Special Reports

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.”

The following statement was broadcast over radio and television in the DPRK on February 10, 2005. We are distributing this text to NAPSNet readers in addition to the text of the KCNA statement of the same date [see: ndr10feb05.html] because a careful reading will show that this text is more strongly stated in some respects than the KCNA version. Pitched at a domestic audience, this statement suggests a higher degree of committal to non-participation in future six party talks and may not be rhetorical bluster or a tactical maneuver, as some (including US Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice) have suggested.

It also suggests that the DPRK leadership is now highly committed to nuclear weapons in terms of its domestic legitimacy and ideological framework, and that it now would be quite difficult to abandon this unifying theme after having announced it so loudly and clearly to its own population.

Jon Wolfsthal, Associate and Deputy Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), writes: “It is possible that North Korea can produce limited amounts of UF6, and the evidence of North Korea’s previous attempts to purchase uranium enrichment technology through the A.Q. Khan supply network seems credible. However, the link between Libya and North Korea appears tenuous, based on what is publicly known.”

Kajimura Tai’ichiro, an independent Japanese journalist, human rights activist, and historian, long resident in Berlin, writes: The South Korean media pronounced him [Song Du Yol] the biggest ever catch under the web of this anti-communist law. Yet at the same time his fate was seen as inseparable from that of this legislation, so that the moment when he is eventually found not guilty is likely also to be the moment when the life of the National Security Law comes to an end.

Decebmer 25, 2004 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an article called, “South Korea’s Nuclear Surprise” written by Nautilus Executive Director Peter Hayes, with Jungmin Kang, Richard Tanter, Li Bin, and Tatsujiro Suzuki. The article states, “the sequence of events suggests that the Additional Protocol’s new inspection provisions work. The effectiveness of environmental sampling […]

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, writes: it is not true, as alarmists on the right sometimes claim that South Korea is being taken down the path of socialism. Today’s young people have a dual mindset about North Korea: they are more accepting of dialogue with the regime but do not embrace the system. However, as moderates are being drowned out by the more vocal extremes, these subtle distinctions are being lost.

The Task Force on U.S. Korea Policy, co-sponsored by the Center for International Policy and the Center for East Asian Studies of the University of Chicago, writes: Given greater trust the United States would find it easier than in earlier years to negotiate an agreement with North Korea that would end its development of long-range missiles capable of delivering nuclear, chemical or biological weapons to U.S. territory. Similarly, Japan and South Korea would find it easier to negotiate agreements with Pyongyang that would head off the escalating competitive development of short-range and medium-range missiles.

The International Crisis Group, an independent, non-profit, multinational organization, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict, wrote: Talks with North Korea are never easy. There is some skepticism that Pyongyang will never accept a deal, however objectively reasonable. The only way to find out once and for all is to offer it one that at least all five other parties see as such. And that will require more being put on the table than has been the case so far.