Historic insight
First steps
In February 1990, of the Japanese researchers of the National universities of the area of Tōkai announced to have identified the site of construction of a nuclear plant with Yongbyon, with 90 kilometers in the North-East of Pyongyang, on a photograph taken in September 1989 since a satellite of observation French of the National center of space studies.In 1991, the US government of Mr. George Herbert Walker Bush worried about the activities of this nuclear complex North-Korean who shelters a engine with graphite which contravened the provisions of the Traité nuclear non-proliferation. The United States then stationed of the tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea. Mr. Bush senior started the first talks with Pyongyang, and the American nuclear armament was withdrawn from South Korea in 1992.
At the beginning of 1993, the North Korea declared that the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency were with the orders of the American intelligence services and announced its withdrawal of the NPT and qualified possible sanctions of the Safety advice of the United Nations of “acts of war”. The crisis thus started by Kim It-sung was going to last eighteen months and to worsen when, in May 1994, the North Korea discharged from the engine of Yongbyon: 8000 bars of irradiated fuel containing enough Plutonium to manufacture five or six atomic bombs.
At the end of June 1994, the President of the United States Clinton was with two fingers to declare the war in the North Korea and dépécha the former president Jimmy Carter in Pyongyang, where it discussed directly with Mr. Kim It-sung and obtained the engagement of a total gel of the complex of Yongbyon.
The outline agreement of 1994
In 1994, an outline agreement was signed with Geneva between the the United States and the North Korea aiming to the abandonment of any military nuclear program by the Koreans, n the other hand of the engagement of the United States required central to light water. As in 2006 in the case of the Iran, the Americans did not wish that a country not-holder of the nuclear weapon obtain a dual nuclear engineering (being able to be used with the fine civil ones or fine soldiers). For the North-Koreans, the recourse to nuclear energy was officially to make it possible to mitigate the energy crisis, in particular after the end of the supplies Soviet oil under preferential conditions, while the access of all the States to the civilian nuclear constitutes one of the bases of the Traité nuclear non-proliferation (NPT).The agreement of Geneva envisaged the installation of an international consortium, KEDO. The agreement however was not honoured: north Korean not having respected their engagements, the Americans did not deliver power stations to light water.
Change of majority in Washington and hardening of the American positions
The come to power of George W. Bush to Washington, in 2000, condemned any possibility of the concretization of the outline agreement of 1994: according to the American specialist in the North Korea John Feffer, " the strong suspicions which the néo-conservatives always nourished with respect to the relaxation, or “engagement” in the jargon of today, explain many things on the current American policy towards the North Korea. Mistrust with respect to the treaties on the control of the armaments signed with the Soviet Union in the years 1970 finds its parallel in the rejection of the Outline agreement of 1994, which has cold the capacities of the North Korea in exchange of economic incentives and policies that the American partisans of the line lasts were finally reticent to provide. Belief in a reinforcement of the Soviet Union due to the extension of the commercial relations, as the fear which the trade pareillement profited in China, results today in a reserve similar to begin economically with the North Korea ".
According to the under-secretary of State James Kelly and its assistant J. Pritchard, Kang Suk-ju, vice-minister North-Korean of the foreign affairs, would have acknowledged to them the existence of such a program, at the time of its visit of October 2002 to Pyongyang. Although this consent was denied by the North Korea, and that other members of the American delegation insisted on a surinterpretation of Mr. Kelly, the United States decided to officially suspend their commitments entered into at the time of the outline agreement of 1994.
American charges on a clandestine programme of uranium enrichment and withdrawal of the North Korea of the NPT
Shown by the United States to continue a clandestine program of uranium enrichment, the North Korea decided to expel the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in December 2002 and to withdraw itself from the nuclear treaty of non-proliferation in January 2003. Indeed, the North Korea denied the control of such a programme of uranium enrichment, while admitting carrying out a programme of enrichment containing plutonium in the town of Yongbyon.However, hearing by the American Congress of the person in charge of the American information in North Korea, Mr. Joseph deTrani, in February 2007, questioned the existence of such a clandestine program of uranium enrichment. David Albright, president of the Institute for science and international safety (ISSI) and former inspector of UNO, made a comparison with information of the American intelligence services on Iraq, the day before the conflict: the American secret services affirmed that Iraq held weapons of massive destruction, before this information is not called into question. As for Iraq, the assertions of the American secret services were based largely on the purchase of thousands of tubes of aluminum, supposed to be used with construction as centrifugal machines.
