NAPSNet Daily Report 16 June, 1998

IN TODAY’S REPORT:

I. United States

I. United States

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1. DPRK Missile Exports

The Associated Press (Sang-Hun Choe, “NORTH KOREA ADMITS SELLING MISSILES,” Seoul, 06/16/98) and Reuters (Teruaki Ueno, “N.KOREA REVEALS MISSILE EXPORTS,” Tokyo, 06/16/98) reported that a statement carried by the DPRK’s official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday said that the DPRK will continue developing, testing, and selling missiles. The statement said, “Our missile export is aimed at obtaining foreign money we need at present. If the United States really wants to prevent our missile export, it should lift the economic embargo as early as possible and make a compensation for the losses to be caused by discontinued missile export.” It added, “As long as it remains subjected to military threat from outside, the DPRK should produce by itself and deploy military equipment to safeguard the security of the country and the people…. As the United States has pursued economic isolation of the DPRK for more than half a century, our resources of foreign money have been circumscribed. So, missile export is the option we could not but take.” The statement argued, “With missiles of the United States, which is at war with the DPRK technically, aiming at our territory, we find no reason to refrain from developing and deploying missiles to counter them.” Kim Koo-sup, a senior researcher at the ROK’s government-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, stated, “By declaring for the first time that it is actually exporting missiles, North Korea is upping the ante in its talks with Washington.” Similarly, Shinya Kato, an analyst at Tokyo-based Radiopress news agency, stated, “North Korea is playing the missile card as part of its effort to secure agreement from the U.S. to lift economic sanctions and win political concessions.”

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2. Russian Military Sales to ROK

United Press International (“N. KOREA BLASTS SOUTH-RUSSIAN ARMS DEAL,” Tokyo, 06/16/98) reported that the DPRK official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday denounced a recent arms cooperation deal between Russia and the ROK. The broadcast stated, “Recently, the South Korean puppets reportedly invited a high-ranking official of the Defense Ministry of Russia to South Korea and discussed with him introduction … of technologies concerning production and operation of sophisticated attack weapons and other up-to-the-minute weapons.” It added, “The arms deal with Russia fully reveals how frantic the South Korean rulers are in war preparations.” The agency said, “the tension on the Korean peninsula has become all the more strained with the puppets purchasing missiles and other weapons from the United States. We have warned more than once that arms introduction from abroad is not merely a commercial dealing but a grave hostile act in view of the acute political and military situation of the Korean peninsula.”

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3. DPRK Political Situation

The Associated Press (“OPPOSITION SAID TO EXIST IN NKOREA,” Seoul, 06/15/98) reported that DPRK defector Hwang Jang-yop said Monday that an anti-government resistance force exists in the DPRK which distribute leaflets with anti-government slogans. He added, however, that the government has been executing all people found to be involved with opposition groups. Hwang predicted that the DPRK government would change eventually, but that the government would try to keep any reforms within the framework of Kim Jong-il’s one-man dictatorship. He argued that promoting communication from the top and economic and culture exchanges from the bottom between the two Koreas, as well as humanitarian food aid, is most important to achieve reforms.

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4. ROK Food Aid to DPRK

United Press International (“HYUNDAI FOUNDER TAKES CATTLE TO N.KOREA,” Seoul, 06/15/98), Reuters (Jean Yoon, “S.KOREA TYCOON HERDS CATTLE TO STARVED NORTH,” Seoul, 06/16/98), and the Associated Press (Reid G. Miller, “500 CATTLE DONATED TO NORTH KOREA,” Panmunjom, 06/16/98) reported that Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-young and seven family members and business associates on Tuesday became the first civilians to cross the intra-Korean border by driving 500 cows through the truce village of Panmunjom. Chung stated, “I’m delighted to return to my hometown through Panmunjom, the same passage I took when I left for Seoul.” He said he had left home with the money his father had earned by selling a bull and added, “Now I am returning home to pay back the debt owed to my father.” The ROK Unification Ministry said it hoped the visit would provide an opportunity to improve relations between the two Koreas, but added that “a substantial change” in the DPRK position was required to make Panmunjom a regular channel for business visits and transportation. ROK chief presidential spokesman Park Ji-won stated, “We hope that an era of peace and mutual cooperation will come as early as possible, allowing millions of separated family members in the two sides to go and come through Panmunjom.”

