February 20, 2008 Comparing Japan to a “mentally deranged fellow,” the Minju Josun, one of several official mouthpieces of the Korea Worker’s Party, called on Japan to “quit” the Six-Party Talks:
Japan had better quit the six-party talks of its own accord, admitting it lacks any political ability to handle such sensitive and crucial issue[sic] as the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula (see: KCNA February 19, 2008).
The signed commentary accuses the Japanese of several transgressions including:
The participating countries, except Japan, took relevant actions to fulfil [sic] their commitments as required by the October 3 agreement. It was only Japan that has not taken any move. These days Japan seems to work hard to torpedo the talks, talking about “triangular cooperative system for pressurizing [sic] north Korea.” Clear is the aim sought by Japan in its moves to convert the multinational talks into a platform for confrontation… It is its ulterior motive to escalate its policy of pressure upon the DPRK under the pretext of the “abduction issue” and scuttle the above-said talks in case everything goes against its will. (see: KCNA February 19, 2008).
Japan said it wouldn’t contribute any energy aid until the abduction issue is resolved. As for the “triangular cooperative system for pressurizing north Korea,” I believe the KCNA is referring to a joint declaration by the US, South Korean, and Japanese militaries to use their militaries “when necessary, to handle non-security related incidents such as rescue missions.” JongAng Ilbo reports that other countries in the region will be allowed to participate in said mechanism, so as to allay concern:
Participation by Beijing, Moscow and Pyongyang will also provide them a chance to clear up their suspicions about the new military cooperation in the region, the attendants agreed.
Of course, Pyongyang has every reason to be suspicious of non-security-related military actions. They themselves used the cover of “non-security-related” training exercises to mobilize their troops just prior to the Korean War.
Meanwhile, Christopher Hill made a surprise visit to the North Korean embassy in Beijing to meet with North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan. According to reports, the pair discussed the North’s disclosure of its nuclear activities. Though Hill called the meeting a “a good substantial discussion,” no agreements resulted. Via the AP, Hill deploys a bit of circular reasoning:
“We had a discussion about what we think needs to be included in that. I think they understand our point of view, but we won’t have a complete and correct declaration until we have a complete and correct declaration…So I am not sure we yet have an understanding on that.”
So, the agreement is only complete until it’s complete, eh? Thanks for clearing that up for us. What Hill actually meant, according to AP, is the following:
Hill said a full declaration should include uranium enrichment and Pyongyang’s relations with Syria, to which it has been accused of providing nuclear assistance.
Update: Pyongyang denies allegations of a uranium enrichment program and it seems Hill is getting frustrated with the constant stonewalling. Said Hill:
“We have a situation where they have purchased some equipment and have been trying to show to us that this equipment is not being used for uranium enrichment…We cannot pretend that activities don’t exist when we know that the activities have existed. (Via Reuters)”
According to the Reuters article cited above, Hill continues to deny that the talks are at a standstill, but only at a “rough patch.” Kim Gye Gwan also denied that the talks were at a standstill, while maintaining that the North was committed to progress in the talks. I’m not sure how they’re defining “standstill,” but by all popular accounts, I’d say the current situation fits the definition quite well. On the issue of nuclear proliferation, Hill said Kim denied these allegations as well:
“[Kim Gye Gwan] wanted to make very clear that they are not at present having any nuclear cooperation with any other country and they will not in the future have any nuclear cooperation with any other country. (Via Associated Press)”
Fidel Castro’s announcement that he is formally giving up power will eventually revive proposals that the U.S. Government should remove Cuba from the list of countries that support international terrorism. Although the Castro government has not sought removal from the terrorism list, North Korea has been seeking removal for several years as part of the price for being more forthcoming in the nuclear disarmament negotiations talks which resumed today.
Formal designation by the Secretary of State as a state sponsor of international terrorism for “repeatedly supporting acts of international terrorism,” triggers a variety of economic sanctions, including bans of foreign assistance, denial of tax credits for American individuals and companies earning income in terrorism list countries. It also requires 30-day advance notification to Congress (and possible opposition in Congress) of export licenses for dual use goods and services that could enhance the designated country’s military capability or ability to support terrorism.
