Special Reports

Mark Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, wrote: “Congress and the Administration have a variety of options for future assistance to North Korea. Given the suspension of the KEDO project, the immediate decisions will revolve around food aid, particularly given increased demand for food assistance from other areas of the world. Additionally, if talks with North Korea over its nuclear program begin and score a breakthrough, there will likely be consideration of a broader economic assistance package.”

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill, interviewed by Cheong Wook Sik, a representative of the Civil Network for a Peaceful Korea (CNPK), stated: “I think we made it very clear that we are prepared to give all kinds of security assurances [to the DPRK]. And we are willing to do those in the context of multilateral security — in guarantees. If the North Koreans want something else, then they should sit at the table and tell us.”

Dan Fata, Republican Party Committee Policy Director for National Security and Trade, writes: “It is not too late to avert a North Korean nuclear test. However, the key to preventing a nuclear test lies primarily with China. The PRC must be made to understand that its failure to convince North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program will have dramatic effects on China’s relationship with the United States and its own neighbors ­ and, ultimately, on its own security.”

US AID, in this report to Congress required by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, discusses US aid to the DPRK though the World Food Program. It also discusses aid given in response to the April 2004 Ryongchon blast and the April 2005 Bird Flu Outbreak.

US AID, in this report to Congress required by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, discusses US humanitarian assistance to the DPRK though the World Food Program, noting problems in meeting international standards for WFP distribution as well as attempts to improve transparency, monitoring, and access in the DPRK. It also discusses assistance given in response to the April 2004 Ryongchon blast and the April 2005 Bird Flu Outbreak.

Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director, complied this summary of recent events and analysis of the DPRK’s nuclear capability following the testimony from Vice Admiral Lowell F. Jacoby that North Korea has the capacity to arm their missiles with a nuclear device and his political assessment that it was unlikely that North Korea would be willing to surrender or trade away its full nuclear capacity.

The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
released this report to the President of the United States regarding US
intelligence assessments regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Tony Banbury, WFP Regional Director for Asia, said: “There were three main themes that emerged in my mind from this trip. The first is that the people in the DPRK are still in great need of food aid ? The second main theme I’d like to share with you is that the situation, in terms of the amount of WFP food aid going into the country these past several months, has been very good?. The last issue that is very important to touch upon is the issue of monitoring, and WFP’s operating conditions?. they [the DPRK government] started putting more limits, as of September of last year, on our operating conditions, on our monitoring.”

James D. Seymour, is a research scholar at Columbia University and the coauthor of New Ghosts, Old Ghosts. Prisons and Labor Reform Camps in China, writes: “In the wake of the North Korean famine, which began in 1995, hundreds of thousands of people fled to northeast China? They face two main problems. First is the mistreatment they sometimes receive? Secondly, Chinese authorities take the position, at least implicitly, that their obligation to return these people to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea supersedes any obligations they would have under the international human rights covenants and refugee conventions.”

Young-Sun Lee, Professor of Economics at Yonsei University, and Deok Ryong Yoon, research fellow at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KEIP), write: “To make sure that North Korea does not return to its past state, more people must continue to show interest in the market system development in the North. Investment in various forms will help enlarge the basement for international cooperation as well.”