Justifications of Pyongyang of sound " right to détenir" the nuclear weapon
The North Korea however justified the possibility of holding the Nuclear weapon as a weapon of dissuasion with respect to the United States; n the other hand of the abandonment of any military nuclear program, she asks the withdrawal of the American troops of South Korea and the security guarantees against a possible aggression American.The North Korea also requires the shrinking of the nuclear weapons that the United States in South Korea would hold. If the Americans deny to hold nuclear weapons in Korea, they never agreed to open their bases suspected of sheltering nuclear weapons with the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Cycles of multilateral negotiation to leave the diplomatic dead end
See also: American Financial sanctions against the North Korea
The open crisis in 2002 on the nuclear power North-Korean involved several cycles of negotiations to six parts (North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Popular republic of China, Japan, Russia).
At the conclusion of the last negotiation cycle with six at the time of the conference of Beijing, at the end of the summer 2005, the North Korea agreed to give up the atomic weapon on September 19th, 2005 provided, on the one hand, that the international community authorizes its program of civilian nuclear in order to reduce its energy dependence, and on the other hand which it lays out of security guarantees to prevent an American attack in its opposition.
The implementation of the agreement, formulated in general terms, butted against difficulties of interpretation and, more basically, against divergent objectives of the various parts to the conference of Beijing: if South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia does not wish that the North Korea be a nuclear power, only the United States pursues the goal of a regime change with Pyongyang (whereas Japan and South Korea fear the regional destabilization which would result from such a political change in North Korea). From this point of view, the Korean nuclear question appears, for the Americans, like an argument among others (human rights, traffics whose Washington shows Pyongyang in spite of denials of the North Korea which draws argument from the lack of tangible proofs) to make fall the mode of Pyongyang. The American Financial sanctions against the North Korea, since the end of the year 2005, fall under the same logic of power struggle.
In displacement in Tokyo on May 18th, 2006, Kofi Annan, general secretary of the United Nations, called with " to continue the negotiations to convince Teheran and Pyongyang to give up their programs nucléaires" (source: dispatch AFP, May 19th, 2006), implicitly condemning according to some the American threats and, in the Korean case, the American Financial sanctions against the North Korea.
This standpoint intervened following a proposal of the North Korea to reopen the negotiations, by resorting to a Norwegian mediation . The ambassador North-Korean in Northern Europe Jon In-chan, during a maintenance granted to spring 2006 with the Norwegian daily newspaper Verdens Gang, thus suggested that Norway acts like intermediary between the North Korea and the United States in future negotiations. While the Norwegian persons in charge accommodated this proposal favorably, the United States has to prefer to reserve their comments (source: the point of view of Richard Saccone, expert of the Korea, in the number of the " Pittsburgh-Post Gazette" dated April 30th, 2006).
Korean nuclear question and failure of the conference of revision of the NPT
The not-resolution of the nuclear question in Korea intervened in a context of failure of the conference of revision of the Traité nuclear non-proliferation (NPT), in May 2005, which fell initially on the United States according to the old US president Jimmy Carter: “The United States is the principal culprits of the weakening of the NPT. Whereas they were presented like protecting the world from the threats of proliferation in Iraq, Libya, Iran and North Korea (…) they also renonçaient with the promises of last and now threaten to use in first of the atomic weapons against nonnuclear States” (source: Jimmy Carter, “Saving nonproliferation”, The Washington Post, March 28th, 2005, quoted by Gavan McCormack, professor in Research School off Pacific and Asian Studies close the National university of Australia, coordinator of " Japan Focus" , in the article of " Japan Focus" : " The “problem North-Korean”, Japan and the United States: the policy of the hypocrisie" , available to the following address).
