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Full Text of Denuclearization Agreement

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Korea Times
2/13/2007

Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement

The third session of the fifth round of the Six-Party Talks was held in Beijing among the People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the United States of America from 8 to 13 February 2007.

Wu Dawei, vice minister of foreign affairs of the PRC, Kim Gye-gwan, vice minister of foreign affairs of the DPRK; Kenichiro Sasae, director-general for Asian and Oceanian affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan; Chun Yung-woo, special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs of the ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Alexander Losyukov, deputy minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation; and Christopher Hill, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs of the Department of State of the United States attended the talks as heads of their respective delegations.

Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei chaired the talks.

I. The parties held serious and productive discussions on the actions each party will take in the initial phase for the implementation of the Joint Statement of 19 September 2005. The parties reaffirmed their common goal and will to achieve early denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner and reiterated that they would earnestly fulfill their commitment in the Joint Statement. The parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the Joint Statement in a phased manner in line with the principle of action for action.

II. The parties agreed to take the following actions in parallel in the initial phase:

1. The DPRK will shut down and seal for the purpose of eventual abandonment the Yongbyon nuclear facility, including the reprocessing facility and invite back IAEA personnel to conduct all necessary monitoring and verifications as agreed between IAEA and the DPRK.

2. The DPRK will discuss with other parties a list of all its nuclear program as described in the Joint Statement, including plutonium extracted from used fuel rods, that would be abandoned pursuant to the Joint Statement.

3. The DPRK and the U.S. will start bilateral talks aimed at resolving pending bilateral issues and moving toward full diplomatic relations. The U.S. will begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism and advance the process of terminating the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK.

4. The DPRK and Japan will start bilateral talks aimed at taking steps to normalize their relations in accordance with the Pyongyang Declaration, on the basis of the settlement of unfortunate past and the outstanding issues of concern.

5. Recalling Section 1 and 3 of the Joint Statement of 19 September 2005, the parties agreed to cooperate in economic, energy and humanitarian assistance to the DPRK. In this regard, the parties agreed to the provision of emergency energy assistance to the DPRK in the initial phase. The initial shipment of emergency energy assistance equivalent to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil will commence within next 60 days.

The parties agreed that the above-mentioned initial actions will be implemented within next 60 days and that they will take coordinated steps toward this goal.

III. The Parties agreed on the establishment of the following Working Groups (WG) in order to carry out the initial actions and for the purpose of full implementation of the Joint Statement:

   1. Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula

   2. Normalization of DPRK-U.S. relations

   3. Normalization of DPRK-Japan relations

   4. Economy and energy cooperation

   5. Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism

The WGs will discuss and formulate specific plans for the implementation of the Joint Statement in their respective areas. The WGs shall report to the Six-Party Heads of Delegation Meeting on the progress of their work. In principle, progress in one WG shall not affect progress in other WGs. Plans made by the five WGs will be implemented as a whole in a coordinated manner.

The Parties agreed that all WGs will meet within next 30 days.

IV. During the period of the Initial Actions phase and the next phase _ which includes provision by the DPRK of a complete declaration of all nuclear programs and disablement of all existing nuclear facilities, including graphite-moderated reactors and reprocessing plant _ economic, energy and humanitarian assistance up to the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil (HFO), including the initial shipment equivalent to 50,000 tons of HFO, will be provided to the DPRK.

The detailed modalities of the said assistance will be determined through consultations and appropriate assessments in the Working Group on Economic and Energy Cooperation.

V. Once the initial actions are implemented, the Six Parties will promptly hold a ministerial meeting to confirm implementation of the Joint Statement and explore ways and means for promoting security cooperation in Northeast Asia.

VI. The Parties reaffirmed that they will take positive steps to increase mutual trust, and will make joint efforts for lasting peace and stability in Northeast Asia. The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum.

VII. The Parties agreed to hold the sixth round of the Six-Party Talks on 19 March 2007 to hear reports of WGs and discuss on actions for the next phase.

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Posted in Energy, International Aid, International trade, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Key Points of Nuke Accord

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Korea Times
2/13/2007

1. Within 60 days, the North must shut down and seal its main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of the capital Pyongyang. International inspectors should be allowed to verify the process. For the initial steps, North Korea will get energy, food and other aid worth 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

2. The United States will begin bilateral talks with North Korea to normalize their relations and will begin the processes of removing North Korea from its designation as a terror-sponsoring state and also ending U.S. trade sanctions. No deadline was set.

3. Japan will begin bilateral talks with North Korea to normalize their relations.

4. After 60 days, foreign ministers of all the countries will meet to confirm the implementation of the agreement and talk about security cooperation in northeast Asia. Some countries will hold a separate forum on negotiations for a permanent peace settlement to replace the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.

