Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=1/14/02

TYPE=INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

TITLE=CHA NOKOR

NUMBER=3-487

BYLINE=REBECCA WARD

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

INTERNET=

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INTRO: The Bush administration says North Korea can expect a resumption of U-S energy assistance, but only if it dismantles its nuclear development operation. Washington says it would be willing to address North Korea's acute fuel shortages if Pyongyang will agree to re-admit international inspectors and comply with previous nuclear safeguards agreements.

Earlier in the day, North Korea's official Communist Party newspaper warned the country would strike back with force if the United States launched a military strike. Official radio accused Washington of using the North Korean nuclear issue as an excuse to invade.

Victor Cha is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University here in Washington. He tells News Now's Rebecca Ward that Pyongyang's rhetoric is part of its strategy for getting what it wants.

MR. CHA: What the North Koreans are engaged in is coercive bargaining, as I've termed it over the years. That is, essentially they want to create a crisis and try to work down from that crisis for things that they want from the United States. Which, according to them, includes a nonaggression pact and a variety of other economic things.

MS. WARD: Is North Korea's timing coincidental or are they looking at the United States being focused on Iraq and on Afghanistan, and a war on terrorism?

MR. CHA: The extent to which this is part of a comprehensive strategy in which the North Koreans are assessing U.S. positions elsewhere in the world is not what I think is going on here. I think, from the U.S. perspective, there clearly are a lot of things going on in the Middle East and in Central Asia, but I don't think that this necessarily means that they cannot focus on North Korea at the same time.

I think, of anyplace where there has been a shortage of attention because of the number of areas in which the U.S. is now involved, it is actually with regard to the alliance with South Korea. Because what we saw, particularly during the last election in South Korea in December, was a North Korea that was being more threatening and a South Korean population that appeared to be protesting against the United States. And that is not a particularly good picture to anybody who looked at this alliance over the past 50 years.

MS. WARD: You bring up a good point. Are South Koreans, the citizenship I mean, the average person on the street, are they unaware of the possible dangers of North Korea as opposed to how they felt 20 years ago?

MR. CHA: In many ways, I think a lot of the coverage of this has gotten it slightly wrong, in the sense that there certainly appeared to be a lot of protests going on in South Korea, and you had these images of protesters throwing Molotov cocktails at the U.S. bases. But I think if you polled the population, as a number of media outlets in Korea did at the beginning of the new year, there is a very sober understanding of the threat that North Korea poses, again, contrary to what the images might portray.

For example, the polls that I've seen show that as high as 47-percent of the South Korean population believe that North Korea is trying to get nuclear weapons. And they see that as threatening. In addition, other polls show that nearly 40-percent of the South Korean population believe that if engagement doesn't work with North Korea to get them to get rid of this program, then other perhaps more forceful measures need to be taken. So, again, I think there is a big difference between the images that we see and the reality on the ground.

MS. WARD: As far as negotiations go, will North Korea back off from some of its rhetoric? Is it going to allow international monitors in to look at its nuclear facilities if it hasn't gotten what it wants from the United States, starting with fuel shipments?

MR. CHA: The notion that they should be getting something to return to an agreement that they've already violated, in which they were getting something already, to me is sort of looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope, if you will. What is very clear I think is a consensus among Seoul, Tokyo, Washington, and even Beijing and Moscow, that there are outstanding violations that need to be addressed. And then, once they are addressed, all the countries in the region can then quibble among themselves over what sort of incentives to provide North Korea. But the point is that that sort of quibbling will all be in North Korean interests once they come back into compliance. And the notion that they should expect something in return for simply coming back into compliance I think is a bit unrealistic.

MS. WARD: I am just wondering if North Korea thinks that way.

MR. CHA: Well, that's a good question, and nobody really knows. The sort of signals that come out of North Korea every day tell you two different things. On the one hand, they appear to be saying that all they need is a nonaggression pact to end all of this and to end their nuclear weapons program. On the other hand, they have threatened to turn the United States into a sea of fire. And you will often have those two statements in the very same breath. So, it is very difficult to understand what the calculus is.

OUTRO: Victor Cha is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington. He spoke with V-O-A's Rebecca Ward.

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