Guest columnist
North Korea might want to copy Libya's move

By Victor D. Cha
Special to The Times

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The six-party talks just concluded in Bei-jing have demonstrated little progress in resolving the 16-month crisis over North Korea's nuclear-weapons programs.

For the causal observer, this underwhelming outcome may not make sense. If the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia agree that a nuclear North Korea is unacceptable, and North Korea appears willing to freeze its program in return for help from the outside world, then a deal should be workable, yes?

Well, not exactly. Pyongyang's proposal to freeze its program in return for food, fuel and security from the world constitutes the equivalent of a burglar selling back the stolen goods taken from your house, and not admitting that he committed the crime.

The origins of the current crisis are exactly what the reclusive regime has been glossing over in the recently concluded talks — the existence of a second nuclear program using uranium enrichment (HEU). This HEU program constituted a clear violation of an earlier 1994 nonproliferation agreement with the United States to freeze the North's plutonium-based nuclear-weapons program.

After the revelations of this second program in October 2002, the North Koreans denuded nonproliferation-verification measures in the 1994 agreement and moved forward with the reprocessing of atomic bomb-grade plutonium at the Yongbyon nuclear facilities. In this context, Pyongyang's current proposal for a "freeze" while denying the existence of the second program is a horse, as Secretary of State Colin Powell rightly observed, that the United States is not going to buy twice.

Critics would respond that the North's niggardly negotiating position reflects the insecurities of a small, isolated regime, devoid of Cold War patrons. These optimists would point to the market-liberalization measures taken since July 2002 as evidence that one of the last socialist pariah states has finally turned to capitalism, and now seeks to trade its nukes for economic bennies from the outside world.

Fixating on the economic reforms, however, risks conflating the North's economic actions with security preferences. Sure, Pyongyang wants to get rich, but does this mean it also wants to give up its nukes? If Pyongyang really wanted to trade, then it should admit to an HEU program that third-party suppliers in Pakistan have already confirmed.

There is no logical link between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) desires for economic reform and a change in its security intentions. Indeed, the mercurial North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il may want both — economic reforms and ramping up of national power through nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Such a goal would be fully consistent with the North Korean concept of "rich nation, strong army" (kangsong taeguk).

The most peaceful path out of this deadlock is for North Korea to disclose and dismantle all of its weapons of mass destruction verifiably. Once this can be confirmed, Pyongyang will be promised the food, fuel and security it so badly wants.

In this regard, the model for avoiding a nuclear North Korea is not Iraq but Libya. The Gadhafi regime decided that its prolonged pariah status under international economic sanctions was a losing proposition. Most important, it calculated that pursuing a WMD program did not make the regime more secure, but ultimately less secure. Hence, the face-saving way out was a deal to divulge its WMD holdings, after which the benefits would flow.

Critics argue that the Libya and North Korea cases are incomparable. There are differences, but there is much that is similar. Both had very hostile relations with the United States. Libya was a more active and more recent sponsor of terrorism than North Korea. The United States actually carried out military strikes in Libya (but not North Korea). Although North Korea is further along in its WMD programs, the key point is that both sought nukes initially for the purpose of keeping them, until Libya saw the light.

Finally, both leaders are antithetical to U.S. values, but Libya's disarmament deal, if concluded successfully, promises integration with the world without a change of regime in Tripoli (something Pyongyang must watch with great interest).

Libya's case is different, but arguably it presents a harder case than North Korea. Diplomacy is not about cookie-cutter models but the art of the possible among unlike cases.

Victor D. Cha holds the D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in Asian Studies and Government at Georgetown University. He and David C. Kang spoke at the University of Washington last night at an event co-hosted by the World Affairs Council, University Bookstore and the UW Korea Studies Program.

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