The Six Party Talks: A Russian Perspective

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was the focus of international attention in 1993 because of the controversy over its nuclear weapons program. A series of developments that included collapse of inter-Korean dialogue, the resumption of the U.S.-South Korea Team Spirit military exercise, and unprecedented pressure from the International Atomic Energy Agency (TAEA) to open two undeclared sites to special inspections prompted Pyongyang to take the extreme step on March 12 of giving notice that it intended to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The North claimed that the two suspect nuclear waste sites were military facilities unrelated to its nuclear program and that the agency's request was improperly based on third party intelligence information. Although suggesting a worst-case nuclear breakout scenario, the withdrawal announcement was couched in conditional language, calling for an end to the U.S. threat and restoration of IAEA impartiality, that suggested Pyongyang might reconsider. Even though Pyongyang had not yet suspended its NPT withdrawal, it allowed an IAEA visit in May on the eve of talks with the United States on the nuclear issue. Similarly, its declaration on March 8 of a semi-war alert in response to Team Spirit in fact gave great prominence to stepping up socialist construction. Two rounds of high-level U.S.-DPRK talks were held on the nuclear issue in 1993 between delegations headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok Chu and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Robert Gallucci. The first round in New York on June 2-11 resulted in a joint statement that laid out the principles underpinning the talks and announced the DPRK's suspension of its withdrawal from the NPT. The second round of talks in Geneva on July 14-19 was noteworthy for the DPRK's proposal to

To North Korea's big disappointment, President Bush was re-elected and started his second term on January 20, 2005. On February 10, a few weeks after President Bush's second inauguration, North Korea said it would not attend 6-Party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program unless the United States dropped its “hostile” policy toward the North. Pyongyang also confirmed that it has manufactured an undisclosed number of nuclear weapons to counter this U.S. policy. Considering the conflicting interests between the United States and North Korea, it will be difficult to anticipate how the North Korean nuclear crisis will be resolved. However, the relations between the United States and North Korea seem to remain in a state of tense stagnation rather than falling into a catastrophic phase. North Korea does not expect any concessions from the United States in the 6-Party talks, which only serve as a means of putting pressure on North Korea. North Korea seems convinced that a military option is not likely. North Korea may want to close the door on the United States and concentrate on the stability of its internal affairs. In the meantime, it wants to strengthen its position by extracting more plutonium. The stagnation may continue until the U.S. has enough power to keep the North from continuing to develop its nuclear program, or North Korea has enough leverage to force the United States to make substantial concession to North Korea.

[ 51 ] special roundtable • advising the new u.s. president “Some believe that coercion will eventually cause North Korea to capitulate, and that ‘just a little more’ pressure on the regime will force it to submit. Unfortunately, past history reveals that this is unlikely.” • Give a Little to Get a Lot from North Korea David C. Kang There is one enduring truth regarding North Korea that any policymaker would be well advised to understand: North Korea will not give something for nothing. Pyongyang responds to external pressure with pressure of its own. Some believe that coercion will eventually cause North Korea to capitulate, and that “just a little more” pressure on the regime will force it to submit. Unfortunately, past history reveals that this is unlikely. There is little reason to think that applying even more pressure will finally result in North Korea meeting U.S. demands and a de-escalation of tension. Understanding this truth is important because many policy advisors agree on the goal: a denuclearized North Korea that opens to the world, pursues economic and social reforms, and increasingly respects human rights. Disagreement only occurs over the tactics—what actions will best set us on the path toward this outcome. To that end, the North Korean problem has been driven by intense U.S. and North Korean distrust of each other. Almost any aspect of the other side’s behavior that is even remotely suspicious is extrapolated to the “worst case” scenario and becomes further justification for caution. Perhaps even more importantly, while we in the United States focus intently on whether North Korea will live up to its side of the bargains that are struck, I am quite confident that in Pyongyang the leadership is just as skeptical that the United States will do what it says it will do. The latest setback is just one of many examples of this pattern. By the spring of 2008, meetings both at the six-party level (at the working group stage) and between U.S. and DPRK representatives had made continued, albeit halting, progress. The DPRK nuclear program had been effectively capped, dismantlement of the Yongbyon reactor had begun, and North Korea had allowed multiple teams of inspectors back into the DPRK. North david c. kang is Professor of International Relations and Business and Director of the Korean Studies Institute at the University of Southern California. He can be reached at . [ 52 ] asia policy Korea had also produced eighteen thousand pages of operating documents regarding its plutonium program and allowed the United States to inspect aluminum tubes that were suspected of being intended for use in a uraniumbased enrichment reactor. For its part, the United States had begun removing economic sanctions, provided fuel oil, and alluded to a possible political relationship in the future. Most significantly, on June 26 President Bush announced his intention to take the DPRK off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and lift the restrictions imposed by the Trading with the Enemy Act within 45 days. Yet by August both sides had essentially returned to square one. The United States decided not to delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, mainly because the United States had added a stipulation that North Korea must provide a full explanation for its suspected nuclear cooperation with Syria. North Korea responded by saying that to unilaterally add other provisions to the agreement was “moving the goalposts,” and privately some U.S. officials agreed. Thus, North Korea began rebuilding the nuclear reactor and expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from the country. Most of the attention in the United States focused on North Korea’s actions, and few pointed out that it was the U.S. actions that had prompted North Korea’s reaction. When the United States finally did delist the DPRK in September 2008, North Korea also responded promptly, inviting back inspectors and agreeing to work with the United States on other outstanding issues. There is more potential for negotiation with North Korea than is generally believed, if such negotiation is done with the realization that the United States will not obtain unilateral concessions from the DPRK. Indeed, it is worth...

