Commentary

The US invasion of Iraq inevitably casts a pall over US-DPRK relations. People continually ask, ‘is North Korea next?’. Tony Blair, for one, has suggested that it is on the agenda; ‘After we deal with Iraq we do, yes, through the UN, have to confront North Korea about its weapons program.’ Iraq, like Afghanistan, is likely to be a festering sore that will not go away, but that will not impede US action There are, however, many other countries in the line of fire; Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, France to start with, and nobody knows where it will end. Even New Zealand, already unpopular because of its failure to endorse the invasion, and doubly so after Helen Clark’s ‘law of the jungle interview, will be ‘dealt with’ in some way. A military invasion on the lines or Iraq is not the only way of dealing with recalcitrant countries. There is a wide range of weapons in the US armoury, from bribes and spoils of war to sanctions and other forms of pressure. Where does this leave Korea?

For Pyongyang the lesson of Iraq is obvious: appeasement will not work. Many commentators have pointed out that Iraq was invaded because it did not have weapons of mass destruction and North Korea has, so far, escaped attack because it might have them. That is true, but is only part of the story. It is, however, increasingly becoming the core issue. The Bush administration has been criticised in the US for having an ‘incoherent policy’ towards the DPRK, much as the Clinton administrational did before the Perry Report. However, while Clinton did not fully implement the Agreed Framework, neither did he walk away from it. He also had the excuse that for a lot of the period the Republicans controlled Congress and impeded this, and other aspects of his foreign policy. Bush has no such excuse.

The problem is that George W Bush, according to Bob Woodward, hates Kim Jong Il (“I loathe Kim Jong Il!” Bush shouted, waving his finger in the air. “I’ve got a visceral reaction to this guy, because he is starving his people…). He wants to bring about ‘regime change’ but the obstacles to that, particularly from South Korea, are formidable. He refuses to enter into serious discussions unless the DPRK disarms first. Pyongyang knows full well that that would be fatal. The invasion of Iraq confirmed that. All this leaves Pyongyang with no option but to push forward with the development of a nuclear weapons capability, further exacerbating relations with Washington and disquieting other countries, including NZ. Despite US allegations that the DPRK has either ‘admitted’ or ‘boasted’ (note the loaded words) of having nuclear weapons it is really not clear what the present capability is. What is clear, though, is that the logic of developing them is inescapable.

Inescapable, that is, unless the US somehow accedes to the DPRK demand for security guarantees. It wants a ‘DPRK-U.S. non-aggression treaty (which) should be an international treaty with strong assurances as it should be ratified by the DPRK's Supreme People's Assembly and both houses of U.S. Congress…’ (see ‘US Indicted…’). Pyongyang is well aware of the problems that Clinton had with Congress. It is also aware of the public, often vituperative and vociferous, wranglings in Washington between State Department and Defense. A senior DPRK diplomat told me recently that part of their problem was that they don’t know who speaks for the US government. So they want something as concrete and binding as possible.

Bush could probably get something through Congress. Top Democrat Senator Joe Biden thinks so. But will he contemplate a non-aggression treaty? The answer seems to be a resounding no.

John Foster Dulles once famously said, apropos of China, that recognition of a foreign government by the US was a privilege not a right. The Bush Doctrine takes this further. Independence and security is a US gift, not a right. The Westphalian system on which the United Nations is based, is no longer operable. A non-aggression treaty, especially with a member of the ‘axis of evil’, would violate this cardinal principle.

The Beijing talks in April did not break this stalemate and the omens for a breakthrough are grim.

Tim Beal

Reactions to invasion of Iraq

Iraq: A War Already Lost?

Zulfiqar Ahmad and Peter Hayes

The United States has embarked on its first full-fledged battle in a war guided by the Bush doctrine…//..

The Bush Administration has not only squandered the enormous sympathy generated by the September 11 atrocity. It has exhausted in a few years much of the moral capital earned by American leadership in the twentieth century. For the last half century, the world lived under American hegemony that was based at least in part on consent grounded in legitimacy and rule of law, not just fear flowing from the exercise of military power.

Now, the US has subverted even the most fundamental principle of state sovereignty which emerged over 350 years ago as a result of the Treaty of Westphalia. The concept of state sovereignty was further reinforced in the United Nations charter of 1945 which is "based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members."

If respect has been eroded, trust seems non-existent - there are few nations now that trust America to keep its word..//..;

Followed to its logical and historical conclusion, the Bush doctrine of anticipatory and preventive war means that either the entire world is effectively subordinated to the American imperium, or the entire world must push back against the United States until it abandons its imperial logic. Along the way, any country - insurgency - that fears falling on the wrong side of the United States must now consider seriously acquiring nuclear weapons to deter against American attack. ..//.., the war on Iraq may lend the time to the DPRK to accelerate the development of deliverable nuclear weapons before United States can present an ultimatum to Kim Jong Il to leave his country. ..//..The US administration's Korea policy of resolving the nuclear issue by peaceful dialogue with the North is in shambles. ..//..

