Why North Korea developed nuclear bombs
By Park Jae-seong (Planning Committee Member, ISC), translated by Dae-Han Song (Chief Editor, The [su:p]
December 3, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Strategy Center — The
North Korean nuclear conflict started in 1990. Few people are aware that
before taking out its nuclear card, North Korea had approached the
United States in earnest. As Communism crumbled and the Soviet Union
established diplomatic relations with North Korea’s southern
counterpart, the country’s leaders couldn’t help but feel insecure. In
an attempt to gain political recognition as an independent state, North
Korea signed a basic North-South agreement, a denuclearization agreement (preventing the development of nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula) and even joined the United Nations, all by 1991. On Jan.
21, 1992, North Korea’s leader Kim Il-sung sent Worker’s Party
International Secretary Kim Yong-soon to New York to meet with U.S.
Undersecretary of State Arnold Kanter. Through Kim, North Korea proposed
establishing diplomatic relations with the United States, adding that
it would not demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Korean
Peninsula [1].
Such concession removed an important barrier to normalizing relations
as it would allow the U.S. to maintain its military strategy of checking
China with its foothold in the Korean Peninsula. Why did North Korea
want to establish diplomatic relations with the United States? After
all, North Korea had already gained recognition from the global
community by joining the UN. Establishing diplomatic relations would
make it so that North Korea’s political sovereignty would also be
respected by the world’s military superpower, the United States. In a
rapidly changing world, North Korea was doing all it could to get its
political and economic system acknowledged and accepted. If the United
States had established diplomatic relations then, North Korea would not
have nuclear weapons now.President
George H W Bush rejected the proposal. Furthermore, starting 1992, the
United States demanded a special high-level nuclear inspection of North
Korea as part of any peace negotiations. The special inspection would
have allowed full access to the country. That’s when North Korea
concluded that the US’s true intention was to threaten North Korea, not
broker peace and end the Cold War. North Korea thus embarked on the much
US-loathed mission to develop nuclear weapons to safeguard itself. In
1993, North Korea stated its intent to leave the Non-nuclear
Proliferation Treaty (NPT) thus clearing its path towards developing
nuclear weapons..That
year, newly elected President Bill Clinton tried to quickly resolve the
North Korean nuclear issue through negotiation. To bypass opposition by
South Korea’s Kim Young-sam administration at its exclusion from the
bilateral negotiations, the United States began secret contact with
North Korea. This resulted in the October 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework (Geneva
Accord). Under the Geneva Accord, North Korea would stop its Yongbyon
nuclear reactor. The US would replace the nuclear reactor with two
light-water nuclear reactors (whose fuel cores cannot be easily
weaponized) by 2003. Until completion, the US would supply 500,000 tons
of heavy fuel annually. The US would lift sanctions and both would
formally announce not using nuclear weapons. In short, North Korea would
not develop nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee of its
politico-economic system and electricity. The Geneva Accord halted North
Korea’s nuclear activities. A month later, Republicans won the U.S.
midterm elections thus giving them control of the House of
Representatives and Senate. Within just three months, the Republican Party made it impossible for Clinton to fulfill the promise of U.S.-North Korea diplomatic relations delaying the promised heavy fuel oil shipments. Even
though the U.S. government was reneging on its promise, North Korea
continued to hold onto hope that the agreement would be kept. Attaining
such large amounts of electricity to run their country would have been a
great boon. In 1997 (a year behind schedule), the Korean Peninsula
Energy Development Organization (KEDO) began construction in North Korea
of the two light-water nuclear reactors that would produce the promised
electricity. Construction continued until 2002. Despite running behind
schedule and the lack of heavy fuel oil shipments, during this time,
North Korea did not carry out threats or provocations. Upon taking office in 2001, George W Bush accused North Korea of developing uranium nuclear weapons and quickly moved to undo the 1994 Agreed Framework. At this point, North Korea finally gave up hope on the United States and stopped KEDO’s construction of the light-water nuclear reactors. After halting construction of the light-water nuclear reactors [2],
North Korea quickly began their efforts to develop nuclear weapons. To
block this process, George W. Bush proposed the six-party talks [3], which yielded the Sep. 19 Joint Statement Agreement
in 2005. In exchange for North Korea destroying all its nuclear weapons
and re-joining the NPT, representatives from the US promised a new
peace treaty for the Korean Peninsula and a non-aggression pact against
North Korea. North Korea’s nuclear issue seemed to finally be getting
resolved. However, soon after this, the United States froze North Korean funds in the Banco Delta Asia
and started sanctions against North Korea. North Korea viewed these
actions as the United States breaking its promise once again, and so it
resumed its nuclear activities. A year later, North Korea carried out
its first nuclear test. North Korea’s nuclear issue had crossed a point
of no return.The Bush
administration once again entered into negotiations to turn the
ceasefire into a peace agreement, eventually coming up with the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement. However, once again internal grumblings within
the United States about restarting negotiations with North Korea
surfaced, and the Bush government was unable to accomplish the Feb. 13
agreement before its term.This
process makes clear that North Korea has continually kept up its end of
the bargain while the United States has reneged again and again on its
agreements. The U.S. misperception that isolation alone, rather than
reciprocation, can resolve the North Korean nuclear issue has led to
North Korea’s highly developed nuclear weapons.North
Korea’s nuclear weapons conflict, peace on the Korean Peninsula, are
thus first and foremost a U.S.-North Korean political conflict. The
United States wants to preserve its world dominance: to expand its
interests, it tries to control North Korea and other countries
politically, economically and militarily. Meanwhile, North Korea has
responded strategically with the development of nuclear weapons in order
to achieve equal relations with the United States and to politically
and militarily guarantee its system. If we examine North Korea’s
declarations during this period of intensified tensions, it’s clear that
North Korea sees the nuclear issue as an issue with the United States.
North Korea’s intention of gaining recognition as a nuclear weapon state
and terminating its long-standing confrontation with the U.S. are both
clear. On Sept. 11, the UN adopted sanctions
against North Korea banning the country’s textile export and capping
the imports of crude oil. Yet it’s not had any real impact in affecting
North Korea’s actions. Why are supposedly strong economic sanctions
against North Korea ineffective? The reason is simple: the sanctions
have already reached their saturation point. The only sanction left is
war.Will the
U.S. acknowledge a North Korea with proven nuclear weapons as a nuclear
state? Will the US wage war against North Korea? The United States has
broken countless agreements. Now is its turn to answer.Notes[1] Acquiescing
to the possibility of US troop presence in the Korean Peninsula was
significant as it went against North Korea’s longstanding goal of a
reunified independent Korean Peninsula. Beyond it being a concession,
this has also been interpreted as a strategy of using the United States
to counterbalance the growing influence of China in the region. [2] In the “KCNA ‘Detailed Report’ Explains NPT Withdrawal,” North Korea explains in great detail https://fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nuke/dprk012203.html [3] The six parties were South Korea, North Korea, China, Russia, United States, and Japan.