Readers of Science should be grateful to L. Palmer and G. Milhollin for describing Brazil's intention to operate a new uranium enrichment plant, and the proliferation concerns this action arouses (“Brazil's nuclear puzzle,” Policy Forum, 22 Oct., p. [617][1]). If apprehension about global warming causes an expansion of nuclear power deployment during the next half century ([1][2]), it is vital to limit the spread of dangerous fuel cycle activities—enrichment and reprocessing—that can lead to nuclear weapons. Palmer and Milhollin suggest that if Brazil cooperates with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and presumably accepts the “additional protocol” for challenge inspections, Brazil will be a “good nuclear citizen,” and the United States and the rest of the world should accept Brazil's enrichment activity. We disagree. As we ([2][3]), and others, have argued, the proper policy is to avoid all new enrichment and reprocessing activity in non-nuclear weapons states and for nuclear supplier states to provide recipient states with internationally assured enrichment and spent fuel disposal services at attractive prices. This would begin with a “stay-put” period of 10 to 15 years, after which nations could reevaluate in light of nuclear power and nonproliferation developments. We should not adopt a policy toward Brazil that we are unwilling to accept for Iran and North Korea. The latter have brought to a head the shortcomings of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) implementation regime—these states employ the regime to move to the brink of a weapons capability within the treaty framework. Closing NPT loopholes needs urgent attention, and Brazil will jeapordize the possibilities for successful resolution if they move forward with their uranium enrichment plant. The argument that Brazil is not seeking a weapons capability has not always been true, and IAEA inspections are not an adequate safeguard against states that are seeking nuclear capability, such as Iran and North Korea. IAEA inspections are not sufficient for controlling the spread of nuclear weapons capability, and the United States will not be successful with a policy based on a chosen few—the United States and other nuclear weapons states—deciding which other nations can safely develop fuel cycle activities and which cannot. The United States should vigorously oppose the Brazilian enrichment plant and offer Brazil concrete incentives to abandon this dangerous course of action. Brazil faces a choice of being a spoiler in modernizing the NPT implementation regime or of being a leader in accomplishing that important end. 1. 1.[↵][4] The Future of Nuclear Power-An Interdisciplinary MIT Study (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2003) (available at ). 2. 2.[↵][5] 1. J. Deutch, 2. A. Kanter, 3. E. Moniz, 4. D. Ponoman , SURVIVAL , in press. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1104209 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text [5]: #xref-ref-2-1 View reference 2. in text

