|
North Korea¡¯s recently unfrozen funds in Macau¡¯s Banco Delta Asia are finally in the hands of North Korean authorities after a trip around the world. The funds were transferred from BDA to the Foreign Trade Bank of Korea, their final destination, by way of the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York, the Russian central bank in Moscow, and the Far East Commercial Bank in Vladivostok.
Following the resolution of the BDA issue, North Korea will at long last shut down its nuclear facilities under a Feb. 13 denuclearization deal. In return, it will get 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea, as well as 400,000 tons of rice that have been on hold. Once the six-party nuclear talks resume, they will focus on reporting to the IAEA and disablement of North Korea's nuclear program. A foreign ministers' meeting of the six nations will follow soon to discuss ways to establish peace on the Korean Peninsula.
Many challenges lying ahead on the long road to the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. Three in particular will cause some headaches.
The first is whether North Korea can engage in normal activities in the international financial system following the resolution of the BDA fund issue. North Korea could have withdrawn the US$25 million directly from BDA but obstinately insisted on having the money transferred out ? it wanted to regain the international credibility it had lost for crimes such as dollar counterfeiting and money laundering by taking advantage of the U.S. influence on the international financial system.
But credibility cannot be regained by a tactical maneuver at one stroke; it has to be accumulated slowly by responsible activities. The North can regain credibility only when it gives up its nuclear programs and stops committing crimes. It can return to the international financial system step by step only when it consults in good faith with the United States on normalizing relations.
The second challenge is how to define the reporting and disablement of the North Korean nuclear program, and to link these two concepts. If it really has the will to give up its nuclear arms program, North Korea must report all existing nuclear facilities, nuclear materials and nuclear weapons -- and that includes any uranium enrichment program it may have. Under Clause 4 of the Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea is supposed to report "all nuclear programs" and disable "nuclear facilities."
What if North Korea fails to report properly? There are two options: the other nations involved can deal with the issues as North Korea reports them one by one; or they can pressure it to make a complete report straight away. If they choose the first options, the countries concerned can pragmatically resolve little by little what is possible, but they will find out only at the last moment whether North Korea really has the will to give up its nuclear program. If they demand complete reporting immediately, they can find out early whether North Korea is ready for denuclearization. But in case North Korea resists, it will be difficult to disable the North's nuclear facilities. The matter needs close cooperation among the five other participating nations.
The third challenge is to prioritize the issues of the establishment of a peace framework and the resolution of the North's nuclear program. Some argue that North Korea might be more inclined to give up its nuclear program if the end of the Korean War is declared. The countries involved will need to discuss how valid this hypothesis is. To be sure, there should be consultation on establishing a peace framework. But a peace treaty, which will wrap up this process, must come when the North Korean nuclear issue is on the final stage of resolution.
The problem is that North Korea may try to politicize the discussions to influence the South Korean presidential election, as seen in the sabotage of the June 15 inter-Korean festival in Pyongyang, when the North threw a tantrum over the presence of conservative lawmakers in the VIP box. In essence, it will depend on how cool-headedly we can separate the North Korean nuclear issue from the upcoming presidential election.
The column was contributed by Kim Sung-han, a professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
|
