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SLUG: 3-486 Hunter NOKOR
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DATE=1/14/03 TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT TITLE=HUNTER NOKOR NUMBER=3-486 BYLINE=KENT KLEIN DATELINE=WASHINGTON INTERNET= ///// AVAILABLE IN DALET UNDER SOD/ENGLISH NEWS NOW INTERVIEWS IN THE FOLDER FOR TODAY OR YESTERDAY. ///// INTRO: Diplomatic efforts are continuing in hopes of finding a peaceful settlement of the nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States. Helen-Louise Hunter is a former C-I-A intelligence officer in East Asia, and has written a book titled "Kim Il-Sung's North Korea". She tells V-O-A's Kent Klein she sees the North's tough talk as an act of desperation, and she's optimistic the situation will be resolved peacefully. MS. HUNTER: North Korea has issued the threat that if the U.N. were to engage in economic sanctions it would declare it an act of war. I think that is an example of North Korean bluffing. The last thing that North Korea has wanted for decades now has been a war with the U.S. or South Korea. And I think it has always been desperately afraid of that. I think it is still desperately afraid of that. And that's the reason it has always had to give 25-percent of its GNP to the military. I don't really think that that is a choice that Kim Il Sung first, and then Kim Jong-Il, really wanted to make. And people criticize the North Korean regime for devoting so much money to defense when its people are starving, but I think it has always felt the absolute need to do that, it is so paranoid and so afraid of an attack. I think there is no trust on either side -- there has been no trust -- but I have said for years that I did not think that there will be another war in Korea. I don't think either side is willing to start that. MR. KLEIN: What is Pyongyang trying to accomplish with all this tough talk, then? MS. HUNTER: The timing of this, I think, is really primarily suggested by its own desperate situation. Its factories are producing, at best, at 20 percent. There is no electricity, no heating of people's homes at night. The transportation system isn't working. The agricultural production has fallen way, way down. And this situation, of course, was compounded by two acts that the U.S. took in the last several months. One was to cut off the shipments of fuel that we were sending under the 1994 Agreed Framework. And two, we stopped our humanitarian aid about two months ago. And we are not the first to do that. So, he needs food. He needs fuel. He is desperately looking for good relations with the U.S. And instead, what has happened in the last several months have been complete hopelessness, it would seem, from North Korea's point of view, toward getting any improvement in relations with the U.S. And then compounded with that has been President Bush's hard-line military stance in linking it in the axis of evil. And so they are very, very fearful. And that has prompted this resort to the nuclear lever that they have. And it is truly the only thing that the North Koreans have. MR. KLEIN: So, how can this situation be defused without rewarding North Korea for this kind of behavior? MS. HUNTER: I don't think we should reward it for its bad behavior. And President Bush has made that clear. But I do think that the North Koreans want a nonaggression pact, a written guarantee, some sort of formal guarantee, that we won't invade or attack. And I do not think that our giving them that kind of a pledge of nonaggression would be rewarding them for bad acts -- that in particular. And I kind of compare it to the Cuban missile crisis situation, where we did in fact offer a nonaggression pledge to Castro in return for the Soviets removing the missiles. I am very hopeful. I think there is light at the end of the tunnel. I think the situation can and will be defused, probably more quickly than you would think, in the way the Cuban missile crisis was defused really with a couple of phone calls. It will all be handled very quickly, very quietly, behind the scenes. OUTRO: Helen-Louise Hunter is a former C-I-A intelligence officer in East Asia, and has written a book titled "Kim Il-Sung's North Korea". NEB/KK/RAE |
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