Can the New Nuclear Deal with North Korea Succeed?The new nuclear deal hammered out in Beijing in mid-February 2007 is a very tentative and limited first step toward ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Unfortunately, it creates numerous new problems without solving any fundamental issues. Prospects for its eventual success could prove worrisome.On the plus side, the accord is a step away from confrontation toward preserving peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. The Bush Administration, after four years of exchanging heated rhetoric with Pyongyang and reliance on ineffective coercive tactics like economic sanctions, has finally decided to negotiate with Pyongyang. Frankly, this has always been the only way to achieve a peaceful diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear issue. Simply put, at long last negotiations have finally just begun.But the accord's negative aspects outweigh its positive points. It is not a new This is a tentative deal. If North Korea does not like the direction of future negotiations, it can pull out at any time and restart its nuclear reactor. The Agreed Framework was not a tentative deal. It was a package deal-all or nothing. The 1994 accord froze all nuclear activities and put all North Korean nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring. The new deal says that the DPRK will discuss with other parties the scope of nuclear activities to be covered. Also the details IAEA monitoring are to be agreed between IAEA and DPRK. The Agreed Framework resolved such issues prior to its finalization.In other words, the new agreement reverses the process that led to the Agreed Framework. Numerous working level discussions were held in New York and elsewhere to resolve the details of implementation prior to the agreement's conclusion. Under this new deal, North Korea can control the entire process because it can threaten to unfreeze its nuclear activities anytime that it is unhappy with one or more of the working group negotiations.Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill has incorrectly claimed that the new deal is better than the old one because it is He simply does not know his history. The Agreed Framework was multilateral. Prior to its finalization, the United States forged an international consensus supportive of the accord by consulting daily for eighteen months with Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing and Moscow, not to mention many other governments. Also, the Agreed Framework was designed to support the multilateral IAEA, an agency of the United Nations. The Bush Administration has openly and repeatedly belittled the effectiveness of the IAEA and its director, even calling for his replacement.The new accord's shortcomings suggest that the Bush Administration was desperate to continue the Six Party Talks at any price. Over-extended militarily in the Middle East, the Bush Administration cannot afford instability on the Korean Peninsula. …

In the nine years after the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration in February 2008, the consensus regarding the alliance between the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States was that it couldn't be better. Yet with the inauguration of new administrations in both capitals, despite the reaffirmation of each side's commitment to the alliance, there are some concerns and anxieties over North Korea policy, the implications of China's rise for the regional security architecture, and alliance management. In general, the United States is concerned about the possibility that Moon Jae-in will revive Roh Moo-hyun's Sunshine Policy of engagement with North Korea as well as adopt a pro-Chinese orientation and encourage anti-American sentiment. On the other hand, the ROK has concerns about the Trump administration's protectionism, hostile policy toward North Korea that eschews dialogue, unilateralism in the military sphere, and demand for greater burden-sharing.To maintain, strengthen, and upgrade the U.S.-ROK alliance, both Seoul and Washington should work very closely to increase trust and mutual respect and to iron out possible differences over the aforementioned issues. The following discussion will examine the two allies' areas of convergence and divergence on North Korea policy, China's rise, and alliance management. It will then conclude by assessing the prospects for the U.S.-ROK alliance in the aftermath of political transitions in both countries.Consultation and Coordination on North Korea PolicyFor both Washington and Seoul, North Korea's nuclear weapons program remains the most urgent and important challenge. The overall situation in and around the Korean Peninsula is very unstable and intense, as North Korea seeks acceptance as a nuclear state and relevant parties try to force the Kim Jong-un regime to give up its nuclear weapons.At the moment, Washington and Seoul appear to be on the same page in their commitment to a strategy of pressure and engagement. However, each side seems to have some suspicion about the other. The United States is concerned about the possibility that the new ROK government will revive Roh's Sunshine Policy, which strongly emphasized engagement and positive incentives. On the other hand, the Moon administration might have anxieties that the Trump administration's policies will be too militant and aggressive, potentially inducing a series of crises and confrontations without the possibility of dialogue and negotiation.1 Nonetheless, given North Korea's ongoing missile tests and threats to stage another nuclear test, both the United States and ROK are in a common stance of mounting more pressure on North Korea until it shows meaningful signs of denuclearization.At the moment, despite its desire to have some degree of autonomy in dealing with North Korea, South Korea does not have much room to maneuver. It would be difficult for the Moon government to go against the Trump administration's strategy of maximum pressure and engagement and pursue a completely new policy. From the South Korean perspective, the threat posed by North Korea goes beyond nuclear weapons and missiles. Human rights violations, as well as economic and social instability, are among the conventional security issues that must be resolved. Therefore, the United States must not restrict its North Korea policy to the nuclear and missile threats but should adjust its policy to address all of these issues. To gain the support and cooperation of the United States, and to reduce suspicion between the two allies, South Korea should also clarify its vision, strategy, and action plans to handle and solve the North Korea problem.At the same time, the United States and South Korea should discuss and come to an agreement on the level and scope of pressure to be applied and on the conditions, procedures, and agenda for dialogue. The United States is concerned that the Moon administration will rush into a dialogue with Pyongyang and has reservations about reopening the Kaesong Industrial Complex and Mount Kumgang tours regardless of the progress toward denuclearization. …

