North Korea Pursuing Mutually Exclusive Goals, Kelly Says
(Assistant Secretary's remarks to Senate Foreign Relations Committee) (2810)
North Korea can't have nuclear weapons and expect to end its
international isolation, says Assistant Secretary of State for East
Asian and Pacific Affairs James A. Kelly.
"Over the past ten years, Pyongyang has been in pursuit of two
mutually exclusive goals," Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee March 12.
The first goal of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is
nuclear weapons, he said.
The communist regime's second goal is "redefining its place in the
world community -- and, incidentally its access to international
largesse -- by broadening its diplomatic and foreign economic
relations."
The DPRK "needs to accept that it cannot do both," he said in prepared
testimony.
So far, North Korea has chosen to pursue nuclear weapons development
and to escalate international tensions even as it demands commitments
and dialogue, the assistant secretary said.
"North Korean provocations are disturbing, but they cannot be
permitted to yield gains to North Korea," Kelly said.
"We must, in dealing with North Korea, be mindful that other would-be
nuclear aspirants are watching," Kelly cautioned, "If North Korea
gains from its violations, others may conclude that the violation
route is cost free."
Deterrence, he added, "would be undermined and our nonproliferation
efforts -- more critical now than ever -- would be grossly
jeopardized."
The international community, Kelly said, "must, and indeed is,
impressing on the North that it is in its own best interest to end its
nuclear arms program."
The United States, he added, is open to ideas about the format for a
multilateral solution.
"One idea is for the Permanent Five -- the U.S., China, France, Great
Britain and Russia -- to meet together with the Republic of Korea,
Japan, the EU (European Union), and Australia. Others have suggested
other ideas, such as six-party talks: North and South Korea, the U.S.,
the PRC (People's Republic of China), Japan, and Russia," he said.
He reiterated President Bush's commitment to finding a peaceful,
diplomatic solution with North Korea and said the United States will
continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of North
Korea. "We will not use food as a weapon," he said.
Kelly noted that the Bush administration recently announced an initial
contribution of 40,000 tons of food aid to North Korea through the
World Food Program and is prepared to contribute as much as 60,000
tons more.
The Pyongyang regime has indicated it wanted to transform its
relations with the United States, South Korea and Japan, he observed.
"North Korea has the ability to achieve such a transformation," he
said, "The question is whether it has the will to do so."
For full engagement with the United States and the international
community, North Korea must live up to its existing obligations and
eliminate its nuclear weapons program in "a verifiable and
irreversible manner," Kelly said.
North Korea, he added, "will need to change its behavior on human
rights, address the issues underlying its appearance on the State
Department list of states sponsoring terrorism, eliminate its illegal
weapons of mass destruction programs, cease the proliferation of
missiles and missile-related technology, and adopt a less provocative
conventional force disposition."
Following is the text of Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian
and Pacific Affairs James A. Kelly as prepared for delivery before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 12:
(begin text)
Prepared Statement of James. A. Kelly
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
"Regional Implications of the Changing Nuclear Equation on the Korean
Peninsula"
12 March 2002
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, it is an honor and a
privilege to appear before you today to discuss a vitally important
issue, the regional implications of the changing nuclear equation on
the Korean Peninsula.
THE PROBLEM
Let me begin by recapping the problem.
For many years, North Korea's nuclear weapons program has been of
concern to the international community.
In 1993, North Korea provoked a very serious situation on the
Peninsula with its announced withdrawal from the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, setting in motion a crisis-and-negotiation
scenario that culminated in the 1994 Agreed Framework.
While North Korea adhered to the Agreed Framework "freeze" on its
declared plutonium production facilities at Yongbyon, last summer it
became apparent that the North had been pursuing for several years
another track covertly to acquire nuclear weapons, a uranium
enrichment program.
Our discovery of this program and North Korea's refusal even after
acknowledging it to us, to dismantle it, forced us to set aside a
policy we had hoped would put us on a path towards resolving all of
our concerns with North Korea -- a path that would have offered North
Korea an improved relationship with the United States and
participation in the international community, with the benefits and
responsibilities conferred by membership in the international
community.
Instead of undoing its violations of existing agreements with the U.S.
and South Korea, as well as of the NPT and IAEA Safeguards agreement,
the North has escalated the situation, first by expelling IAEA
inspectors, then announcing its withdrawal from the NPT.
More recently, the North restarted its reactor at Yongbyon, conducted
test firings of a developmental cruise missile, and intercepted an
unarmed U.S. aircraft operating in international airspace with four
armed North Korean fighter aircraft.