Source: Nautilus Website 19 March 2003

DPRK Condemns U.S. War Against Iraq

Pyongyang Says U.S. Preparing Pre-Emptive Attack on DPRK

When the United States started its military attack on Iraq at dawn on March 20 without any UN resolutions, defying the unanimous protest of the international community, the DPRK severely denounced the U.S. military attack against Iraq, saying that it is "a grave encroachment upon the sovereignty of Iraq."

A spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said on March 21 that the government of the DPRK is opposed to a war, adding that war against the independence of a sovereign state and human rights can never be justified.

"This high-handed action of the U.S. against Iraq and the war preparations by the U.S. and its allies in the Korean Peninsula compel the DPRK to do all it can to defend itself and make it clear know what it should do more for it," the spokesman said. ..//..

"There is no doubt that the U.S. will make the Korean Peninsula the third stage of its 'anti-terrorism war,'" ..//...

The DPRK has accused the U.S. of preparing for a pre-emptive attack on its nuclear facilities.

..//.."No one has granted the U.S. the right to change the regimes of other countries," the spokesman said and added that there is no sovereign state in the world which will allow such "state terrorism" of the U.S.

Source: People's Korea 29 March 2003

US-DPRK Relations

U.S. Indicted for Causing Nuclear Crisis on Korean Peninsula

The Lawyers' Committee of the DPRK on February 28 indicted the U.S. for its criminal act of spawning the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. ..//..

The Bush administration's non-compliance with the commitments made between the DPRK and the U.S. for the solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is a breach of the principle of international law which calls on the signatories to a treaty to honor their commitments.

The Bush administration has not fulfilled anything it committed itself to honor in return for the DPRK's measures of declaring its moratorium on its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and keeping its graphite-moderated reactor and its related nuclear facilities frozen in line with the June 11, 1993 DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement and the October 21, 1994 DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework.

Firstly, the U.S. backpedaled its commitment to provide LWR power plants with a total generating capacity of 2,000 MW by 2003 to replace the DPRK's graphite-moderated reactor and its related facilities and fled from its responsibility to make up for the loss of electricity caused by the delayed provision of the power plants.

Secondly, the U.S. is committed to annually supply 500,000 tons of heavy oil to the DPRK to make up for the loss of electricity caused by the frozen graphite-moderated reactor and its related facilities but the U.S. made an irregular delivery of it very often, thus throwing the economic development in the DPRK in confusion. The U.S. even went the lengths of completely stopping its supply from December 2002. ..//..

Fourthly, it has kept applying its political and economic sanctions against the DPRK while refusing to comply with its commitments to ease trade and investment barriers including the lift of restrictions on telecommunications service and financial transactions three months after the adoption of the AF with a view to fully normalizing the political and economic relations between the two countries.

Fifthly, the U.S. drove the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war by openly posing a threat of military attack to the DPRK after singling it out as a "target of nuclear attack" in violation of its commitment to give the DPRK formal assurances against its use or threat of nukes so as to turn the Korean Peninsula into a nuclear free zone and ensure peace and security there.

Sixthly, the U.S. put the already started DPRK-U.S. talks in a total stalemate and threatened to bring the DPRK down, groundlessly terming it "part of an axis of evil" and a "rogue state," in violation of its commitments to respect the sovereignty of the other side, not to interfere in its internal affairs but have a dialogue with it on a fair and equal footing. ..//..

Groundlessly accusing the DPRK of pushing forward the nuclear program after the Pyongyang visit of the special envoy of the U.S. President early in October 2002, the U.S. administration stood in the way of the DPRK-Japan talks and the inter-Korean cooperation, arguing that there will be no DPRK-U.S. talks and the DPRK-Japan and the North-South relations will be adversely affected unless Pyongyang scraps the program.

The U.S. threat of preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK virtually annulled the joint declaration on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula issued by the North and the South of Korea in January 1992, making it meaningless for the DPRK to remain under the NPT.

The DPRK's withdrawal from the NPT was a self-defensive measure taken under the situation where the preconditions for its accession to the NPT- the U.S. should neither deploy nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula nor pose a nuclear threat to the DPRK- were not met. ..//..

The U.S. should unconditionally accept the DPRK proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty for the settlement of the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Peace and stability have not settled on the Korean Peninsula but the situation there is getting tenser with each passing day. The U.S. is entirely to blame for this.

The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula should be settled by way of holding the DPRK-U.S. dialogue on an equal footing and by concluding a non-aggression treaty between them in view of the circumstances of its emergence, the true nature of the crisis and the responsibility for it.

The DPRK-U.S. non-aggression treaty should be an international treaty with strong assurances as it should be ratified by the DPRK's Supreme People's Assembly and both houses of U.S. Congress, the highest law-making institutions in both countries.

The DPRK's proposal for concluding the treaty is aimed to provide a legal binding force to control and prevent the U.S. from using nukes and posing a threat of military attack to it.

It is not a leverage to get a sort of reward nor is it a temporary expedient so-called "brinkmanship tactics." ..//..