In September 2005, the U.S. imposed financial restrictions on North Korea after blaming the North for illicit financial activities, including counterfeiting and money‐laundering. The U.S. financial sanctions against the North had direct and immediate impact on the ongoing six‐party negotiations on North Korea's nuclear issue. North Korea insisted on the lifting of U.S. financial sanctions as the precondition for returning to the negotiating table and consequently the six‐party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue stalled. The third session of the fifth round of six‐party talks in February 2007 produced an important accord on North Korea's nuclear question. This agreement was made possible after the U.S. and the DPRK reached a compromise on the financial sanctions issue. This article discusses the U.S. financial sanctions against North Korea and their implications for North Korea's nuclear question. It begins with an overview of the U.S. financial restrictions. This study then examines the nexus between the financial sanctions and the impasse at the six‐party talks on North Korea's nuclear issue. This is followed by a discussion of the breakthrough on the financial restrictions issue and the landmark agreement on North Korea's nuclear issue in February 2007. In this study, the authors argue that a mutually satisfactory resolution of the BDA dispute holds the key to a peaceful settlement of the second North Korean nuclear crisis. With the BDA dispute behind, the six‐party talks should gain momentum and prepare a road map for implementing the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Both the U.S. and North Korea should not miss this golden opportunity and make earnest efforts to build a firm foundation for peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia.

The core questions addressed by Noland (2019) are how, and whether, engagement could foster market-orientation in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and reduce direct state control over the country's economy. Noland presumes that the DPRK regime's objective is to obtain revenue with minimum changes to its internal practices and associated risks to political stability, and argues that the nature of engagement is important in inducing desired changes in the country. Noland highlights the modality of economic exchange in the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), and analyzes whether the KCI model could serve as a means of transformative engagement. Through his analysis, Noland demonstrates that the labor practices in the KIC appear to be both exploitative and limit the extent the DPRK workers are exposed to new ways of organizing work, and concludes that it is unlikely to generate the desired changes. In order to encourage real institutional change, Noland concludes that the DPRK's partners must emphasize “more transformative approaches,” especially by means of introducing international norms and voluntary codes into the country. Otherwise, Noland assesses that the economic growth would merely enable the DPRK to achieve its status of “a de facto nuclear state.” In order to promote “effective transformative engagement,” Noland focuses on the means to expose DPRK workers to “new ways of organizing work.” To advance this argument further, it is also necessary to address the broad question of how the empowerment of workers could lead to real institutional changes in the country. As Babson (2019) notes, for the DPRK's economic growth, the regime would need to reform the economic system by embracing the role of markets, stimulating private initiative, and transforming international relations. The reformative measures include (but are not limited to) building institutions for legal and financial systems, trade and macroeconomic management; state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform; and shaping the economic leadership and core agencies as well as the role of the international financial institutions. Additionally, it should be noted that “animal spirits” among the empowered workers and entrepreneurs are an essential ingredient for any market growth. What options are available for external partners to affect such a reformative process? How can these countries help the empowered DPRK workers challenge state control over the economy and promote a desired realignment of the incumbent domestic coalition? These broader questions may deserve scrutiny as well. In this regard, experts are debating the extent to which the SOE reform since 2014 and the increasing level of private business activities could affect the DPRK's future economic development and relations with its external partners. Sakai (2018) argues that the DPRK regime does not intend to pursue a Chinese-style of economic reform and continues to oblige all DPRK citizens and entities to obey absolutely the “leadership,” while emphasizing the importance of “self-development spirit,” as opposed to international cooperation. Sakai offers a cautious view with regard to the opportunities for external partners to affect the DPRK's reformative process. To the contrary, Mimura (2017) highlights a possible window of opportunity to affect the DPRK's thinking about foreign partnership by focusing on the internal debate surrounding the new economic strategy since January 2018. Mimura observes that SOE autonomy is a key subject in the debate and focuses on the increasing autonomy for SOE managers, as opposed to the state planners, in making decisions on issues related to human resource management and production and sales of excess commodities. Babson (2019) also points to an increasingly blurred boundary between SOE and private business activities, referring to the emergence of successful entrepreneurs in both SOEs and private ventures. Babson recommends to explore options for enterprise organization models that would best support the DPRK's future economic development and relations with its partners. Such endeavor would complement Noland's proposal on the empowerment of DPRK workers. The DPRK's new line of economic policy is surely intended to secure the survival of the regime which would reject any external pressure if it felt threatened. The transformative engagement approach could succeed so long as the DPRK leadership became confident of its merits, which would likely require a prolonged period of adjustment, at a minimum. The DPRK's future decision to abandon its nuclear weapons, if it ever happens, would be affected by the regime's confidence in the security environment in which the economy is a crucial, but not necessarily the sole, factor. Political rapprochement is also another essential element in undertaking effective transformative engagement.