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5. US, PRC Missile Targeting

The Washington Post (Walter Pincus, “U.S., CHINA MAY RETARGET NUCLEAR WEAPONS,” 06/16/98, A10) reported that unnamed US administration officials said that a US-PRC missile detargeting agreement is being held up by PRC insistence that it be linked to an agreement on no-first use of nuclear weapons. One official said that the PRC sees a no-first use pact as a means of combating “the overwhelming U.S. strategic nuclear advantage.” One unnamed official familiar with the negotiations said Monday that retargeting “will not have a lot of military significance, but we would like to do it as a political, confidence-building symbol.” According to Pentagon and intelligence sources, the PRC’s roughly 18 liquid-fueled nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) targeted on the U.S. are not kept on a ready-to-fire status, as opposed to the hundreds of US and Russian solid-fueled systems, which are kept on 24-hour alert. The PRC ICBMs normally sit in their silos without their warheads and lack their volatile propellant, which becomes unstable if kept in the missile for long periods, the sources said. Dr. Alfred D. Wilhelm Jr., executive vice president of the Atlantic Council and a former U.S. military attache in the PRC, said that the PRC decided years ago that the limited number of nuclear ICBMs they have are “all that are necessary to have a deterrent.” He added that they also believe that there would be a period in which antagonisms between countries would build up, giving them time to arm and fuel their nuclear force. Wilhelm said that, unlike the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the PRC believes “in the irrationality of first strike,” since the US nuclear force so outnumbers the PRC arsenal that a first strike would be suicidal. An April 1997 report to Congress by the US Defense Department stated that the PRC was continuing a policy of “modest levels of strategic nuclear forces to maintain a viable deterrent against other nuclear powers.” The report added that the PRC was looking to shift from liquid to a solid-fuel, mobile force. Paul Godwin, a PRC military specialist at the National Defense University, said that the US retargeting effort makes the limited PRC nuclear force seem more important than it really is. He added that the PRC and Soviets had a “no first use” agreement for years but that the Russian government recently rescinded the accord to reflect the lowered state of Russia’s conventional forces.

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6. South Asian Nuclear Tests

Dow Jones Newswires (“W. JAPAN GOVS URGE INDIA,PAKISTAN TO END NUCLEAR TESTS-KYODO,” Hiroshima, 06/16/98) reported that Japan’s Kyodo News said that governors in the western Japan region adopted an urgent resolution Tuesday calling on India and Pakistan to immediately suspend nuclear testing and abolish nuclear weapons. The council of governors of the western Japan region will submit the resolution to the Foreign Ministry on Friday.

The United States Information Agency (Jacquelyn S. Porth, “HOLUM: INDIAN, PAKISTANI NUCLEAR TESTS THREATEN GLOBAL SECURITY,” Washington, 06/15/98) reported that US Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Holum on June 10 told a gathering of international arms control experts in Philadelphia that India and Pakistan have made themselves “demonstrably less secure” by conducting nuclear weapons tests. Holum called on global leaders to be careful to do nothing that would drive India and Pakistan out of existing arms control regimes, and stressed the importance of maintaining current lines of communication with them. Holum said that the message to both governments should be “to cease their inflammatory rhetoric, adopt a cooling-off period, restore bilateral dialogue, avoid provocative actions in Kashmir, and address the root causes of their tensions.” He said that the ultimate objective of international reaction must be for India and Pakistan to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non- nuclear weapon states, adding that the NPT will not be modified “to accommodate their self-declared nuclear status. At the same meeting, Dr. Anatoliy Grytsenko of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council said that the recent nuclear tests represented a failure of world arms control policy. He added that the way the international community survives this important test in the coming months will determine the future of international security structures and military alliances. Grytsenko predicted that Iran might next run its own tests, possibly inducing Israel and the DPRK to follow. He warned that not all fledgling nuclear states have good civilian control of their militaries, and urged the US to increase military-to-military contacts as a way to change thinking about the role of nuclear power. Former US Senator Sam Nunn suggested offering India and Pakistan a jointly-manned center for early warning of missile launches using US detection satellites on Aegis radar- equipped ships in the Indian Ocean. He asked whether such an offer should be conditioned on “both countries pledging to take verifiable steps to assure the world that nuclear weapons are not being deployed.” He added, “Should we ask Russia to join in this proposal with Russia’s own missile warning radar providing partial coverage of both India and Pakistan? Should we design this concept so that it could include China in the future?” Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili stated, “it is important for the administration and … Congress to be clear that despite India’s and Pakistan’s regrettable actions, the (Comprehensive Test Ban) Treaty remains in the best security interest of everyone.”

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