The Foreign Service Journal, October 2005

F O C U S 42 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5 liners’ response, instead, has been to leak worst-case assessments and pursue rash policies — threats of political isolation and economic coercion, even armed force. By impeding a cooperative solu- tion, the unilateralists have put Washington on a collision course not just with Pyongyang but, more importantly, with America’s allies in Asia. This approach threatens to erode political support for the alliance in South Korea and Japan and jeopardize the U.S. troop presence in the region. In fact, the hard-liners would apparently rather pick a fight with China than negotiate with North Korea. Their intransigence has been the catalyst for unprecedented cooperation in Northeast Asia aimed at reining in the United States. The January 2003 Japan- Russia summit meeting and the Japan-DPRK summit meetings of 2002 and 2004 should be seen in this light, as should South Korea’s warming relations with China. Given the history of antagonism in the region, such cooperation would have seemed unthinkable just a few short years ago. “Action for Action” The best way for the United States to avoid further erosion in its position in the region is to negotiate in earnest with North Korea and test whether it makes a deal and lives up to it. An agreement in principle stating what each side wants at the end is a useful starting point. North Korea needs to agree to rid itself of its nuclear weapons pro- grams and abandon plans to build longer-range missiles. The United States, in turn, should join other nations in providing written security assurances and move to nor- malize relations as the North eliminates its weapons and the means of making them. The most urgent need for the United States is to restore inspectors’ control over the plutonium that North Korea removed from its reactor at Yongbyon in 1994, and again earlier this year, and to shut down that reactor to keep it from generating more plutonium in its spent fuel. Shutting down and resealing the DPRK’s reprocessing plant is another priority. Satellites and other technical means can monitor a freeze of activity at the Yongbyon reactor and reprocessing plant, though not enrichment sites at un- known locations. Inspections of these sites, as desirable as they are, will take time to arrange. But they can wait: U.S. intelligence estimates the North cannot produce much highly enriched uranium until later in this decade. Conversely, delaying a freeze to negotiate a detailed verifi- able agreement on enrichment will simply allow time for Pyongyang to generate more plutonium, fabricate bombs and increase its negotiating leverage. The key to verification is what the International Atomic Energy Agency calls an “initial declaration,” listing all the North’s nuclear facilities, equipment and fissile material, in whatever form they may now be. Once that declaration is cross-checked against what U.S. intelligence has already ascertained, elimination can begin. The time for challenge inspections will come, but it is not yet here. Why waste time and bar- gaining chips negotiating to verify that the North has what it says it has when the aim is to get rid of its weapons programs altogether? Pyongyang’s missile program can be dealt with in par- allel. The first priority is what the North offered in Beijing — a ban on missile test launches and exports of missile technology. Next is to negotiate the dismantling of missiles and production sites. Washington will have to reciprocate for each of these steps, of course. It will not get something for nothing. Words alone will not placate Pyongyang. Given the deep mistrust on both sides, and the belief on each side that the other reneged on the Agreed Framework, this cau- tious approach makes sense. Each side needs concrete results from the other to enable it to build trust and move forward. The good news is that Pyongyang seems ready to deal. It says it wants to exchange “words for words” and “action for action.” By “words for words” it means an agreement in principle that if Washington “gives up its hostile policy,” it will “transparently renounce all nuclear-weapons related programs.” By “action for action,” it means phased, recip- rocal steps. To start, it is offering a freeze on “all the facil- ities related to nuclear weapons,” shutting down its nuclear When Washington was slow to fulfill the terms of the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang threatened to break out of it in 1997.