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Analysis: Pyongyang's Deal

Council on Foreign Relations

June 27, 2008
Author: Jayshree Bajoria

In a significant move in North Korea's denuclearization process, Pyongyang turned in (Xinhua) a long overdue account of its nuclear program to Chinese officials. The Bush administration immediately responded by lifting the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and notifying Congress of its intention to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in the next forty-five days. Yet critics of the declaration say the report, which only details plutonium-based materials and facilities, falls short on three important counts:

• It does not include details of suspected uranium enrichment;
• It does not address Pyongyang's proliferation activities to countries like Syria and Libya;
• It fails to give an account of the nuclear weapons already produced.

The exchange this week amounts to far less than the Bush administration's goals when it originally agreed to this formula during the Six-Party Talks. But after a compromise in April, the United States appears to have softened its stance on the issue amid criticisms of capitulating to Pyongyang. That has brought mixed reactions domestically, though some Democrats who have been highly critical of the pace of Bush diplomacy toward North Korea took solace in what they saw as a snub of the hard-liners (NYT) who drove policy for much of Bush's tenure.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, argues the policy will get Kim Jong-Il's regime out of the plutonium-making business, which she calls "by far its largest nuclear effort." Rice acknowledges the real challenge ahead is verification of the accuracy and completeness of declaration, and says the sanctions will be reimposed if North Korea is found to have cheated. President Bush also sought to silence hard-liners, saying lifting sanctions off North Korea "will have little impact on North Korea's financial and diplomatic isolation."

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.