DATE=9/20/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUNDER
TITLE=U-S / NORTH KOREA
NUMBER=5-44286
BYLINE=JIM RANDLE
DATELINE=PENTAGON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Some experts in Asian politics and Members of
Congress say they think Washington made a mistake in
offering to drop economic sanctions against North
Korea in exchange for a North Korean promise to stop
missile tests. But V-O-A's Jim Randle reports, other
analysts say the only way to promote change in North
Korea is to have more contacts with the isolated,
impoverished, Communist regime.
Text: North Korea alarmed Japan, South Korea, and the
United States when it fired a ballistic missile across
Japan that traveled far out into the Pacific last
year. A recent Central Intelligence Agency report
said Pyongyang was poised to fire an even more
powerful weapon `at any time.' The report said the
new missile could probably carry a crude nuclear
weapon as far as the U-S states of Alaska or Hawaii.
President Clinton's Special Advisor on North Korea,
former Defense Secretary William Perry, has been
talking to North Korea and reviewing U-S policy toward
Pyongyang for months. He says his new agreement is a
wise and careful step toward normalizing diplomatic
and trade relations between the two nations.
But Charles Horner, of the Hudson Institute, a private
group that researches strategic issues, says there is
reason to be `highly skeptical' of this deal because
Pyongyang may have violated an earlier agreement to
stop nuclear weapons development.
Mr. Horner says North Korea is the regime that kept
pouring resources into weapons development even during
a famine that killed thousands of North Korean
citizens. He says such habitually belligerent leaders
will not give up weapons lightly.
/// Horner Act //
And yet we find that even a period of severe
domestic problems, where there have been famine
and reports of horrendous losses to famine and
all kinds of incapacities there with people
fleeing the country, even to China, that the
North Korean regime continues to be threatening
and hostile to its neighbors, not particularly
conciliatory. Latest round of problems with the
South Koreans, trying to disrupt what had been a
kind of de facto understanding of maritime
borders, threats to launch missile tests, things
of that kind. So we have to greet with some
skepticism claims that this particular charm is
going to be the one that works.
/// end act ///
The Cato Institute's Director of Defense studies, Ivan
Eland, says ending economic sanctions against North
Korea has the unfortunate effect of rewarding
Pyongyang for developing missiles. But he says the
sanctions policy that the deal ends was an even bigger
mistake.
/// Eland act ///
We should have pulled (ended) the sanctions a
long time ago. To try to get as much Western
influence into Korea as we possibly can. And we
are doing the opposite. We are isolating them
and we are making it easier for them to shut
their people off from Western ideas.
/// end act ///
The University of Georgia's Professor Han Park is an
expert in Korean politics and says the deal dropping
sanctions in exchange for ending missile tests is a
`terrific idea.' He says it gives Pyongyang an
alternative to developing, building, and exporting
missiles.
/// Park Act ///
In fact, (missile exports are) the only source
of foreign currency earning. And given the
economy, especially, in the area of food
shortages, and medical supply shortages. It is
very important for them (the North Koreans) to
continuously to generate foreign currency. They
don't have any other avenue. Not producing, not
proliferating these weapons, especially
missiles, would mean that they would have to
suffer economically.
/// end act ///
Professor Park says greater contacts with North Korea
are the only way of inducing any reform or change in
the world's most isolated nation. He says ending some
sanctions is a step in the right direction. (Signed).
NEB/JR/LTD/JP
20-Sep-1999 12:18 PM EDT (20-Sep-1999 1618 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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