5. The North must provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable all existing nuclear facilities. In return, the North will get aid in corresponding steps worth 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil _ details of which will be addressed in later working group discussions.

6. Five working groups will be created: denuclearization, U.S.-North Korea relations, Japan-North Korea relations, economic cooperation and on a peace and security mechanism in northeast Asia.

7. The six-nation talks will meet again March 19.

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Posted in Energy, International Aid, International trade, Military, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Chronology of major events surrounding N. Korean nuclear standoff

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Yonhap
2/13/2007

The following is a chronology of major events surrounding the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and six-party talks aimed at ending the crisis.

List below the fold:
(more…)

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Posted in Energy, International Aid, Military, Nuclear | Comments Closed

Seoul Wants 6 Nations to Shoulder Burden for Energy Aid to NK

Sunday, February 11th, 2007

Korea Times
Park Song-wu
2/11/2007

South Korea is thinking of chairing a working group for energy aid to North Korea as the United States is trying to differentiate this round of the six-party talks from a 1994 process, a Seoul official said on Sunday.

But Seoul has a firm position that all parties should jointly pay the “tax” for peace, he said.

“Denuclearization will benefit all parties, so the burdens should be shared jointly,” he said. “But we are thinking of taking the lead in the working group for energy aid, considering the circumstances of the other parties.”

He did not elaborate. But Tokyo is not expected to raise its hand to chair the working group, considering the Japanese anger over the North’s abduction of its nationals in the past.

Russia prefers forgiving the North’s debts instead of providing it with energy.

China, host of the multilateral dialogue, is already playing the most important role of chairing the six-party meeting.

What the United States apparently has in mind, and consented to by all parties, is the necessity to differentiate the result of these on-going negotiations from the 1994 Agreed Framework.

Since it was signed by Robert Gallucci and Kang Sok-ju in Geneva on October 21, 1994, Washington provided 500,000 tons of heavy oil annually to Pyongyang over the following seven years.

But the North’s promise to freeze its graphite-moderated reactors in return for two light-water reactors was not obeyed, causing the Bush administration to criticize the deal as a diplomatic failure of his predecessor, Bill Clinton. After that, U.S. diplomats even avoided meeting their North Korean counterparts bilaterally.

The U.S. policy, however, has recently reached a turning point.

“The Bush administration may have been driven to greater negotiating flexibility by a need to achieve a foreign policy victory to compensate for declining public support for the Iraq war and the loss of the Republican leadership of Congress,” Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for the Heritage Foundation said in a recent article.

But one thing that has not changed is the U.S. hope of not repeating the “mistake” it made with the Geneva agreement.

From 1994 to 2002, Pyongyang received 3.56 million tons of heavy oil, equivalent to $500 million, from the now-defunct Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), and the United States shouldered the largest share of $347 million.

To shake off that bad memory, Washington wants to use the term “shut down” instead of “freezing” and even wants to avoid providing fuel oil to the North, reportedly citing the possibility that it can be used for military purposes.

So the talks have dragged on. And, to make things worse, the North Koreans are demanding a lot.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported that North Korea had demanded 2 million tons of heavy oil or 2 million kilowatts of electricity in exchange for taking the initial steps towards denuclearization.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy, expressed hope on Sunday that such technical issues could be discussed at working group meetings. On the same day, the Seoul official hinted that South Korea will chair the working group.

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Posted in China, Electricity, Energy, Foreign aid statistics, International Aid, Japan, Nuclear, Oil, Russia, South Korea, USA | Comments Closed

ROK firm to liquidate KEDO assets

Thursday, December 14th, 2006

Yonhap
12/14/2006

KEDO closes final deal on liquidation of N. Korean nuclear reactor project

An international energy consortium this week signed its final agreement with a South Korean firm to liquidate its 10-year project to build two light-water reactors in communist North Korea, a South Korean official said Thursday.

“In a Dec. 8 meeting in New York, the executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) approved a deal with the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO),” Moon Dae-keun, an official from the Unification Ministry, told reporters.

The so-called Termination Agreement made official the tentative agreement between the two sides in June that the South Korean electric company would pay the cost of liquidating the US$4.6-billion project in return for all of KEDO’s tangible assets outside of the communist North, Moon said.

The agreement comes as probably the last official document to be signed by the international consortium, which includes South Korea, Japan, the European Union and the United States, ministry officials said.

About $1.65 billion has been spent on the now-defunct project, more than $1.14 billion of which came from South Korea, according to Moon.

