War cannot be an option

The Korea Herald Asia News Network Seoul

Most of the blame lies with North Korea, which has been working on a secret nuclear weapons program in blatant violation of the principle of "peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula" that is contained in the Geneva accord. For some reasons that have yet to be clarified, Pyongyang has recently admitted it is engaged in uranium enrichment, a crucial process in manufacturing nuclear bombs.

Despite the confession, North Korea still claims that the United States be held accountable as well, as it has not fulfilled all of the obligations specified in the accord. And this argument cannot be dismissed as having no grain of truth.

Under its agreement with North Korea, the United States is obliged to "undertake to make arrangements" to provide North Korea with two light-water reactors by "a target date of 2003" in exchange for Pyongyang's promise to stop developing nuclear weapons and shut down the existing facilities suspected of producing bomb-grade plutonium.

Had construction proceeded on schedule, technicians would now be putting the final touches on the power plants or operating them for a test run prior to delivery. But with only 25 percent of work now done on the US$4.6 billion project on account of funding and other problems, the U.S.-led international consortium finds it impossible to dedicate the power plants any earlier than 2008. Washington is accountable for the delay to a substantial extent, if not totally as implied by Pyongyang.

North Korea has other complaints, some of them not illegitimate, concerning the implementation of the Geneva accord. Foremost among them is Washington's lack of enthusiasm in lifting economic sanctions on North Korea, though it agreed to "reduce barriers to trade and investment, including restrictions on telecommunications and financial transactions" within three months of signing the accord.

Particularly painful to North Korea is that it is denied access to loans from regional and international development banks under the influence of the United States -- the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank -- when it badly needs them for economic development.

North Korea also has grievances about what it perceives to be the constant threat of an attack from the United States. Its fears may be substantiated by what is dubbed Operations Plan 5027, which an American expert on Korea, Selig S. Harrison, says provides for "moving U.S. and South Korean forces into battle- ready forward positions during the 'pre-hostility' phase, prior to the actual outbreak of conflict."

On top of this, the Bush administration, which continues to keep North Korea on its list of "rogue states" sponsoring international terrorism, has further isolated it by branding it as part of an "axis of evil."

None of these complaints and fears about the United States warrants the North Korean development of nuclear bombs in secret in any way. But Washington needs to keep them in mind when it attempts to solve the North Korean nuclear problem by peaceful means as it has promised to its allies -- South Korea and Japan.

North Korea may not be irrational as claimed by some hawks in the United States as well as in South Korea. But settlement through diplomacy will probably pose a formidable challenge to Washington as its negotiations with Pyongyang on freezing and eventually scrapping the North Korean weapons program proved in the early 1990s.

Washington may be tempted to contemplate military action if diplomatic pressure on North Korea fails to produce tangible results in a timely manner. But it should guard against it, as armed conflict would result in killing tens of thousands of South Korean and U.S. troops. Civilian losses could be even greater with Seoul lying within range of North Korea's artillery and 1 million communist troops deployed near the Demilitarized Zone.

Given this horrible prospect, war cannot be an option available to Washington. President Kim Dae-jung should drive this point home to U.S. President George W. Bush when he meets him in Mexico later this week By this time, Pyongyang and Washington would have nearly, if not completely, resolved the long-standing dispute over North Korea's nuclear weapons program had they lived up to the spirit of the 1994 Agreed Framework. But unfortunately, they have failed to do so, and, as a result, a North Korean-U.S. confrontation is now looming as large as it was prior to signing the accord in Geneva eight years ago.