Fallout of Pakistani revelations on North Korea weapons trade

Fallout of Pakistani revelations on North Korea weapons trade

Phillip C. Saunders, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Washington

Recent revelations about Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer
Khan's involvement in a global network selling fissile material
production technology and a nuclear weapons design have
highlighted Pakistan's role as a proliferator.

The public airing by Pakistan of the clients involved in
this clandestine trade -- Iran, Libya and North Korea -- has
also opened up new avenues for detecting and perhaps halting
proliferation.

President Bush and CIA Director George Tenet recently revealed
that U.S. intelligence agencies successfully penetrated this
covert procurement and production network and learned key details
about the trade and the buyers. Conclusive information that North
Korea had traded ballistic missiles and production technology to
Pakistan in exchange for uranium enrichment technology prompted
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly's October 2002 visit to
Pyongyang to confront North Korea about its uranium enrichment
activities.

To the surprise of U.S. diplomats, North Korean officials
admitted the existence of a uranium enrichment program, although
they subsequently denied making any such acknowledgement. U.S.
information prompted Pakistan to launch its own investigation of
the Khan network in October 2003, which eventually led A.Q. Khan
to confess his involvement and request clemency.

The unraveling of the Pakistani network has already given a
major boost to international nonproliferation efforts.
Information about centrifuges acquired from Pakistan prompted
successful efforts to pressure Iran to sign the Additional
Protocol to the Nonproliferation Treaty and to agree to stop its
uranium enrichment activities.

Can revelations about the Pakistani proliferation network help
eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons programs? Pakistan has
reportedly promised to share details of the network's
transactions with the United States. The new information may
answer key questions about North Korea's uranium enrichment
activities and shape the positions of the countries participating
in the six party talks on the Korean nuclear crisis, which
resumed in Beijing on Feb. 25.

First, it should be possible to discover when North Korean
efforts to acquire uranium enrichment technology started. Some
claim that North Korea began a highly-enriched uranium (HEU)
program immediately after signing the Agreed Framework in 1994,
indicating that Pyongyang was bargaining in bad faith all along.

Others believe that the transactions began in 1997 or later,
after North Korean became increasingly concerned about delays in
U.S. implementation of its commitments under the Agreed
Framework. When the program began may shed light on Pyongyang's
motives in pursuing HEU technology, providing some indication of
whether North Korea is likely to comply with a future agreement.

Second, the equipment Pakistan transferred may reveal the
scale of the North Korean HEU program. Was it a pilot program
intended as a hedge against collapse of the Agreed Framework? Or
was it a large-scale effort to develop a second path to producing
nuclear weapons? (North Korea's current nuclear arsenal is based
on plutonium reprocessed from spent nuclear reactor fuel.)
Assistant Secretary Kelly recently stated that "North Korea's
goal appeared to be a plant that could produce enough weapons-
grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons per year when fully
operational." However it is unclear how far North Korea advanced
toward that goal.

Third, the specific equipment and materials acquired provide a
baseline for verification if an agreement is eventually reached
to dismantle the North Korean nuclear weapons program. At a
minimum, the United States and other participants in the six
party talks (China, Japan, Russia, and the two Koreas) should
insist that North Korea fully account for all centrifuges,
enrichment technology, uranium feedstock, and any weapons designs
that Pakistan transferred. If Pakistani scientists visited North
Korean enrichment facilities, the locations of these facilities
would provide a starting point for site inspections to verify the
dismantlement of the North Korean HEU program.

Finally, information from Pakistan will undercut North Korean
claims that it does not have a HEU program. In the aftermath of
the U.S. failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
some Chinese and South Korean analysts expressed doubts about
whether U.S. intelligence on the North Korean HEU program was
accurate.

The United States can now provide detailed evidence to support
its charges without compromising sensitive intelligence sources
and methods. Despite North Korean efforts to dismiss A.Q. Khan's
confession as "groundless propaganda" and "unverifiable fiction,"
evidence from Pakistan should settle the issue once and for all.

New information about North Korea's nuclear program will aid
U.S. diplomats, but negotiations will not be easy or fast. The
U.S. objective is "complete, verifiable, and irreversible"
dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programs. The first task
will be to insist that the uranium enrichment program be
addressed in the negotiations.

Chinese and South Korean officials have floated proposals that
North Korea should freeze its plutonium program as the first step
in an interim deal. The United States should insist that the HEU
program be included in any interim agreement and fully addressed
in a final settlement.

Experts agree that verifying the elimination of uranium
enrichment activities is more difficult than verifying the
elimination of plutonium production. Plutonium production
requires a large infrastructure that includes nuclear reactors
and reprocessing facilities; uranium enrichment can be performed
in smaller facilities that are much harder to locate and to
monitor.

New details about the North Korean HEU program provide a
better starting point for verification efforts, though devising a
satisfactory verification regime will be difficult.

Another obstacle is concern about Pyongyang's willingness to
comply with an agreement over the long term. Clear proof of North
Korea's violations of the Agreed Framework will help the United
States insist that North Korea prove its willingness to give up
its nuclear weapons capability for good.

The six party talks will require long, difficult negotiations
if a final settlement is to be reached. The United States will
insist that North Korea satisfy its criteria for "complete,
verifiable, and irreversible" elimination of its nuclear program,
while North Korea will seek a security guarantee and extensive
economic assistance in return for giving up its weapons. Issues
such as the precise terms of an agreement, a satisfactory
verification regime, and the sequencing of commitments will need
detailed study and careful negotiations.

Nuclear revelations from Pakistan will strengthen
international efforts to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons
capability, but an agreement will ultimately require North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il to decide that his country will have a better
future without nuclear weapons. Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi
eventually reached this conclusion; the world is still waiting to
see what Kim Jong-il will decide.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Institute for National
Strategic Studies (INSS) at the National Defense University. The
views expressed in this article are those of the author and do
not reflect the official policy or position of the National
Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.
government.