Can a 'Perry process' defuse North Korea?

Can a 'Perry process' defuse North Korea?

Yoichi Funabashi, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

The time is not yet ripe for creative initiatives such as
Carter diplomacy and the Perry process.

I recently interviewed Stanford University professor William
Perry, who served as former United States President Bill
Clinton's secretary of defense.

Soon after leaving as defense secretary in 1997, he was put in
charge of dealing with the North Korean missile crisis as the
Clinton administration's North Korean policy coordinator. He led
difficult negotiations and advanced the "Perry process" to
stabilize U.S.-North Korea relations. On the wall of his office
hangs framed "words of appreciation" from bipartisan members of
Congress.

Four years later, we are facing another nuclear crisis over
North Korea's secret nuclear development program using enriched
uranium. What is the aim of the North's nuclear program?

"We can't be sure of what their intentions are," Perry said,
"but I think ... they are seriously pursuing a nuclear weapon
program. That is, they are seriously heading toward becoming a
declared nuclear state, which could include nuclear testing and
would include the serial production of nuclear weapons." Over and
above this, he added, North Korea may seek to emulate Pakistan.

As far as North Korea's clandestine nuclear program is
concerned, it appears Perry was also left in the dark. He said he
wasn't aware of such information while he was policy coordinator.
The U.S. side, Perry says, always suspected North Korea was doing
something behind their back, and once went as far as carrying out
an inspection in the mountains (of Kumchangri), though to no
avail.

It is difficult to conceal the plutonium project because of
the huge facilities required. But such is not the case with
enriched uranium, which doesn't require such facilities. Perry
also noted, "... it is possible that in the first few years it
simply was an experimentary laboratory program, and that the
decision to go into production on it has happened only recently."

If nothing is done to contain the situation, it could develop
into a military conflict.

Perry stressed that the U.S. must immediately begin serious
dialogue with North Korea to settle the nuclear problem. Although
a solution may be a long time in coming, he said, North Korea
should freeze its nuclear program and the U.S. should refrain
from taking military action.

The administration of George W. Bush maintains the problem
should be discussed in a multilateral forum, not simply bilateral
talks between the U.S. and North Korea, since the issue concerns
international society as a whole.

Perry, however, said the U.S. should not hold to such a
stance. The Bush administration is demanding that North Korea
give up its nuclear development program "immediately,
transparently and completely." But Perry believes that may be
difficult and advocates a more realistic approach, such as asking
for a North Korean promise to "freeze" nuclear development.

Perry also objected to the argument within the Bush
administration to abolish the Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organization (KEDO).

Spawned after the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Framework Agreement,
KEDO is a multilateral project to help boost North Korea's energy
supply that took off under the joint initiative of Japan, the
U.S. and South Korea. In exchange for removing a nuclear threat,
the project promises to provide North Korea with light-water
nuclear reactors.

In short, the aim of KEDO is to neutralize a nuclear threat
with nuclear energy. Under the agreement, the U.S. was obliged to
provide North Korea with heavy oil during the construction of the
reactors, but it recently cut off shipments.

Perry said that was a mistake. The termination of heavy oil
supply, he said, aggravated the nuclear crisis and gave North
Korea an excuse to resume nuclear development.

It is better to keep KEDO intact as a forum to encourage U.S.-
North Korea dialogue, Perry argues. In the future, however, it
would be more reasonable to convert KEDO into a supply source of
non-nuclear, rather than nuclear, energy, he said.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's visit to Pyongyang
eventually led to the settlement of the 1994 North Korean nuclear
crisis. Can a similar approach be taken again to bring the
situation under control?

Carter played a useful role, Perry said. But his success owed
to the firm stand of the U.S. government, which showed its
readiness to take military action as a last resort, Perry
contends. The U.S. dispatched aircraft carriers to surrounding
waters and deployed Patriot missiles to South Korea. The Japanese
prime minister allowed the use of U.S. military bases in Japan
should force have proved necessary.

Carter diplomacy, Perry said, was effective because Japan, the
U.S. and South Korea cooperated. At that time, the U.S. refrained
from harshly threatening North Korea. Diplomacy sometimes
requires "a little coercion, a little threat of military force."
At the same time, Perry stressed, it also requires creativity.

The U.S. government is too obsessed with preparing for an
Iraqi attack to seriously deal with North Korea's nuclear threat.
Its diplomacy lacks both coercion and creativity. I ended the
interview feeling vexed that the time is not yet ripe for
creative initiatives such as Carter diplomacy and the Perry
process.

Soon after my meeting with Perry, I was told by a Chinese
Communist Party diplomatic source that he recently obtained
"reliable information from a North Korean source."

According to the source, "If the Bush administration plans to
send either Carter or Perry as a special envoy to North Korea,
Pyongyang is willing to meet him."