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States promised a shift in the fortunes of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime after a near decade of intransigence and frustration. This article examines what has been achieved in the wake of Obama's speech in Prague in April 2009, where he articulated the goal of a world free from nuclear weapons. Since the Prague speech, the effective norm of the NPT has been re-energised through a number of initiatives, including UN Security Council resolution 1887, the New START agreement and the agreed final document at the NPT review conference in May 2010. However a number of big challenges continue to face the NPT regime, including the nuclear programs of Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the continued fallout from the US-India civil nuclear deal. The article concludes that the NPT continues to play a role in creating parameters within which powerful states face some constraints; and, crucially, that the Treaty maintains an international consensus that proliferation of nuclear weapons, even by democratic states, is a threat to global security. However, the NPT has not and will not replace power politics.

One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is the overwhelming quest by some member nations to acquire, develop and possess nuclear capabilities with the intention of balancing power, fears and terror at the centre stage of world politics. Iran and North Korea have been in the fore front of arms race. Therefore, it is the task of this paper to examine the circumstances surrounding the development and possessions of nuclear weapons by Iran and North Korea. Hence, this paper seeks to link between the limitations of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and the level of nuclear capabilities achieved by the North Korea and Iran. Particularly, primary challenges such as non-compliance to the NPT in North Korea and Iran, are carefully examined. We adopted qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. We argue that Iran and North Korea have acquired and developed nuclear capability project with the aim of striking a power balance at the center stage of world politics. This major motive accounts for non-compliance of the NPT by the two nations. We therefore recommend that the United Nations should expand its check mechanism and intensify its effort, by marrying its words on nuclear non – proliferation with full actions. Key words: Non-proliferation, international atomic energy agency, nuclear weapons, nuclear smuggling, terrorists, non-compliance, Middle East.

North Korea's nuclear program. The three-stage agreement will enable North Korea to acquire light-water nuclear reactors (LWRs) and free oil in return for its freezing and dismantling of existing reactors and storage of spent nuclear fuel outside North Korea. Official U.S.-DPRK relations will gradually be established so long as North Korea fulfills its obligations. North Korea has promised to accept full international access to its existing nuclear facilities, presumably including two previously off-limits military waste sites, and be in full compliance with safeguards, upon completion of the LWR project. Whether or not North Korea produced sufficient weapon-grade plutonium to manufacture atomic bombs may then finally be known. North Korea is also supposed to resume direct talks with South Korea, which has largely been bypassed in the course of U.S.-DPRK negotiations. The international impasse over a possible North Korean bomb extended over about a year and a half, amidst rapid alternations of diplomacy and threats. Negotiations to implement the Agreed Framework continue at this writing. This article examines the origins and consequences of the events preceding the agreement for South Korean foreign policy and inter-Korean relations. Even if the U.S.-DPRK accord moves forward - the LWRs are provided, the DPRK is determined to be in full compliance with its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and Pyongyang's nuclear program is judged not to have diverted plutonium to manufacture atomic bombs - the nuclear standoff has taken a toll on South Korea's unification plans and efforts to establish new directions in foreign policy. Still, as this article attempts to show, the outcome of the nuclear standoff may also present opportunities for additional tension-reducing steps

