Policy Forum

The essay below is by Ralph A. Cossa President of Pacific Forum CSIS. Cossa asserts that what President Bush needs to do during his summit meeting with ROK President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro is to clearly spell out his preconditions for a resumption of US-DPRK dialogue. Moreover, President Bush should also reiterate his administration’s pledge to engage in constructive dialogue, once Washington’s immediate security concerns are satisfactorily (and verifiably) addressed. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi should make it clear in his own statement that, while dialogue will continue, there will be no real progress toward normalization until the nuclear issue is resolved. Finally, South Korean President Kim, instead of pressuring Washington to resume talks with Pyongyang, must also endorse Washington’s preconditions and announce that further progress in North-South relations, and especially hard currency payments that could easily be diverted to pay for a nuclear weapons program, will also hinge on Pyongyang removing this clear and present danger to the people of South Korea.

The essay below, by Professor Victor D. Cha, Director of the American Alliances in Asia Project at Georgetown University, argues that President Bush’s meetings with Asian leaders at the APEC summit in Mexico this weekend provide the opportune moment to get the message right with regard to North Korea’s surprise admission of a secret nuclear weapons program. Over the past week, a debate has raged inside the US government and among outside experts about how to respond. Many moderates have argued that this new nuclear revelation is North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s perverse but typical way of creating crisis to pull a reluctant Bush administration into serious dialogue. Before the world accepts the North’s confession as a cry for help, Bush must convince his counterparts at Los Labos to see Pyongyang’s actions for what they are — a serious violation of a standing agreement that will in effect be North Korea’s last gambit at peaceful engagement with the United States and its allies.

Below is commentary by Hugo Wheegook Kim and Peter Hayes on Kim Myong Chol’s “Agreed Framework Is Brain Dead; Shotgun Wedding Is the Only Option to Defuse Crisis” posted on NAPSNet of October 24, 2002. The original piece can be found

The essay below is by Wada Haruki, Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo and a specialist in Russian and Korean history and politics. Haruki notes that while North Korea’s recent Japanese abduction admission and apologies are significant, North Korea must make much more clear how the people were abducted and how they died, punish those responsible for carrying out the crimes. They must search out the remains and hand them over, and make it possible for families to visit the graves of the deceased and to meet with survivors, and for the survivors to return to Japan. Despite all this, it is extremely important that agreement was reached at the Japan-North Korea summit to reopen the normalization talks and that basic principles were agreed for the deadlocked diplomatic negotiations. This is profoundly significant for the peace of Northeast Asia.

This essay was contributed by Kim Myong Chol, Executive Director of the Center for Korean-American Peace, Tokyo, and the former editor of People’s Korea. Kim is also author of “Kim Jong Il’s Reunification Strategy,” a book published in both Seoul and Pyongyang. Kim asserts that the Geneva Agreed Framework is “brain dead” by Western standards. North Korea is not to blame, but rather it is the United States that is responsible for the virtual collapse of the nuclear deal. A package settlement, which addresses North Korean security concerns, will go a long way to defuse the crisis.

The essay below is by Victor Gilinsky, an energy consultant who has written on US-DPRK nuclear relations since 1993 and former commissioner of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Gilinsky argues that The North made its admission about a uranium enrichment program to serve its security interests and create more opportunity for economic blackmail while, in their view, risking little. It reflects a DPRK assessment of Western, Japanese, and South Korean weakness. They very likely have one or more plutonium-based nuclear weapons, and apparently have the prospect of many more and think they can get the world to accept that. We have to prove them wrong. This puts us in a tough spot in Korea and more generally in enforcing the Nonproliferation Treaty, whose future is in the balance. As an immediate first step, the US should close out the KEDO LWR project.

The essay below is by Jekuk Chang, a Tokyo based attorney-at-law and Visiting Fellow at Keio University in Tokyo, who is currently working on a book on “Clinton’s policy toward North Korea, 1993-2000. Change asserts that Pyongyang’s recent admission of secret nuclear program has to be viewed as an effort to build up its credibility with the United States, although the burden of proof lies squarely with North Korea. At the same time, however, Washington must also be prepared to give Pyongyang some breathing space if it hopes to achieve its ultimate objectives involving North Korea.

Below is commentary by Hugo Wheegook Kim and Peter Hayes on Kim Myong Chol’s “Agreed Framework Is Brain Dead; Shotgun Wedding Is the Only Option to Defuse Crisis” posted on NAPSNet of October 24, 2002. The original piece can be found

In the essay below, Leon Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Research Council asserts that unlike Iraq, by acknowledging its nuclear program, North Korea is opening the door for negotiations with Washington. Moreover, Sigal argues that the US has little choice than to respond diplomatically, if it wants to avoid a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The following essay is by Timothy Savage, Nautilus Associate and Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Kyungnam University, Seoul. Savage draws on a previous Nautilus workshop on scenarios for the future of US-North Korean relations ( ../security/Korea/index.html) to examine the security situation following North Korea’s revelation of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. He notes that all four scenarios developed at that workshop postulated some sort of crisis with the Agreed Framework, but the outcome of the scenarios differes greatly depending on how the various countries respond. He argues that we have reached a crossroads on the Korean peninsula, and that the scenarios can provide a helpful roadmap of where the future might lead.