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Mixed Aug 7th 2002 From The Economist Global Agenda At a ceremony in North Korea, concrete has been poured into the foundations of a nuclear-power plant, marking a symbolic start to the construction of a long-delayed international project. The ceremony comes as North Korea seems to be engaged in one of its periodic efforts to break out of diplomatic isolation Reuters The outgoing Mr Paek THE concrete-pouring ceremony highlights just how far behind schedule the nuclear project has fallen. When it was negotiated in 1994, the original target date for commissioning the two light-water nuclear reactors was 2003. The end of the decade is now the earliest realistic deadline, and there are still many hurdles in the way of its completion. But this week's ceremony has taken on extra significance at a time when North Korea is engaged in unusually active diplomacy. Under the 1994 agreement, America, Japan and South Korea offered to provide fuel oil and the nuclear reactors, in return for North Korea's verifiably suspending its nuclear-weapons programme, and the mothballing of its graphite reactors, which would produce far more weapons-grade material than the light-water replacements. But all along, the project has been bogged down in wrangles over the sequence in which each side should meet its commitments. Sensitive technology will not be transferred until North Korea opens its other nuclear facilities to international inspection. Its failure to do so could still wreck the whole project and provoke a crisis. At the ceremony, Jack Pritchard, America's envoy on Korean affairs, called on North Korea to start meeting its commitments. The recent flurry of diplomatic activity gives some grounds for cautious optimism that Pyongyang does want to break out of its isolation. A visit by a South Korean government delegation from August 2nd-5th to the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang agreed on a timetable for ministerial talks. These will be held next week, to set about reviving stalled confidence-building measures, such as reunions between separated family members and the reopening of a cross-border railway. North Korea also agreed to send a team to the Asian Games, to be held in the South Korean city of Busan in September and October. This followed another breakthrough earlier last week—a short informal encounter between North Korea’s foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, and Colin Powell, the American secretary of state. The meeting, held on Wednesday July 31st in the margins of a meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Brunei, marked much the highest-level contact between the two countries since the election of President George Bush. It resulted from an offer by North Korea, conveyed through the Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, to open talks with
both America and Japan “without any preliminary conditions”. North Korea, it seems, is trying to come out of its shell. Certainly, North Korea has reason enough to want to. Just last week, a report from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) highlighted the dire predicament into which North Korea’s political and economic has isolation dragged its people. After many years of widespread food shortages, North Korea is still in desperate need of foreign help. On August 5th, a senior UN official called for a marked improvement in North Korean co-operation if the aid programme is to continue. Also, even in the enclosed world of Pyongyang, North Korea’s leaders cannot have been deaf to the bellicose noises coming out of Washington, DC. Although these are largely directed at Iraq, North Korea (along with Iran) was also cited by Mr Bush in January as part of an “axis of evil”, because it, too, is known to have tried to acquire weapons of mass destruction and to have engaged in terrorism outside its borders. North Korea, as an exporter of missile technology, also poses a weapons-proliferation problem in its own right. That is an important reason why Mr Powell was receptive to North Korea’s offer of a handshake and chat. Another is the risk of conflict between the two Koreas themselves. The Korean war ended in 1953 with a ceasefire rather than a peace agreement, and with hundreds of thousands of soldiers on either side of the border, and some 37,000 American troops in South Korea. The peninsula remains one of the world’s most dangerous hotspots. When it took office, the Bush administration, sceptical about the friendly gestures towards Pyongyang made by President Bill Clinton and by South Korea under the “sunshine policy” of its president, Kim Dae-jung, put relations with North Korea on hold during a four-month review. But in June last year, Mr Bush announced he was ready for “serious discussions” and wanted “improved implementation” of the nuclear agreement. He also said he was willing to resume talks on North Korea’s missile exports. Pyongyang has demanded compensation for any promise...