Key step forward on North Korea

Agreement on funds frozen by US paves way for North Korean shutdown of its nuclear program.

from the April 12, 2007 edition

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Mr. Richardson, talking Wednesday about his visit to Pyongyang several hours after crossing the line from North to South Korea, appeared anxious to give an impression of bluntness and firmness in response to North Korean official comments about going a month beyond the Saturday deadline set in the six-party agreement of February 13.

"I believe that is too much time," he said, recounting one of several meetings with North Koreans. "You don't need 30 days to shut down a reactor."

Richardson noted that the North has said it will admit nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency within a day of receiving the frozen funds.

The US Treasury Department removed all barriers to the recovery by North Korea of the $25 million that had been frozen in Banco Delta Asia in Macau. Two years ago, the Treasury Department said that North Korea had been using the bank as a conduit for $100 "supernotes" counterfeited in Pyongyang and decreed that no firm doing business with Banco Delta Asia could do business in the US.

As of either Wednesday night or Thursday morning, according to the Treasury Department, North Korean agents could withdraw from their accounts in the bank. In return, US officials said that they expect North Korea to make good on its side of the bargain. As Richardson put it, "Now the ball's in North Korea's court to take the next significant step."

The North may not move quickly

How quickly North Korea moves, though, is far from certain. In his four days in Pyongyang, leading a delegation that included Victor Cha, top White House adviser on Asia, Richardson had the impression that all North Korea awaited was the means to recover its money.

But other experts on North Korea say that the US can expect further tricks and delays from Pyongyang as efforts proceed to successfully denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

"Will North Korea continue to be obstreperous and hold out for payoffs every step of the way to denuclearization? The answer is absolutely yes," says Ken Lieberthal, an Asia expert at the University of Michigan. "They are very astute at maximizing the benefits from a very weak position, so you can count on it."

Mr. Lieberthal, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton White House, says the US is in a worse bargaining position than it was in 2000 because the Bush administration sidelined the "agreed framework" that had been reached with Pyongyang in favor of a no-negotiations stance. That approach was based on intelligence that said the North had a parallel secret uranium-enrichment program – intelligence that Lieberthal says turned out to be wrong.

"So what we are back to six years later is the agreed framework-minus," he says. "Instead of enough plutonium [from Yongbyon] for one or two bombs, the North Koreans have now tested a weapon and probably have enough plutonium for eight to 10 more weapons."

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