North Korea appears set to receive additional energy assistance from South Korea in the near future, even while the Stalinist state disputes details of a plan to verify the scope of its nuclear activities, Reuters reported Sunday (see GSN, Nov. 17).
"With consultations with respective countries, 3,000 [metric tons] of steel pipes is likely to be processed soon," a diplomatic source in Seoul told the Yonhap News Agency.
Pyongyang last year agreed to give up its nuclear sector in exchange for a host of benefits, including 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent energy assistance. Roughly half of the aid has been shipped to date.
The denuclearization process has hit a number of snags, most recently when North Korea said it had not agreed to allow collection of nuclear samples as part of a verification agreement reached last month with Washington (Reuters/Yahoo!News, Nov. 16). Sampling would help determine the amount of plutonium produced in North Korea.
Envoys from the six nations have not yet met to prepare a document that would set the specifics for verification. Pyongyang is said to oppose producing a written plan.
"Washington itself admitted a lot of ambiguities exist," South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said last week. "Through consultations with other countries, we will ensure that sampling is an essential part of verification."
"The Japanese, South Koreans and even the Chinese are unhappy about the level of consultations, because now we have ambiguity, and they are frustrated that this situation has emerged," said Daryl Kimball, head of the Arms Control Association (Carter/Kralev, Washington Times, Nov. 18).
Meanwhile, a U.S. think tank is calling on President-elect Barack Obama to prepare his government for potential conflicts with North Korea and other nations, Yonhap reported.
"The U.S. military must ... maintain its readiness for possible contingencies, such as a conflict in the Middle East, with North Korea, or with China," according to Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President, published by the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Strong cooperation is needed with other nations to address North Korea's nuclear program and other atomic threats, the organization said.
"With the right strategy aggressively implemented, the president could prevent nuclear terrorism, block the emergence of new nuclear states, reduce toward zero the risk of nuclear weapons use, and restore powerful global barriers to their spread," the report says (Yonhap News Agency, Nov. 18).