These sanctions date back to the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the provisions (Sec. 6 (j) Congress enacted after learning that Commerce and State Department officials issued export licenses for tank transporter trucks for Libya and C-130 cargo planes for Syria despite those two country’s threats to their neighbors.
In any discussion of removing Cuba or North Korea from the terrorism list it is worth pointing out that Congress enacted procedures nearly two decades ago requiring that it be notified in advance, allowing time for the lawmakers to try to block the proposed move if they disagreed.
These procedures were laid out under the Anti-Terrorism and Arms Export Amendments Act of 1989 (ATAEAA, Public Law 101-222). The law was a Congressional reaction to the Reagan Administration’s removal of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from the terrorism list in 1982 without informing Congress, even informally, in advance.
Under the law, a compromise worked out with the State Department, the President may try to remove a country from the terrorism list under one of two procedures: Under the first, which he may use only before the proposed rescission takes effect, he must submit a report to selected legislators that states:
(i) there has been a fundamental change in the leadership and policies of the government concerned;
(ii) that government is not supporting acts of international terrorism, and
(iii) the government has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This procedure was adopted at the State Department’s request in case there was a situation in which the designated country’s leadership and policies suddenly changed and the U.S. wanted to provide economic or other assistance. Iraq was an example.
Alternately, the President may lift a terrorist list designation by sending a report to the Congressional leadership 45 days before the proposed rescission would take effect that states:
(i) the government concerned has not provided support for international terrorism during the preceding 6-month period;
(ii) and the country has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.
The six month period for “clean hands” was a compromise worked out between Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) a co-author of the legislation and Richard Murphy, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. I was involved in the discussions as the Counterterrorism Office’s representative. In actual practice, we looked at a country’s record over a much longer period, at least two years, in assessing whether it was supporting terrorism. The 45-day advance notification procedure was worked out to provide Congress with time to respond to a notification without specifying a one house veto procedure that had been previously challenged in the courts over Congressional efforts to block arms sales.
In October 1991, Congress added a new provision to the State Department Authorization Act Pub. L. No. 102-138, § 321) allowing it to block a rescission by passing a joint resolution of disapproval, within the 45-day notification procedure specified under the 1989 ATAEAA legislation.
Thus any Presidential determination that a country has stopped its support for international terrorism and has given assurances that it will not support terrorism in the future must pass Congressional muster. Iraq was removed after the new post-Saddam Hussein government took office.. Libya was removed following lengthy negotiations, including compensation for the families of the victims of Pan Am 103, even though there was opposition from some family members.
In Cuba’s case, the country has been relatively passive in its support for terrorism in recent years, perhaps because of the demise of the old Soviet Union, its major backer, and Cuba’s resulting economic problems. It remains on the terrorism list primarily because of its harboring of Latin American terrorist suspects and a few American fugitives from law. However, Castro’s regime has not sought removal from the terrorism list, making it more difficult for a President to be able to obtain and give Congress any credible assurances that the Cuban regime would not support terrorism in the future. Perhaps even more important is the opposition that would likely be aroused among the Cuban-American voting bloc in the politically important state of Florida. While Castro was in power no Administration has an incentive to take on that issue.
In the case of North Korea, talks resumed today on the nuclear disarmament issue.
But its officials complained in advance that they were dissatisfied with progress in removing the country from the terrorism list, according to Washington Post interviews with persons, including a Senate aide.who met with the North Koreans last week.
Although the nuclear issues are the main sticky point in the talks, North Korea’s support for terrorist groups have not gone unnoticed elsewhere. For example a January, 2008 Congressional Research Service Brief, page 17, describes press reports that North Korea has provided arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Both groups are designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S.
The reports fit a historic pattern. North Korea provided training an other assistance to a variety of terrorist groups in the 1960’s and 70’s including the Palestine Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when it conducted major aircraft hijackings and other attacks and to the Japanese Red Army. These two groups staged a joint attack in 1972 that killed 24 persons including 16 American citizens from Puerto Rican when their plane landed in Israeli for a Christian pilgrimage.