The nuclear test of 2006
See also: Nuclear test North-Korean of 2006
The crisis reached a new stage with the official announcement by the North Korea of a Nuclear test of low power on Monday, October 9, 2006 to 10:36 (local time) on the site of Hwadaeri, close to Kilju, to 100 km of the Chinese border. This test was denounced by all the international community, including by the Popular republic of China, principal support of the North Korea. The Résolution 1718 of the Safety advice of the United Nations imposed sanctions.
According to the South Korean intelligence services, the North Korea would have 40 kilos of Plutonium what would enable him to produce seven atomic bombs.
After the Nuclear test North-Korean of October 9th, 2006, the North Korea does not make however any more lifting of the sanctions a precondition to the resumption of negotiations on the nuclear power, but request a preliminary discussion on this point within the framework of these negotiations with six which took again on December 18th, 2006 (source: " Monde" and).
The agreement of Beijing of February 13rd, 2007
Contents of the agreement
After the nuclear test of October 9th, 2006, a new session of talks to six parts was taken place with Beijing from February 8th to 13rd 2007.
At the conclusion of these discussions, it was agreed, according to the agency North-Korean KCNA, the " temporary suspension of the activities of nuclear installations of the democratic Popular republic of Corée" (RPDC), n the other hand of an economic aid and energetics is equivalent to a million tons of Pétrole gross.
Under the terms of a joint statement signed between the various participants, a first delivery of: 50000 tons of crude oil must intervene within 60 day. Always according to the terms of this joint statement, the North Korea must invite of the personnel specialized of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out the checks and controls necessary of nuclear installations of Yongbyon.
In addition, according to a joint statement américano - North-Korean published on February 13rd, 2007 at the conclusion of this same session of talks, " The RPDC and the United States will begin bilateral negotiations aiming solving the problems in progress and at progressing towards diplomatic relations complètes" . According to the foreign observers, the United States would consider the lifting of the financial sanctions which they took with regard to the RPDC n the other hand closing of the nuclear reactor of Yongbyon.
Moreover, always according to the Chinese agency Xinhua, " the RPDC and Japan also will start bilateral talks intended to adopt the stages necessary in order to standardize their relations" .
If the French ministry of the foreign affairs declared " to be delighted " agreement signed on February 13rd, it on the other hand did not announce officially, contrary to the United States and Japan, opening of negotiations bilateral for the standardization of the diplomatic relations of France with the RPDC, nor made state of a French participation in the assistance measures economic mentioned in the agreement (see also the article detailed on the Relations free - North-Korean).
Continuations of the agreement: the closing of the site of Yongbyon
A new phase of negotiations opened in Beijing on March 19th, 2007.
The negotiator North-Korean Kim Gye-gwan asked for the lifting of the whole of the American restriction measures weighing on the funds North-Koreans held by the Bank value Asia Delta (BDA) like precondition to the closing of nuclear installations of Yongbyon. An agreement was reached in this direction on March 19th, 2007: the funds North-Koreans held by the BDA would be restored in Pyongyang via a Chinese bank, but prohibition for the American financial institutions to treat with the BDA would be maintained.
However, the transfer of the funds of the BDA to the North Korea encountered engineering problems and was operated only after more than three months of discussion, in June 2007. The restitution of this funds raised the main obstacle to the implementation of the agreement of February 13rd, 2007. At the end of June 2007, the return of the inspectors of the IAEA to Pyongyang opened the way, initially, with the closing of the nuclear reactor of Yongbyon. In the second time, the desactivation of the engine would be led jointly to that of the whole of the military nuclear programs North-Korean.
The managing director of the IAEA declared, on July 18th, 2007, that the inspectors of the Agency had noted the closing of the totality of the five installations of the site of Yongbyon. In parallel opened in Beijing a new negotiation cycle with six on the nuclear power North-Korean.