Source: People's Korea 15 March 2003

North Korea's Stance

Washington Post editorial, Tuesday, April 29, 2003; Page A22

NORTH KOREA'S latest message to the United States was not quite as provocative, or as perplexing, as it may have seemed. U.S. officials first told reporters that during a break in a meeting in Beijing last week, Pyongyang's representative abruptly informed the head of the American delegation that his country possessed nuclear weapons and might sell them or provide a "physical demonstration," depending on the U.S. response. Though the United States has suspected for a decade that the North might have one or two nuclear weapons, the announcement was portrayed as belligerent and embarrassing to China, which hosted and joined the talks. Chinese officials acknowledged they were shocked; but a senior official told foreign ambassadors yesterday that North Korea coupled its latest revelation with a broad offer to abandon its weapons programs and exports in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and economic concessions. In that sense the North was merely repeating the message it delivered during its last meeting with a U.S. envoy eight months ago, when it boasted of an emerging nuclear capability but offered to trade it away. In both cases the Bush administration chose to emphasize the alarming threat while playing down the offer of a deal. Yet any judgment about how to proceed needs to take both signals into account.

As described by the Chinese official, the proposal from dictator Kim Jong Il sounds a lot like what he has been suggesting since his negotiations with the Clinton administration: that is, a willingness to give up weapons programs in exchange for Washington's agreement to accept and subsidize his criminal regime. President Bush has rightly refused to consider this blackmail; substantial economic and political concessions to North Korea should be made not for weapons, but only for a broader choice by Mr. Kim to open and reform his country. The administration used the talks to repeat its position that North Korea must dismantle its arms programs before concessions in other areas can be discussed; and it may be that China, which holds enormous economic leverage with Pyongyang, will now be more willing to pressure Mr. Kim to comply. Still, by choosing -- correctly, in our view -- to test the possibility of dialogue with North Korea, Mr. Bush has embraced a course that ultimately would require some kind of negotiated settlement.

There is, in fact, a crude logic to North Korea's public statements. It says it regards itself as a likely next target of American military might -- not an unreasonable perception given its place on Mr. Bush's "axis of evil" -- and sees its only defense as a nuclear arsenal, or, failing that, a "change of attitude" and accompanying guarantee of nonaggression from the United States. If that's the case, disarmament without any U.S. assurances would look unacceptably dangerous to Mr. Kim. If negotiations are to succeed, the Bush administration will have to give up the goal of regime change and be willing to offer Pyongyang some sort of guarantees -- while perhaps holding up concrete economic concessions until after weapons programs are stopped and linking those to internal reforms. The Bush administration is clearly loath to abandon regime change as a goal; but the strategies that would produce it -- war, or an embargo meant to induce a North Korean collapse -- are not acceptable to key allies and must be a last resort. The White House says it has not decided whether the talks will continue; before they do, Mr. Bush must accept the necessity of offering a solution to Mr. Kim.

Source: Washington Post, 29 April 2003

Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry on DPRK-U.S. Talks

PYONGYANG, April 18 (KCNA) - A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on April 18 gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA as regards the DPRK-U.S. talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula slated to take place in Beijing: The DPRK-U.S. talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula is slated to open in Beijing shortly.

At the talks the Chinese side will play a relevant role as the host state and the essential issues related to the settlement of the nuclear issue will be discussed between the DPRK and the U.S.

There is a wide range of international opinion on the Beijing talks as they are to open at a time when the Iraqi war was fought.

The Iraqi war teaches a lesson that in order to prevent a war and defend the security of a country and the sovereignty of a nation it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force only.

As we have already declared, we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase as we sent interim information to the U.S. and other countries concerned early in march after resuming our nuclear activities from December last year.

We have already clarified our stand that if the U.S. has a willingness to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy, we will not stick to any particular dialogue format, and we would like to confirm the U.S. intention in the forthcoming talks.

Source: People's Korea, 20 April 2003

Korea: A US nightmare scenario

Iggy Kim

US imperialism has created a real mess for itself in Korea. Washington's strategy of incessantly stirring up confrontation would be less risky if it wasn't also accompanied by a doctrine of permanent, global, preemptive war. For the logic of pre-emption leaves very little room for a backdown by the aggressor while, at the same time, heightening the fears of those under threat. This is shown by the Beijing talks between the US and North Korea, which collapsed in a heap one day early on April 25. Pyongyang not only stuck to what it has been insisting all along - that the US end its threats and allow the north to go about its business in peace - but it also hardened its resolve, in the wake of the mass destruction of Iraq. The US, flexed in a preemptive posture, is now talking up more threats..//..

What threatens US dominance in northeast Asia is not just the possibility of a nuclear-armed North Korea, but any independent political initiative by the Koreans, that is, the very normalisation of inter-Korean relations and eventual reunification. Such initiatives are the beginning of the end of legitimacy for the US military presence on the peninsula. In short, the roots of the US offensive are essentially political, not military. That's why, for the Korean people, the fundamental solution to this US-invented crisis cannot be a military one but a strategy of deepening and popularising inter-Korean relations, to consolidate and escalate mass anti-imperialist opposition to US warmongering throughout the peninsula. This is also likely to assist a reunification that serves the needs and interests of Korean working people, rather than South Korean big business.

Source: Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) Website, Australia