The government earlier estimated the liquidation to cost between $150 million to $200 million, but officials said Thursday that it would take as long as three years to accurately determine how much it would cost.

A group of KEDO’s subcontractors have filed claims for 37 lost contracts, worth some $73 million, as of Tuesday, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The international organization has a total of 101 outstanding contracts, according to Moon.

The organization’s assets to be taken over by the South Korean electric company cost some $830 million to acquire or build, according to the Unification Ministry. No estimates for their current value were available.

The light-water reactors were part of a 1994 agreement between the United States and North Korea, in which the communist state agreed to freeze its nuclear activities in return for various economic incentives.

The 1994 agreement, known as the Agreed Framework, became a dead letter following North Korea’s withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in early 2003 and its subsequent unloading of spent fuel rods from a nuclear facility for reprocessing.

North Korea is believed to have created as much as 40 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium through reprocessing, enough to make six to eight atomic bombs.

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ROK to join U.S.-led container security system

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

Yonhap
12/6/2006

South Korea is set to announce its participation in a U.S.-led campaign to stop container-borne radioactive materials after refusing to help interdict North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

A Foreign Ministry official confirmed Wednesday that Seoul decided to join the International Container Scanning Network, or ICSN.

“The government plans to formally announce the decision later this week,” the official said, asking not to be identified.

The ICSN calls for its members to install state-of-the-art radioactivity detectors at their major ports so customs officials can screen the contents of containers without opening them.

International efforts to curb the flow of nuclear materials have gained more urgency since North Korea conducted a nuclear test in October.

Seoul’s decision to join the ICSN was widely interpreted as designed to offset its limited participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).

South Korea said last month that it would stay away from any PSI-related activity in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula, citing its unique geopolitical situation. South Korea remains technically at war with the communist North and the two sides are vulnerable to military clashes especially in the poorly-demarcated West Sea.

South Korea described its position in the PSI as “special status,” as it kept the door open for PSI activities in remote areas.

Government officials, however, said the PSI was not considered when it made the decision to join the ICSN, a project still being tested.

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Posted in Arms shipment, Illicit activities, International trade, Military, Nuclear, Sea shipping, South Korea | Comments Closed

Mount Mantap test site overlay for ‘Google Earth’

Tuesday, October 17th, 2006

test2.JPG 

This is an “after the explosion” satellite image taken from The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).

Click here to download it onto your own Google Earth.

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ROK continues aid for flood damage recovery in DPRK

Wednesday, October 4th, 2006

Yonhap
10/4/2006

South Korea will continue to provide aid to help North Korea recover from flood damage despite growing tension over Pyongyang’s announcement that it plans to conduct a nuclear test, Seoul officials said Wednesday.

“It is difficult to suspend aid for Pyongyang’s flood recovery right now,” said an official at the South Korean Unification Ministry. “But the situation can change depending on the North’s moves.”

As of Wednesday, Seoul has shipped 21,585 tons of cements to Pyongyang, about one-fifth of the 100,000 tons it promised for recovery efforts.

The South also has sent 89,500 tons of rice and 3,200 tons of steel rods for the same purpose.

South Korea has cut its regular food shipments and fertilizer aid to Pyongyang since the missile tests in July, but it shipped a one-time aid package for flood damage recovery.

In a Foreign Ministry statement released Tuesday, North Korea said it would “conduct a nuclear test” in the future to bolster its war deterrent against what it called threats of U.S. aggression.

South Korea, the United States and other concerned parties warned Wednesday that North Korea will face a strong and united response by the international community if it carries out a nuclear test.

Some watchers raised concern that the cement provided to the North could be used to help with an underground nuclear test.

“How can the international community understand South Korea’s decision to send a shipment of cement to the North when it is seen as being essential for a nuclear test?” asked Rep. Rhee In-je of the People’s Central Party.

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N. Korea has eight nuclear test sites

Wednesday, October 4th, 2006

From Yonhap:

North Korea has eight underground tunnels where it can conduct nuclear bomb tests, a South Korean lawmaker claimed Wednesday.

A possible nuclear test site in North Korea has drawn renewed attention after the communist country said Tuesday it would implement atomic-bomb tests, citing a hostile U.S. policy and economic sanctions.

“The eight sites belong to neither military bases nor industrial facilities but there have been continuous works to build horizontal or vertical tunnels there. Their purposes have yet to be verified,” said Rep. Song Young-sun of the main opposition Grand National Party in a press release.

Song, also a member of parliament’s defense committee, said it is likely that any nuclear test by the North would be made on a gallery with horizontal tunnels, as these are cheaper and easier to prepare.