Towards a standardization of the relationships to the IAEA
After the agreement concluded in Beijing on February 13rd, 2007, Mohamed El Baradei, managing director of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was invited to Pyongyang. At the conclusion of its visit, he declared, on March 14th, 2007, that the discussions had been " completely utiles" and that the authorities North-Korean had " reiterated their engagement with the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula ". According to Mohamed El Baradei, its visit opens the way with a standardization of the relations between the IAEA and the North Korea.
The inspectors of the IAEA had left the North Korea in December 2002, and the democratic Popular republic of Korea had announced her withdrawal of the nuclear treaty of non-proliferation in January 2003.
The sixth session of talks to six (September-October 2007)
A new session of talks to six opened on September 26th, 2007 with Beijing to examine the continuations of the implementation of the agreement of February 13rd.After the North Korea had reaffirmed, as of July, its agreement to provide a complete listing of its nuclear programs and to decontaminate the whole of its installations, a calendar must be established.
The 50.000 tons of fuel envisaged in the agreement of February 13rd, after the closing of the power station of Yongbyon, were provided by South Korea. In addition, George W. Bush US president gave her agreement for the supply, by the United States, of an energy help of an amount of 25 million dollars.
The six parts announced, on September 30th, 2007, being managed an agreement which required however the agreement of the various governments before being made public.
Under the terms of this agreement, the North Korea commits itself dismantling the three nuclear reactors of its site of Yongbyon by on December 31st like providing, before the end of the year, the complete listing of its nuclear activities. N the other hand, it must receive a million tons of fuel, as envisaged in the agreement of February 13rd. Lastly, the United States is charged to supervise and finance the activities of dismantling.
The State Department of the United States announced, on November 5th, 2007, that American experts had engaged the process of " démantèlement" of nuclear installations of the North Korea.
Appendix: analysis of the Australian academic Gavan McCormack in 2006
According to the Marxist professor Gavan McCormack, in the above mentioned article:" In 1994, confrontation between the United States and the North Korea degenerated to the edge of the war, only prevented at the last minute by an arrangement known as “the Outline agreement” of Geneva. Thanks to him, the North Korea froze its engines with graphite and agreed an international inspection of its plutonium waste, while the United States promised to build in the place two light water reactors, to provide heavy oil to produce electricity to the service entrance of the engines and to act for a political and economic standardization. During the eight years of operation of the Agreement, the relations between the two countries were stabilized and one attended later theatrical gestures of the administration Clinton indicator boards of a reconciliation. In the final analysis, however, all that the North Korea really obtained was the heavy oil supply, then stopped in the middle of the winter 2002-2003. The engines, supposed to produce energy as from 2003, never further went than from large holes in the ground. Rather than of advanced towards standardization, the administration of George W. Bush arrived at the capacity in 2001 by denouncing the qualified North Korea in January 2002 of member of “the Axis of the evil”.
" The Outline agreement was broken in particular because of American insistence to say that Pyongyang had continued a military nuclear program with double track: one was subjected to the Agreement of 1994, the use of waste of the engines of Yongbyon to extract from the plutonium used in nuclear machines “from Nagasaki type”, and the other, a secret program using of uranium enriched to produce machines “of Hiroshima type”. According to the under-secretary of State James Kelly, persons in charge acknowledged to him the existence of such a program at the time of its visit of October 2002 in Pyongyang. This consent (denied by the North Korea which repeats that Kelly badly included/understood her declaration of the right to such a program as a declaration of her possession) led the United States to suspend their engagements of the Outline agreement. That encouraged in return the North Korea to be withdrawn from the Treaty of non-proliferation during next January and to take again its military program.
" For the United States, the elimination of all the nuclear weapons North-Korean and programs associated (based on plutonium and uranium) are an vital objective, but far from being exclusive. They also ask a demilitarization, especially the dismantling of the program of ballistic missiles of the North Korea, and political changes major (concerning the human rights). Some within the Bush administration also engage in favor of a regime change. The North Korea, on its side, seeks solutions with the problems which torment it since so a long time, insulation, the intimidation and the sanctions, through the transformation of the cease-fire of 1953 into a peace treaty permanent and “standardization” of all the types of relations, sedentary, political, diplomatic, economic, with the United States and Japan.