Each of these North Korean provocations is designed to blackmail the
United States and to intimidate our friends and allies into pushing
the United States into a bilateral dialogue with the North -- giving
the North what it wants, and on its terms. What the North wants is
acceptance by us that North Korea's nuclear weapons are somehow only a
matter for the DPRK and the U.S. This may be tempting to some nations.
But it is not true.
WHY A MULTILATERAL APPROACH
We tried the bilateral approach ten years ago, by negotiating the
U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework.
We agreed to organize an international consortium to provide the light
water reactor project and to finance heavy fuel oil shipments, in
exchange for the freezing and eventual dismantling of the North's
graphite-moderated nuclear program. Our agreement also set aside North
Korea's obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 1993 and 1994, and over the past decade, we made a number of
statements relating to North Korea's security.
And we found the North could not be trusted.
This time, a new and more comprehensive approach is required.
The stakes are simply too high.
North Korea's programs for nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver
them at increasingly longer range, pose a serious regional and a
global threat.
A nuclear North Korea could change the face of Northeast Asia --
undermining the security and stability that have underwritten the
region's economic vitality and prosperity, and possibly triggering a
nuclear arms race that would end prospects for a lasting peace and
settlement on the Korean Peninsula.
The stakes are no less compelling for the international community,
which would face the first-ever withdrawal from among the 190
signatories to the NPT, dealing a serious blow to an institution that
may be even more relevant and necessary today than ever in its
history.
And an economically desperate North Korean regime might sell fissile
material or nuclear arms abroad.
Make no mistake, we believe we can still achieve, through peaceful
diplomacy, a verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea's nuclear
weapons programs.
However, to achieve a lasting resolution, this time, the international
community, particularly North Korea's neighbors, must be involved.
While the Agreed Framework succeeded in freezing the North's declared
nuclear weapons program for eight years, it was only a partial
solution of limited duration. That is no longer an option.
That is why we are insisting on a multilateral approach, to ensure
that the consequences to North Korea of violating its commitments will
deny them any benefits to their non-compliance.
It was easier for North Korea to abrogate its commitments to the
United States under the Agreed Framework, thinking it would risk the
condemnation of a single country.
In fact, the past six months have shown that the international
community is united in its desire to see a nuclear-weapons free Korean
Peninsula. North Korea has no support in its policies as reflected in
the 35-0-0 and 33-0-2 IAEA votes.
If our starting point for a resolution is a multilateral framework,
therefore, we believe that this time, it will not be so easy for North
Korea, which seeks not only economic aid, but also international
recognition, to turn its back on all of its immediate neighbors and
still expect to receive their much-needed munificence.
This would further North Korea's own isolation with an even more
terrible price to be paid by its people, who are already living in
abject poverty and face inhumane political and economic conditions.
States cannot undertake this task alone. International institutions,
particularly the International Atomic Energy Agency and the UN
Security Council, will have an equally crucial role to play.
Thus, as Secretary Powell explained to our friends and allies in
Northeast Asia when he visited the region last month, we are moving
forward with plans for multilateral rather than bilateral talks to
resolve this issue.
But the rubber hits the road when we are faced with violations of
those agreements and commitments.
Moreover, it is important to underscore that multilateral support for
such regimes as reflected in the NPT is critical.
We must, in dealing with North Korea, be mindful that other would-be
nuclear aspirants are watching. If North Korea gains from its
violations, others may conclude that the violation route is cost free.
Deterrence would be undermined and our nonproliferation efforts --
more critical now than ever -- would be grossly jeopardized.
REGIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Achieving a multilateral resolution to North Korea's nuclear weapons
program will take time. The key states in Northeast Asia -- South
Korea, Japan, China and Russia -- all share the common goal of seeking
a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. However, each also has a unique
historical experience with North Korea and very distinct concerns.
Japan has suffered a legacy of North Korean abductions of innocent
Japanese civilians, as well as the threat posed by North Korea's
missile program. The cool admission of kidnappings from the Japanese
home islands followed by untimely deaths stunned many Japanese.
For China, a nuclear North Korea raises the specter of a regional arms
race and a neighbor with a very unstable economic backdrop to its
nuclear ambitions -- and a potentially huge burden on Chinese
resources.
Russia is likewise concerned about a regional nuclear arms race and
instability on its far eastern border.
And, the people of South Korea want national reconciliation, yet worry
about the economic costs and burdens that this could impose.
As the foregoing should make clear, all of North Korea's immediate
neighbors feel they have a stake in the outcome of the diplomatic
process and want to be consulted and engaged in achieving a
resolution.