Additionally, in view of this past support for terrorist groups and more recently its support for groups such as Hezbollah and the Tamil Tigers who use suicide tactics, members of Congress would also be likely to be concerned about whether North Korea could provide iron-clad guarantees that it would not share any nuclear expertise or materials to terrorists intent on fashioning a “dirty bomb.” The issue was raised again in a Washington Times article earlier this month citing a recently released government report to Congress that said the North Koreans had raised such a threat during 2005 discussions with an American academic.
In short, any Cuban supporters or North Korean officials who may think that removing these countries from the terrorism list is a simple matter have more home work to do.
By Anna Fifield in Seoul Published: February 20 2008 07:40 | Last updated: February 20 2008 07:40 Diplomats are this week again making new efforts to breathe some life into the roller-coaster six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
It is a year ago this month since the six parties agreed a deal that was supposed to pave the way to denuclearisation – an agreement under which Pyongyang pledged to provide a complete list of its nuclear programmes within 60 days of the agreement.
Twelve months on, and six weeks past the second deadline, the list has still not materialised.
In Seoul on Wednesday, Christopher Hill, the US’s chief negotiator at the talks, said that Mr Kim insisted that North Korea was not currently co-operating with any other countries on nuclear technology, and again denied the existence of a uranium enrichment programme.
But Mr Hill said that this did not meet the requirements for the ”complete and correct declaration” that was promised at the six-party talks.
”We cannot pretend that activities don’t exist when we know that the activities have existed,” Mr Hill told reporters in Seoul.
North Korea’s refusal to keep its end of the deal has led those in Washington who oppose to Mr Hill’s efforts to talk with North Korea to raise their voices again.
But the mood in South Korea is fast changing too. Lee Myung-bak, a conservative who will take office as the president of South Korea on Monday, has vowed to get tough with North Korea, demanding progress on the nuclear issue in return for economic development.
This will be a distinct change from the last decade, when the left-wing presidents Kim Dae-jung and then Roh Moo-hyun erred on the side of caution when dealing with Pyongyang. As they sought to engage Kim Jong-il’s regime, both men’s governments demurred from doing anything to antagonise Pyongyang, believing engagement would win trust.
”As far as subsidised economic transactions are concerned, they are probably going to be reduced or cut-off,” says Daniel Pinkston, Korea analyst at the International Crisis Group. ”There is going to be much greater scrutiny from now on. South Korean aid is no longer a foregone conclusion.”
Now, in the dying days of the Roh administration, the extent to which the president’s government turned a blind eye to North Korea’s wrongdoings – and to which Pyongyang has taken advantage of Seoul – is becoming clear.
South Korean border guards have seen North Korean units unloading southern rice aid at military posts along the heavily fortified land border on at least 10 occasions since 2003, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported last week.
Government officials later confirmed the reports and said the military had passed the information to relevant agencies.
Seoul is one of the biggest donors of rice to North Korea, but has been criticised for not checking to see that its aid is distributed to the country’s most needy, unlike international organisations.
Humanitarian workers and analysts have always harboured fears that the aid could be diverted to the military, but this is the first concrete evidence of it happening.
Separately, it has emerged that the $400,000 in cash that Seoul hand-delivered to Pyongyang last year to build a video reunion centre for families separated by the Korean War has disappeared.
The unification ministry said this month that it had asked North Korea in five meetings since April 2007 to provide details on how it spent the money, but the North did not respond.
The South gave the North an additional $3.4m worth of goods – including building materials, 10 buses and six SUVs – for the centre, which was meant to be built at the Kumgangsan resort on the Northern side of the countries’ border. But a year on, North Korea has not even started construction.
Mr Lee, the incoming South Korean president, has pledged to take a tougher line on North Korea, saying he would take a carrot-and-stick approach, demanding more reciprocity from Pyongyang than Seoul’s current left-wing leadership has expected.
Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea expert who has been advising Mr Lee, suggested that the new administration would halt all aid to North Korea, except emergency humanitarian assistance, unless Pyongyang made better progress towards denuclearisation.
”Lee Myung-bak does not feel obliged to support their requests for more rice and fertiliser,” Mr Nam said. ”North Korea will have to show a more friendly stance. For example, they will have to release some prisoners of war and some of the [South Korean] people they have kidnapped.”
