U.S. Non-proliferation Expert Offers Advice

“There is a long road ahead of us. I hope the Korean government will not take the denuclearization of North Korea for granted. It should realize that denuclearization and aid to North Korea are two separate issues.”

Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary for nonproliferation at the State Department (1992-2001) and now the senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), advised the Korean government to maintain patience and sound judgment to implement the promises made at the six-party talks in Beijing on February 13.

- What do you think the Beijing agreement will lead the South and North Korea to do?

“The Beijing agreement is a good first step. It will not be easy to implement the agreement, however. It would be the best-case scenario if Pyongyang commits to even the very least of what is in the agreement. According to the agreement, the North must declare in whole and accurately the details of its nuclear program. I doubt that the North will satisfy the U.S. with appropriate information. For example, the chances of the North declaring all it has done with highly enriched uranium (HEU) are very low. Let us suppose that the North declared that it tried to acquire HEU facilities, but gave up shortly after, and it destroyed what equipment they acquired. The U.S. will probably say that the report is dubious. The U.S. would have to come up with the data to back up what it says. The U.S. might need to look at records that show the program was terminated. The North may also interpret ‘disablement of nuclear facilities’ differently from the U.S.”

- Might the Bush administration change its stance?

“We do not know how much patience and negotiating will the administration has. The Bush administration is very divided on North Korea. The Republican Party has already criticized the agreement even though the benefits of the agreement exceed the costs and the first 50,000 tons of energy aid has nothing to do with U.S. taxpayers’ money. I think the divide will grow even wider.”

“There is a long and difficult process ahead of us. It will be slow, painful, distressing and could make people miserable in the process. This is still the best we can hope for,” Senior Advisor Einhorn emphasized.

“Looking back on my experience, negotiating with the North means having to keep pressuring it. Nothing is easy. We must patiently and persistently make the North realize that it will have to pay the costs if it fails to cooperate.”

-The first cabinet-level talks between the South and North in seven months were held in Pyongyang today…

“I understand and support cooperation between the South and the North. But cooperation with North Korea must be in line with denuclearization. There is a chance that the President Roh Moo-hyun administration might overact and underestimate the importance of denuclearization, while it concentrates on cooperation. What President Roh and the minister of unification said after the Beijing agreement was signed, could lead some to think that the Korean government will deal with cooperation and denuclearization as two unrelated issues. It would be hard to convert North Korea, if it gives off the impression that it will unswervingly support the North. Cooperation between the South and North should directly be tied to the actual and verifiable progress in denuclearization.”

-What is your reaction to President Roh Moo-hyun’s remark that the South cannot give too much to North Korea?

“There is no sense in pretending that aid to North Korea will benefit South Korea if there is no progress in denuclearization.”

-What is your opinion on the agreement on transition of wartime operational control signed last week by the Korean minister of defense and U.S. secretary of defense?

“It was a wise decision to move back the transition from 2009 to 2012. We need deadlines to make sure an agenda is on track. But it is imperative for the Korean military to be well prepared to fill the gaps created by the transition. I would have opted for waiting and seeing how Inter-Korean relations go if that was an option. I understand that some are saying that not only should the denuclearization issue be looked at, but that the Korean government should have had a chance to assess its ability to back up the transition. I hope the Korean government recognizes denuclearization and the military’s ability to meet the heightened demand as important issues as it works to implement the transition by 2012.”

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