For that reason, all of them support the principle of multilateral
dialogue.
Indeed, since the Secretary's trip to the region last month, our
discussions with Japan, South Korea, China and others have been
focused on the specific modalities of a multilateral approach, rather
than its merits.
What I would like the committee to understand, however, is that in
response to North Korean demands for bilateral US-DPRK dialogue, they
have asked that we also address DPRK concerns directly.
We have told our partners that we will do so -- but in a multilateral
context. This time, we need a different approach. This time, we cannot
run the risk of another partial solution.
The process for achieving a durable resolution requires patience. It
is essential that North Korea not reprocess its spent nuclear fuel
into plutonium. That could produce significant plutonium within six
months. But the HEU alternate capability is not so far behind.
Resolution is not just a matter of getting the North to forswear its
nuclear weapons ambitions, but also to accept a reliable, intrusive
verification regime, including declaration, inspection, and
irreversible and verifiable elimination.
North Korea has so far rejected a multilateral approach, but we do not
believe this is its last word or its final position.
Members of the Committee will recall that last year, North Korea
loudly refused our proposal for comprehensive talks until finally
convinced to follow through on that offer by Japan, South Korea, and
China. We then had to shelve our talks with the discovery of the
clandestine HEU program, of course. This time our friends and allies
have again begun working on North Korea. Indeed, as the South Korean
Foreign Ministry noted on March 7, "North Korea could find some
benefits from multilateral dialogue which bilateral dialogue cannot
provide."
In the end, though, North Korea will have to make a choice. Over the
past ten years, Pyongyang has been in pursuit of two mutually
exclusive goals. The first is nuclear weapons. The second is
redefining its place in the world community -- and, incidentally its
access to international largesse -- by broadening its diplomatic and
foreign economic relations.
The DPRK needs to accept that it cannot do both.
Unfortunately, North Korea's choice to date has been to proceed with
nuclear weapons development and to escalate international tensions,
while demanding commitments and dialogue.
North Korean provocations are disturbing, but they cannot be permitted
to yield gains to North Korea.
The international community must, and indeed is, impressing on the
North that it is in its own best interest to end its nuclear arms
program.
The North must understand that to choose the path of nuclear weapons
will only guarantee further isolation and eventual decline, if not
self-generated disaster.
The United States is open to ideas about the format for a multilateral
solution.
One idea is for the Permanent Five -- the U.S., China, France, Great
Britain and Russia -- to meet together with the Republic of Korea,
Japan, the EU, and Australia. Others have suggested other ideas, such
as six-party talks: North and South Korea, the U.S., the PRC, Japan,
and Russia.
President Bush has repeatedly said we seek a peaceful, diplomatic
solution with North Korea, even though he has taken no option off the
table.
The President has also stressed that we will continue to provide
humanitarian assistance to the people of North Korea and that we will
not use food as a weapon.
We recently announced an initial contribution of 40,000 tons of food
aid to North Korea through the World Food Program, and we are prepared
to contribute as much as 60,000 tons more, based on demonstrated need
in North Korea, competing needs elsewhere, and donors' ability to
access all vulnerable groups and monitor distribution of the food.
In closing, I would note that in the past, North Korea has indicated
it wanted to transform its relations with the United States, South
Korea and Japan.
North Korea has the ability to achieve such a transformation.
The question is whether it has the will to do so. The DPRK will need
to address the concerns of the international community.
First, North Korea must turn from nuclear weapons and verifiably
eliminate its nuclear programs.
President Bush has said he would be willing to reconsider a bold
approach with North Korea, which would include economic and political
steps to improve the lives of the North Korean people and to move our
relationship with that country towards normalcy, once the North
dismantles its nuclear weapons program and addresses our long-standing
concerns.
While we will not dole out "rewards" to convince North Korea to live
up to its existing obligations, we and the international community as
a whole remain prepared to pursue a comprehensive dialogue about a
fundamentally different relationship with that country, once it
eliminates its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and
irreversible manner and comes into compliance with its international
obligations.
Of course, for full engagement, North Korea will need to change its
behavior on human rights, address the issues underlying its appearance
on the State Department list of states sponsoring terrorism, eliminate
its illegal weapons of mass destruction programs, cease the
proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopt a
less provocative conventional force disposition.
As I said, we remain confidant that diplomacy can work -- and that
there will be a verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea's
nuclear program.
To that end, the United States is intensifying its efforts with
friends and allies.
Thank you for this opportunity to discuss this important issue today
with you.
We will continue to work closely with the Congress as we seek a
multilateral, diplomatic solution with respect to North Korea.
(end text)
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