The eight sites include one in Kilju in the North’s northeastern Hamkyong Province, where South Korean media outlets have recently reported suspected activities. The other seven are scattered across the North’s western and northern provinces.     

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Foreign Economic Strategy: Aid

Sunday, September 17th, 2006

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
9/17/2006

Nicholas Eberstadt once described the North Korean foreign economic strategy as a chain of “aid-maximizing stratagems.” Indeed, this is a good description.

For many decades, the international environment has made North Korea indispensable for some large sponsors, and Pyongyang diplomats have been very good at playing the aid-maximizing game and extracting money from those sponsors.

It is interesting that none of those great sponsors was inspired by the “aid idealism” that is so powerful in the West nowadays. Western left-leaning (and not necessarily left-leaning) intellectuals have for decades believed that the prosperous West has a duty to provide the less fortunate parts of the globe with aid. This belief became a part of Western psyche since the 1960s, but it is not shared by the countries of East Asia or by the former Communist world.

Indeed, most aid to the North was motivated by cold self-interest, not by some ideological construct. However, the North Korean diplomats could always steer this self-interest in right direction.

Actually, until the Korean War the USSR did not, in a strict sense, provide aid to the North. In the late 1940s, Stalin controlled the satellites (and I do not think that this is too strong an expression) via more direct channels, and even deliberately tried to bend the conditions of trade to Soviet favor.

In the case of North Korea, the USSR provided technical assistance, largely for military purposes. This required adequate payment, which had to be made in products that could be sold on the international market.

In those days Pyongyang paid in steel, iron, and monazite concentrate, the latter a substance that was then seen (mistakenly, as it turned out eventually) as potential raw material for producing nuclear weapons.

However, from 1953 the situation changed. The post-Stalin leaders relaxed their control over the Communist camp, and began to put more emphasis on economic dependency as an important additional tool to keep their involuntary allies from defecting.

North Korea was seen as a major strategic ally: it formed a protective buffer between the Soviet Far East and U.S. bases in the South. It had to be kept stable and, ideally, prosperous, so the late 1950s was the time of large-scale Soviet aid. Chinese aid was smaller, but the Chinese troops, stationed in the country until 1958, were widely used as an unpaid labor force on various construction projects.

In the late 1960s, Soviet aid dwindled, but the feud between China and the USSR provided Pyongyang with leverage over the two Communist great powers.

In essence, this was a policy of blackmail: if one of two quarrelling Communist giants refused to provide sufficient assistance or peculiar technology, Pyongyang switched to the other one. Both Moscow and Beijing wanted to have Pyongyang on their own side, but having it neutral was the second best option.

Thus, the great principle of the North Korean aid-maximizing approach was discovered: money was paid not for some action, but rather for nonaction.

With the Sino-Soviet rivalry, aid was extracted as a fee for not joining the other side. Ha[d] I been a fancy “political science” theoretician, I would probably call such an approach a “negative concession strategy.”

Of course, both China and the USSR also wanted North Korea to remain in good shape to contain the U.S. influence, even if this consideration was secondary to the politics of the Sino-Soviet rivalry.

The scale of the aid will never be known for sure, since a large part of it was provided indirectly: through preferential pricing or through a willingness to accept substandard North Korean merchandise in lieu of currency payment.

However, the depth of the crisis that struck North Korea after the collapse of the USSR once again confirmed how important the aid was for keeping the North Korean economy afloat.

The collapse of the USSR and the reforms in China around 1990 seemingly made such blackmail impossible. But soon the North discovered new rivalries to exploit.

First, there was a nuclear program, the same old good type of “negative concession” Pyongyang expected to be paid for not developing its nuclear weapons. The Geneva framework of 1994 was a masterpiece of blackmail diplomacy.

Then, there was (and is) a veiled but clearly present rivalry between China and the U.S. Beijing does not want a nuclear North Korea, but it is not happy about a unified country which might become _ or rather remain _ pro-American. It also needs a Communist regime or two hanging around and thus helping the current government to survive. This means that China is willing to keep the North in operation by providing it with aid, especially with food aid.

Finally, there are South Korean phobias to exploit. Seoul is increasingly uneasy about Chinese presence in the North.

There are other phobias as well. The South is afraid of a democratic revolution in the North, politely known as an “implosion.”

German-style unification is seen as a disaster since it will lead to a dramatic decline in the living standards of South Koreans.

This is a unique situation with few parallels in world history: a government feeds its enemy precisely to avoid its own swift victory!

However, it seems that the expectations of Seoul politicians are based on incorrect assumptions.

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Posted in International Aid, Nuclear, Russia | Comments Closed

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