North Korea once again has broken its word, refusing to agree to a denuclearization verification system after earlier having promised it would permit such a system, a senior U.S. diplomat, Christopher R. Hill, indicated.
North Korea, pressed to honor its word, threatened to slow down its moves to denuclearize the reclusive nation, and the West responded by cutting off further fuel supplies to the North, according to news reports.
“Obviously we would like to see progress made on this verification protocol, but so far we have not seen it,” Hill told journalists at the China World Hotel in Beijing. “So you can draw your own conclusions.”
At another point, Hill wearily brushed aside questions as to whether the United States would make still more concessions to North Korea, saying that “it is not for us to be bargaining with ourselves. It is up to the North Koreans to do what they said they were going to do.”
This was classic North Korean conduct, from an isolated regime that over many years has promised to cease building nuclear weapons, to surrender those it already has built, and to curb its ballistic missiles program — only to refuse to take those steps.
It is because North Korea cannot be depended upon to keep its word that the United States is erecting a multi-layered ballistic missile defense (BMD) shield, guarding against any nuclear-tipped missiles that Pyongyang might fire at targets in the United States.
When North Korea two years ago fired missiles in a salvo test, U.S. Navy ships were at the ready, prepared to fire Standard Missile interceptors from Aegis weapon-control ships. But the one long-range missile failed shortly after launch.
North Korea still continues to develop its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Taepo Dong-2.
Aside from Aegis (Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT]) ships with Standard Missile interceptors (Raytheon Co. [RTN]), the United States also can use its only BMD system capable of taking down incoming enemy ICBMs, the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system in Alaska and California (The Boeing Co. [BA]).
North Korea’s intransigence means that Republican President Bush has failed in his bid to remove all nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, as his eight years in office wind down to a close next month.
Instead, the task of dealing with the reclusive regime will now fall to Democratic President-elect Obama, who takes office Jan. 20.
North Korea at times has agreed in writing, and at other times has pledged verbally, to drop its nuclear and missile ambitions, thereby receiving rewards such as food and energy assistance, or most recently the privilege of being removed from a U.S. list of nations supporting terrorism. Then North Korea, repeatedly, goes back on its word. Bush has been criticized for removing North Korea from the list, without first demanding that it hand over its nuclear weapons.
The North, aside from its missiles program, has built nuclear weapons and successfully detonated one of them in an underground test.
After years of six-party talks, North Korea has yet to turn over even one of its nukes. Further, while it has admitted to a plutonium production program at its Yongbyon reactor, which produced materials for weapons, it has yet to explain the presence of traces of highly enriched uranium on pages of documents turned over to international arms inspectors.
North Korea made a great show of demolishing part of its Yongbyon reactor, only to threaten later to halt its demolition and to rebuild it.
In the latest show of recalcitrance, the rogue regime refused to permit inspectors to take air and soil samples near nuclear facilities.
As usual, North Korea has gotten what it wanted, without first having to surrender its nuclear weapons, demolish its nuclear production facilities, agree to detailed inspections or other key steps. And the United States, once again, has wound up losing.
It’s a tired story by now, a top U.S. diplomat indicated.
“Well, it’s the same old problem,” according to Hill. “The North Koreans don’t want to put into writing what they are willing to put into words.”