New phase as N. Korea shuts down reactor

International observers are monitoring the step. Six-party talks on the North's nuclear program resume in Beijing on Wednesday.

from the July 16, 2007 edition

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Chun Yong Woo, South Korea's nuclear envoy, has said the talks in Beijing will be "critical." Christopher Hill, the US nuclear envoy, meeting Mr. Chun in Seoul before Beijing, has repeatedly demanded a complete list of North Korea's nuclear inventory, saying North Korea has to make clear what it's done to develop warheads with highly enriched uranium.

A team of inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency has arrived in Pyongyang to monitor the shutdown. The last inspectors were expelled at the end of 2002 after the breakdown of the 1994 Geneva framework agreement under which North Korea had shut down the reactor in return for the promise of twin light-water nuclear energy reactors.

Verification may take a couple of weeks but is not expected to present serious problems. Intelligence analysts in Seoul have said the reactor is outdated and worn out. "They were planning to shut it down anyway," says one US analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "That's not the problem."

Meanwhile, the North has its demands. Kim Myong Gil, minister at the North's UN mission, called for the US and Japan to end "hostile policies." "After the shutdown, then we will discuss the economic sanctions lifting and removal from the terrorism list," Mr. Kim said.

Other key issues, say Korean analysts, will be a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War, replacing the armistice signed in 1953.

"They will talk about peace talks," says Kim Tae Woo at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses. "Next they will talk about withdrawal of US forces" – which now total 29,000 troops.

Mr. Kim sees the North's moves as based in part on trying to influence the outcome of the South Korean presidential election in December. North Korea has repeatedly denounced conservative candidates. Both North and South Korea, he notes, are pursuing an inter-Korean summit between President Roh Moo Hyun and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il.

It was the June 2000 summit between Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, and Kim Jong Il that led to significant rapprochement, including reunions of 14,000 members of some 10 million families divided by the Korean War.

Suh Jae Jin, of the Korea Institute of National Unification, predicts that North Korea will demand the light-water energy reactors that were to have been built under terms of the 1994 agreement.

"The major problem in North Korea is shortage of electric power," he says. The February agreement calls for shipment of another 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil but says nothing about the reactors. "North Korea will raise the price as high as possible. In the next US administration, North Korea will start negotiations again."

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