" It is abnormal and destabilizing that such a confrontation remains in the middle of the prosperous area of the Asian North-East. The adjoining countries seek today more and more actively to solve it.
" Since 2003, the China started to play a crucial role while trying to bring a solution, accessible as from August 2003 what is now known under the name of “talks with six” bringing together the main characters, the United States and North Korea, in company of the adjoining countries, South Korea, China, Russia and Japan.
" During two years, the talks were rather not very productive. The American representative had received like instructions not to speak with his counterpart North-Korean and was satisfied to affirm and reaffirm the American requests, demanding of the North Korea what it called a “DCVI” (complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling) of all the nuclear programs, the setting with the rancart of his missiles and the reduction of his conventional forces, and to answer concerns on terrorism and the human rights, while it refused the demand of the North Korea of a guarantee not to be attacked, like its calls to a complete standardization, considered as useless, without report/ratio, premature and depending at the time of“blackmail”. After the session of August 2003, questioned on what the largest obstacle in the negotiations had constituted, the Chinese president of the meeting, Wang Yi, answered that “the American policy towards the RPDC is the main issue to which we face”.
" In spite of the regular declarations of Washington about the unit of the five countries sitting to the same table as the North Korea, the disunion dominated in the facts. Even on the American assertions concerning the consent North-Korean of a secret programme of uranium enrichment, essence to prove the bad faith North-Korean, the United States was unable to convince their partners of the conference of Beijing. At the end of 2004, in spite of an intense diplomatic effort of the second administration Bush, as well the Chinese Minister for the Foreign affairs Li Zhaoxing as the director of the National service of information of South Korea rejected the American assertions explicitly. At that time, the handling of the information to justify a war in Iraq was well-known, and the information on the North Korea could not escape the same suspicion. The American newspaper Foreign Affairs published an analysis of the observer high-placed at Washington, Selig Harrison, which found the evidence not very conclusive and based on a preference deliberated for the “scenarios on worst”. The evidence of North-Korean purchases of aluminum in Russia (and of the unfruitful tests to import Germany of them), and network A.Q. Khan based in Pakistan, show the attempts to get the material of a programme of enrichment by the North Korea, but this one is credible when she really contradicts to continue one of them currently. In any case, the United States did not succeed in convincing their partners of a crucial aspect of the file.
" The forum of the conference of Beijing which had begin with an American attempt aiming at mobilizing an united front to make pressure on the North Korea started to change, under the South Korean, Chinese and Russian “pressure opposite”, in a true multilateral forum of negotiation. At the end of two years of negotiations, the United States softened their rhetoric and ceased their insults, showing itself laid out to discuss with the Koreans of North and to pass from the speech on the need for a “regime change” to North Korea to that on a “transformation for the mode”. In oneself, it was a minor evolution in the terminology. In September 2005, of fear to become what Jack Pritchard, the old expert main thing of the North Korea at the State Department, described like “minority with only one (…) isolated from the dominant tendency adopted by their four others combined and friendly with the talks with six”, and to have to face an ultimatum posed by the Chinese president of the conference, asking them to sign or else they would endorse the responsibility for a failure, the United States yielded. The participants of the conference “hexapartite” of Beijing managed a historical agreement in its principles and objectives.
" While following the agreement of September 2005, the North Korea would get rid of “all its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs”, would reinstate the Traité non-proliferation (NPT) and would authorize international inspections. In exchange, she would see herself guaranteeing a diplomatic recognition and a standardization, as well as economic advantages of which, “at the adapted moment”, a light water reactor.
" Several points remained vague: the taking into account or not in the “existing programs” to which the North Korea should give up of the military programme of uranium enrichment for which Washington insisted but whose Pyongyang denied the existence, as well as the moment and the conditions to fill so that the North Korea is entitled to a civil program of nuclear energy. The right to a civil nuclear program is described like “inalienable” in article 4 of the Treaty of non-proliferation. The South Korea, the Russia and the China were of opinion that the North Korea can enjoy once its right to a civil program energy it would have reinstated the Treaty, but the chief of the American delegation, Christopher Hill, had excluded it in the case from the North Korea.
