Advertisement
Advertisement

Solution to nuclear crisis years away

China's stepped-up dialogue over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has sparked hope of an end to the crisis. However, experts have warned that a breakthrough would only herald a years-long process of talks, disarmament and restoration of confidence.

Even if North Korea accepts American conditions for multilateral talks and much-needed economic and humanitarian aid deals are struck in return for the scrapping of nuclear programmes, security in East Asia might still be a decade away, they suggest.

South Africa's disarmament in the early 1990s is widely cited as the model for such an eventuality, but the researchers and scientists stress that North Korea had as yet not even hinted at an intention to take such a course.

A flurry of diplomatic activity last week by Chinese officials has brought closer the possibility of North Korean and American officials settling the nine-month standoff. The issue will top the agenda of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's four-day visit to China, which starts today in Beijing.

China's Deputy Foreign Minister, Dai Bingguo, who went to Pyongyang last week for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, discussed developments with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington later in the week. Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told Mr Powell by telephone last Wednesday that North Korea seemed willing to accept multilateral talks.

The North's erratic negotiating record and secretive nature makes putting a time-frame on the eliminating of its threat to East Asia impossible. What is known is that dismantling weapons factories and nuclear facilities takes years.

For observers, the biggest difficulty is the uncertain nature of the North's programmes. When it agreed with the US in 1994 to freeze its Soviet Union-supplied research reactor and construction of a second facility at Yongbyon, 90km north of Pyongyang, analysts believed two or three bombs had already been made from plutonium reprocessed from spent fuel rods.

Last October, North Korea scrapped that agreement, admitted to claims it was working on uranium reprocessing, then withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In December, it expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) watchdog, leaving the status of its nuclear programme open to speculation.

Soon after, officials said the reactor had been restarted, a claim since verified by American satellite images, which show smoke coming from the plant's cooling tower. However, their allegations that fuel rods are being reprocessed and nuclear weapons being made have not been verified.

Despite that, American physicist David Albright said last week that a bomb, or perhaps two, had been made. His conclusion, despite failing to confirm such work was being carried out after months of studying intelligence data, backed reports in the past fortnight from Chinese and South Korean analysts.

'We don't know how much plutonium they've separated, but in March or April they probably got no more than a couple of kilograms,' said Mr Albright, the president and founder of the respected Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. 'They probably separated a few kilograms before 1994 - the issue is was it 2kg, 3kg or 8kg, as the CIA has said. It takes 5kg to make a bomb.'

No tell-tale emissions of krypton 85, produced in the fuel when it is irradiated in the reactor, have been detected by sensors. The coal plant that produces steam to reheat chemicals in the reprocessing plant has been observed operating only intermittently. The numbers of vehicles on roads to Yongbyon have not increased and no explosions have been noticed from a recently revealed test site.

'Just because we don't see them reprocessing, doesn't mean they're not,' Mr Albright said. 'I tend to believe many things North Korea says, but they have a history of exaggerating.'

North Korea established an atomic energy research centre with Soviet help in 1962 and five years later started a small reactor. Work began on a 30-megawatt reactor in 1979, and when completed in 1986, it was able to produce enough plutonium to make one bomb a year. Construction of a 200-megawatt plant started in 1985, the same year work began to reprocess plutonium to weapons-grade quality.

The reprocessing of spent fuel rods began in 1989 and the IAEA, which had been denied access to the facilities, reported that enough plutonium had been unloaded to produce one or two bombs. South Korean media reported between 70 and 80 high-explosive tests of bomb components in the North the following year.

Experts agree North Korean scientists have the skills - acquired from dealings with nuclear powers China, Russia and Pakistan - to make bombs that could be attached to indigenously produced ballistic missiles. The weapons could be made from plutonium or enriched uranium-235 and the North had pursued both methods.

Scientist-in-residence at the Washington office of the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, Charles Ferguson, said the material was formed into a critical mass to create an explosion. He believes the North is using plutonium so that it can create an implosion-type weapon, lighter than those made with uranium and therefore most easily put on a ballistic missile.

In 1992, North Korea declared it had seven nuclear sites and had 90 grams of plutonium. It allowed IAEA inspections, but the following year reneged on agreements it had signed and broke off talks with South Korea and the US. America brokered the Agreed Framework the following year, freezing its nuclear programme and allowing the resumption of inspections.

The clock was turned back last October.

Mr Albright said that if agreement was reached, dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme would be straightforward and could be achieved in three to five years. A similar amount of time might be needed before North Korea's neighbours were confident that a nation that had been war-like and isolationist for more than half a century was sincere. This was dependant on North Korea's full co-operation, though. IAEA inspectors had to be allowed full access to sites, facilities and personnel.

The South African model could be used to dismantle the Yongbyon complex and weapons production facilities. Iraq could be the model for disabling gas centrifuges, used to produce plutonium and allegedly supplied by Pakistan.

South Africa was the first and, to date, only country to build nuclear weapons and then dismantle them. It began research in 1969, conducted its first tests in the late 1970s and produced its first nuclear weapon in 1982. In September 1989, president F.W. de Klerk declared that to end his country's international isolation, the political system of apartheid and the nuclear programme would be dismantled. Four years later, international experts concluded South Africa could no longer make nuclear weapons.

But Mr Albright said that underlying such a process was North Korea's desire to change its ways.

'That's the difficult part - getting them to agree,' he said.

British researcher Adam Ward agreed. 'It all depends on the political backing of the North and the extent to which it is willing to acquiesce,' he said. 'That's where the doubts arise.'

Post