said. "Their hope of getting international approval as a weapons state has been dashed."

Straub said the impoverished, communist North Korea opted to go nuclear for the survival of their regime amid a tense rivalry with thriving South Korea.

"North Korean leaders realize that their domestic political situation and long-term strategic situation -- the two are closely related -- are desperate," Straub said.

"They feel themselves in a long-term existential struggle with the Republic of Korea, which is almost impossibly far ahead of North Korea in all areas, economically, (technologically), politically, diplomatically, and in conventional military terms," he said. "Thus, the North Korean leaders have reached for nuclear weapons as a way they hope will counter outside pressures and bolster domestic support."

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S. Korea eyes five-way talks without N. Korea, but China's stance unclear (Yonhap News Agency)

SEOUL -- South Korea wants to hold five-way talks with the U.S., China, Russia, and Japan on ways to pressure North Korea into abandoning its nuclear weapons, according to South's President Lee Myung-bak, but China, again, may have the final say.

Lee said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last week that he will make the proposal in his summit with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington later this week, as related parties seek a long-term strategy to deal with the North as well as ways to enforce a new U.N. Security Council resolution to punish it for a second nuclear test last month.

The question is whether China, host of the six-way talks on the North's nuclear program, will accept the offer if made, officials here said Monday.

"As there is no realistic possibility that North Korea will return to the six-way talks for the time being, holding such a five-way meeting without North Korea can be an option in discussing the next step," a senior foreign ministry official said, asking not to be named.

He said the North's five dialogue partners "appear to be in the mood" for considering such an unprecedented format.

"But there has been no concrete proposal yet, so it is hard to predict how China will respond to the idea," the official said.

When North Korea stayed away from the bargaining table in 2006, South Korea and the U.S. pushed for five-nation talks on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) held in Kuala Lumpur. But China opposed the plan, saying it may antagonize the North and have a negative impact on the six-party talks.

China's stance might have changed since North Korea's latest nuclear test, South Korean officials said, citing Beijing's approval of the tough U.N. resolution against Pyongyang.

"China's current position on North Korea is apparently not the same as before its nuclear test," another ministry official said.

The South Korean president was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal that the North Koreans "have gained, or bought, a lot of time through the six-party talks framework to pursue their own agenda."

"I think it's important now, at this critical point in time, for us not to repeat any past mistakes," Lee said.

He added it is important for the remaining five countries -- which exclude North Korea -- to come to an agreement on the way forward.

The Wall Street Journal, in its published edition on Saturday, did not carry Lee's comments on the five-way talks proposal.

But Lee's office Cheong Wa Dae issued a separate press release later to the press corps that highlighted the idea.

President Lee said he "will make an offer to President Obama that the five nations hold a meeting for discussions on what North Korea wants in return for giving up its nuclear weapons program and why it should denuclearize itself," according to the press release.

Foreign ministry officials said Lee was not suggesting an alternative to the six-way talks, which are still viewed as one of the most efficient tools to deal with the North.

"In the current stage, no related country other than North Korea is talking about the demise of the six-way talks. If they hold a five-way meeting, it would be aimed at reviving the six-way talks," the ministry official said.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said he may have a separate meeting with his American, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian counterparts to discuss the North Korean issue on the sidelines of this year's ARF to be held next month in Thailand.

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Russian military notes less activity at North Korean nuclear sites (RIA-Novosti - originally in Russian)

Excerpt from report by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti

Moscow -- North Korea has decreased its activity in preparation for the next nuclear test on its nuclear sites, a source in the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces told RIA Novosti today.

"The information received at this stage including that of space reconnaissance, says that the intensity of movements in the nuclear sites has been decreased over last days. It may indicate that either North Koreans have already made preparations for the next underground nuclear test or they have taken a break," the source said.

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South Korea to go ahead with talks on joint venture with North (Yonhap News Agency)

SEOUL -- South Korea will hold talks with the North as scheduled this week regarding a joint industrial park, a spokesman with Seoul's Unification Ministry said Monday, as diplomatic tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear program escalate.

The inter-Korean talks set for Friday are a follow-up to last week's round, in which North Korea demanded steep hikes in wages and rent from South Korean firms operating at the industrial park in the North's border town of Kaesong.

"Many people are concerned about the recent developments," Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a press briefing. "But an agreement has been reached to hold the additional talks."

Protesting a recent U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its May 25 nuclear test, the North said over the weekend that it will "weaponize" all plutonium it has and start enriching uranium to provide fuel for a light-water reactor it plans to build. The latter has sparked concerns the plan may be a disguise for another nuclear weapons program.

Ahead of the inter-Korean talks, South Korea is set to hold a summit meeting with the United States on Tuesday. President Lee Myung-bak left for Washington on Monday for the summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, with North Korea's nuclear drive expected to top their agenda.

In Seoul, meanwhile, officials prepared for the talks with Pyongyang though expectations for any agreement remain low.

In the previous talks held Thursday, North Korea demanded a four-fold wage increase to US$300 per-month and a 31-fold raise in rent to $500 million from South Korea. The Corporate Association of Kaesong Industrial Complex, which represents the 106 South Korean firms operating at the park, rejected the North Korean demands. The existing contracts set a 5-percent cap on wage increases and gave South Korea a 50-year right to develop the industrial zone at a cost of $16 million when the park opened in 2004.

"The businesses cannot accept any kind of unilateral proposal that overrides laws and contracts that were provided by South and North Korean governments at the time they moved in," the association said in a statement.

Toward the Seoul government, the firms demanded the construction of dorms and nurseries for their North Korean employees, mostly women in their 20s and 30s, as was promised to the North.

North Korea has declared all contracts on the joint park "null and void," saying it has no reason for retaining "preferential measures" while historic summit accords that gave birth to the park are "totally negated" by the Seoul government.

Pyongyang claims that the joint park, an outcome of the 2000 inter-Korean summit, endows special favors for South Korean firms, including low wages, rent and taxes. For the North, the venture is a rare source of income for the North's cash-strapped economy, with $26 million paid in wages by South Korean firms last year.

Monday is the 9th anniversary of the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Low key celebrations were held, with conservatives sharpening their criticism against the engagement policy pursued by the country's past liberal governments.

Along the border region, a group of North Korean defectors flew balloons carrying about 100,000 leaflets into the North, criticizing the North Korean leader.