" It was also to note that the programs of long-range missiles and “the businesses of human rights” were not approached in the agreement of September, although they remained major concerns for Washington and had been vigorously advanced by Japan and the United States. The reserve to include any reference to the “human rights” on behalf of China in particular, which regards the American campaigns on the “human rights” as dissimulating attempts to arrive to a regime change and to extend the American influence, is known. As for the South Korea, it is very concerned by the questions of human rights in North Korea, but believes that the “policy of the Sun” Sunshine policy” and non-interference are best the means of obtaining improvements of long run.
" However vague and incomplete, the consensus reached in Beijing in September 2005 affirmed principles in conformity with the international laws, recognized the interest of the countries of the area for a denuclearized peninsula, and answered the complaints of the North Korea. However, the agreement held hardly more than one day. In Pyongyang as in Washington, the partisans of the hard line took the initiative to block a possible reconciliation. The North Korea made depend its engagement to stop its military program and to return to the guarantees of the NPT of preliminary obtaining a light water reactor (LWR). The United States retorted while supporting that no light water reactor could even be considered before all the other necessary measures on a return of the North Korea were not taken to the NPT. They reflect then abruptly fine with Agreement KEDO (the project of light water reactor in the middle of the agreement of 1994, hitherto cold but not cancelled). The idea that Pyongyang was done “suitable moment” for a LWR North-Korean was “now”, for Washington, the future distance.
" One can really wonder about why insistence of the North Korea for a civil energy program and in particular of his claim of a light water reactor. There is a certain logic with that. The North Korea has a chronic problem D `energy, is rich in uranium and dream for a long time to use its resources to solve its problem. In the years 1980, when the president North-Korean Kim It-sung succeeds in persuading the Russians to provide him an engine, it required the most recent type, with light water (the Russian VVER), rather than that with graphite, i.e. the rather most advanced technology than the technology most compatible with a military program, and it entered an extreme anger apparently by learning that they had delivered the model to him to graphite in the place. In the years 1990, Kim Il Sung was convinced to commit itself in the Outline agreement because of the American promise providing him a LWR. The US government was however reticent from the beginning, trailed feet, and the administration of George W. Bush sought after 2001 the first occasion, which has occurred in 2002, to give up it. To Beijing still, the North Korea returned to the load as from 2003 on the file of the LWR and the Bush team opposed it until the very last minute, agreeing to it then only under the pressure, probably without much intention to honor one day her engagement.
" Wisdom, the economy and the safety of nuclear energy can be prone to serious questions, and perhaps the provisions of article 4 of the NPT deserve a revision, but the United States (and Japan) missed credibility while requiring of the only North Korea to even deprive itself of a right generally recognized and registered in the treaty as it is supposed to reinstate, especially when Japan and South Korea produce currently approximately 40% of their electricity starting from nuclear plants and when China envisages to widen this sector massively.
" That a LWR is the suitable means to answer an energy serious attack in North Korea east another problem. Such engine are fabulously expensive, their construction takes years, and several billion dollars should be spent to improve the domestic network before least electricity produced there circulates. Even if it constitutes a desirable symbol of prestige, it hardly seems to correspond to the needs for the economy. In the two camps, the light water reactor becomes the irrational symbol of the more serious questions of confrontation, the lack of confidence (on the two sides) and of the insecurity (on the side of the North Korea) " (source: ).
See too
References and notes
Internal bonds
External bonds
- '' North Korea: a State hooligan in margin of the NPT '', Ralph Hassig and Kongdan Oh, on eJournalUSA
- '' Nucléaire and North Korea, the most difficult remainder to come '' GRIP, February 15th, 2007
| Random links: | Flag of Mexico | Jean-Pierre Perreault | Shuichi Shigeno | Andre Boullanger | Casapulla |