If 2006-07 was a period when relations between the two Koreas moved from hostility to a return to engagement, 2007-08 followed the reverse path. The government of the Republic of Korea (ROK - South Korea) under President Roh Moo-hyun pursued with considerable success a determined policy of engagement once the freeze in relations that followed the post-2006 nuclear test was lifted. Well before the ROK presidential election in December 2007, it was clear that ROK policies towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK - North Korea) would be in more critical hands from 2008. After the February 2007 breakthrough in the Six Party Talks, North- South relations gradually entered a new and more positive phase that lasted until the change of ROK president in February 2008. Most important of all, however, as proof of improving relations was the second North-South summit. Keywords: North Korea; North-South relations; North-South summit; President Roh Moo-hyun; Republic of Korea (ROK - South Korea); Six Party Talks

Making Sanctions Smart Again:Why Maritime Sanctions Have Worked against North Korea Robert Huish (bio) Following a period of escalating tension between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), in which the Kim regime conducted a series of ballistic missile and nuclear tests and the Trump administration pursued a policy of maximum pressure, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un met for a historic summit in Singapore on June 12. What changed to bring the two leaders together? The main reason North Korea sat down at the bargaining table was not sports diplomacy at the Winter Olympics or Trump's Twitter barrages. It was that the country is out of resources as a result of the international maritime sanctions.1 These sanctions have worked, and worked well, by targeting the environment on which the Kim regime depended to acquire belligerent materials. The 2017 maritime sanctions against North Korea, particularly U.S. Executive Order 13810 and UN Security Resolution 2397, worked for three reasons.2 First, owing to its unique geography, North Korea was almost entirely dependent on illicit maritime trade for its weapons programs, which stands in contrast to long-held claims that most military hardware came overland from China.3 Second, some argue that North Korea's already hollowed-out, authoritarian economy created an "inner isolation" among most of the country's nearly 26 million inhabitants.4 Sanctions are often responsible for increased suffering; however, most North Koreans survive through limited self-sufficiency or black markets that are often unaffected [End Page 42] by formal sanctions or the country's international economic environment. Third, sanctions that targeted foreign companies, in particular maritime insurance companies that may have provided protection and indemnity (P&I) insurance to North Korean vessels, provoked a swift reaction by the insurers to absolve themselves from dealings with North Korea. The important message of the sanctions imposed in 2017 is that this focus on pressuring the maritime industry led to a noticeable behavioral change in North Korea. The remainder of this essay examines what lessons about the efficacy of smart sanctions can be drawn from the case of maritime sanctions against North Korea. The next section will describe the 2017 sanctions from a maritime standpoint and analyze why they worked. The essay concludes by considering the potential to effectively apply similar sanctions to other targets. Have You Been to Sea? To understand why maritime sanctions worked so well against North Korea, two issues must be discussed. First, what are effective sanctions? And second, what role does China play in enabling North Korea to outsmart sanctions? For years, the international community made two major errors in dealing with North Korea. Many experts believed, first, that any sort of sanction would be a good measure against the Kim dynasty and, second, that China is the sole provider of resources, including military resources, to North Korea. Both of these claims are problematic. Sanctions aim to encourage a behavioral change of a target nation or its leadership. Traditional, or "dumb," sanctions either prohibit the target from any financial dealings with the issuer's market or seize the target's assets in the issuer's territory. Such ham-fisted sanctions often do more to further the suffering of the population than apply pressure on the leadership. In the 1990s, then secretary-general of the United Nations Kofi Annan encouraged the use of "smart" sanctions in order to overcome such blunders. Speaking in hindsight of the tragedies in Iraq, the Balkans, and East Africa, Annan argued that economic policy could be crafted so that despotic leaders are pushed toward behavioral change given that their own personal assets were at risk.5 In the 1990s this logic made sense because many dictators had offshore assets that could be directly targeted. Even so, many tyrants, including members of the Kim dynasty, managed to acquire [End Page 43] luxury goods and odious resources through shady networks involving fake currency production, narcotics trafficking, weapons smuggling, and insurance scams. Moreover, sanctions did not deter the Kims from pursuing nuclear tests or overseeing brutal human rights violations. One of the faultiest assumptions about North Korea in the international relations literature was that North Korea...

