Atomic body faces deadlock
AS the International Atomic Energy Agency board of directors discusses North Korea's nuclear weapons programme today in Vienna, it is faced with the prospect of complete deadlock in the attempts to resume inspections of North Korea's nuclear facilities.
The extremely hardline North Korean official statement put out on Monday appears consistent only with North Korea playing for time while pursuing its nuclear programme - and perhaps finally carrying out its year-long threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Earlier, it was expected that the agency's board would resolve the issue once and for all by declaring that North Korea had defaulted on inspections and that it would pass the matter back to the UN Security Council for action, probably the imposition of sanctions.
Then on February 15 hopes were raised as North Korea appeared to agree to agencu inspections of its seven declared installations.
Monday's statement would appear to demolish all such hopes.
The agency, and the US, assumed that North Korea was agreeing to regular inspections of these seven installations. The North Korean statement made it clear that Pyongyang was agreeing to a one-time limited inspection only.
The US, South Korea and Japan assumed that North Korea would still discuss special agency inspections of two suspect nuclear waste sites in future negotiations.
As Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa told the Diet on Monday: ''North Korea's acceptance of inspection at seven sites alone does not solve the issue.'' But the hardline statement insisted that North Korea would cancel the February 15 agreement, if any further pressure was brought to bear on this score.
It even threatened to take the whole issue back to where it began nearly a year ago.
''The 'special inspection' is one of the main reasons that compelled [North Korea] to declare its withdrawal from the [treaty], so the persistent demand for it is, in the final analysis, tantamount to an attempt to drive [North Korea] out of the treaty,'' the statement said.
Another assumption was that once North Korea had allowed the agency regular inspections to recommence, and had revived its promised dialogue with South Korea over the denuclearisation of Korea, then the US would agree to a third round of high-level bilateral negotiations with Pyongyang.
Now North Korea wants those negotiations with the US to begin before it issues visas to agency inspectors, and there is no sign at all of resumed dialogue with South Korea.
So far, there are no indications that, in view of sustained North Korean intransigence, the agency will now revert to its original intention of sending the issue to the UN Security Council.
It is possible that North Korea's conflicting signals indicate deep differences within the isolated Stalinist state on how it should act in this crisis. The more likely explanation is that North Korea is playing for time to complete its manufacture of nuclear weapons.
