Seoul forges on with plan for security-nuclear deal

A Foreign Ministry official said yesterday that South Korea will propose to Washington a three-step plan to settle the North Korean nuclear issue that would include simultaneous assurances to be issued by the North and by the United States. He described it as a detailed version of a mechanism first raised by Seoul in meetings with Japanese and U.S. officials last month in Honolulu. U.S. officials said at the time they would study the plan.
The three countries’ deputy foreign ministers will discuss the North Korean nuclear problem today in Washington.
The Seoul official said its proposal would require North Korea to state its intention to drop its nuclear development program. The United States would indicate that it “would be willing to guarantee North Korea’s regime.” The simultaneous acknowledgement of both sides’ primary goals would be a way to jump-start further negotiations, the official said.
Another official added, in response to a question about the meaning of the term “guarantee North Korea’s regime,” that it meant not just recognizing the continuity of the country’s government but guaranteeing that Kim Jong-il would remain in power.
That, the official said, could include the offer of formal nonaggression assurances and the possibility of better relations at some time in the future.
In the second stage, the North and the United States would take specific steps to ease tensions, the official continued. North Korea would be required to return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and reseal its nuclear facilities in Yeongbyeon, including the nuclear reactor there and a reprocessing laboratory that could produce weapons-grade plutonium. The United States and other member countries of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, known as KEDO, would resume the supply of heavy fuel oil to the North. South Korea would expand its economic assistance to the North.
In the third stage, North Korea would begin to dismantle its nuclear facilities, with international inspectors watching, and the United States would provide diplomatic recognition and economic aid.
But shorter-term problems will also be discussed at the Washington meeting, including the possible suspension of work at the KEDO light-water nuclear power plant site in North Korea and whether the United Nations Security Council would reopen deliberations on the nuclear problem, the officials said.
Officials here yesterday refused to discuss an article in the New York Times that said American intelligence has discovered signs of a new suspected nuclear facility in North Korea. The newspaper, citing assessments that reportedly had been shared with Japanese and Korean officials, said the North may be trying to develop nuclear weapons small enough to fit in missile warheads.
And in an escalation of verbal threats against sanctions, North Korea’s military representative at Panmunjeom said yesterday in a statement that the North would consider any sanctions or naval or aerial blockade as a violation of the armistice agreement and take “ruthless retaliatory measures.”

by Oh Young-hwan