One critical aspect of any denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) involves dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and management of their associated radioactive wastes. The decommissioning problem for its two principal operational plutonium facilities at Yongbyun, the 5MWe nuclear reactor and the Radiochemical Laboratory reprocessing facility, alone present a formidable challenge. Dismantling those facilities will create radioactive waste in addition to existing inventories of spent fuel and reprocessing wastes. Negotiations with the DPRK, such as the Six Party Talks, need to appreciate the enormous scale of the radioactive waste management problem resulting from dismantlement. The two operating plutonium facilities, along with their legacy wastes, will result in anywhere from 50 to 100 metric tons of uranium spent fuel, as much as 500,000 liters of liquid high-level waste, as well as miscellaneous high-level waste sources from the Radiochemical Laboratory. A substantial quantity of intermediate-level waste will result from disposing 600 metric tons of graphite from the reactor, an undetermined quantity of chemical decladding liquid waste from reprocessing, and hundreds of tons of contaminated concrete and metal from facility dismantlement. Various facilities for dismantlement, decontamination, waste treatment and packaging, and storage will be needed. The shipment of spent fuel and liquid high level waste out of the DPRK is also likely to be required. Nuclear facility dismantlement and radioactive waste management in the DPRK are all the more difficult because of nuclear nonproliferation constraints, including the call by the United States for “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement,” or “CVID.” It is desirable to accomplish dismantlement quickly, but many aspects of the radioactive waste management cannot be achieved without careful assessment, planning and preparation, sustained commitment, and long completion times. The radioactive waste management problem in fact offers a prospect for international participation to engage the DPRK constructively. DPRK nuclear dismantlement, when accompanied with a concerted effort for effective radioactive waste management, can be a mutually beneficial goal.

IntroductionAre the days of hope for North Korea's nuclear denuclearization over once and for all? North Korea's recent disclosure of its uranium enriched program (UEP), in addition to its plutonium-based nuclear arsenal, the possible instability of power succession from North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong Il, to his son Kim Jong Un, and the North Korean leadership's blind reliance on its nuclear program as the ultimate guarantor of its regime survival, all point to a pessimistic assessment that it would be impossible to persuade North Korea to negotiate away its nuclear program for whatever rewards might obtain from the United States and the international community.Admittedly many people hoped for some sort of breakthrough on the nuclear front as the Obama administration took office in January 2009, expressing its willingness to engage North Korea. Although he didn't mention North Korea by name, President Obama pledged in his inaugural address to reach out to isolated regimes. As Democratic presidential candidate, Obama also expressed an active interest in engaging North Korea in a presidential debate in September 2008 when he criticized the Bush administration's lack of diplomatic engagement with North Korea, and supported sustained, direct and aggressive diplomacy to resolve North Korean nuclear issues.2Obama's criticism was clearly directed against the Bush administration's non-engagement policy toward North Korea during its first term. In fact, such an approach was inevitable, given the Bush team's fundamental distrust of the Pyongyang regime that had failed to keep its promises despite a series of previous nuclear pacts with the United States, including the Agreed Framework in 1994. The Bush administration avoided any further nuclear deal with North Korea during its first term, determined not to accept any demands from Pyongyang because doing so might leave them open to comparison with the Clinton Its North Korea policy was even described as the ABC (Anything but Clinton) policy.3However, the Bush team's hawkish stance began to crumble when North Korea carried out its first nuclear test in October 2006. Tension was already rising since Washington made a big issue of Pyongyang's secret uranium enrichment program (UEP) in October 2005. North Korea initially acknowledged its presence, but has denied it ever since. Hard pressed by the urgent need to keep North Korea's unfettered nuclear pursuits at bay, chief U.S. negotiator Chris Hill hastened to pull off a series of nuclear deals with North Korea, with the full support of President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. North Korea froze its plutonium activities and finally submitted its nuclear declaration in 2009, for which it received political benefits from the United States, including being removed from the U.S. terrorism list. However, the previously uneventful nuclear talks stalled when both sides failed to iron out the differences on verification of North Korea's nuclear declaration.It was against this backdrop that many people expected some sort of breakthrough in the stalled nuclear talks when the new Obama administration came in. However, such expectations were shattered by North Korea's unexpected provocations right from the beginning of the Obama administration. On April 5, 2009, North Korea launched a l ong-range ballistic missile that, it argued, was the satellite Kwangmyongsong-2, intended to be put into orbit through a space launch vehicle, Unha-2. The strong U.S. condemnation, followed by the unanimous UN Security Council Resolution 1874, prompted North Korea to embolden rather than change its behavior. In defiance of the UN resolution, the North conducted its second nuclear test in May 2009, which dealt a fatal blow to the Obama administration's efforts for engagement. The second nuclear test unequivocally demonstrated once again Pyongyang's intention of not giving up its nuclear program despite a series of nuclear pacts with the previous Bush administration. …