DPRK Forum

As expected, North Korea is dragging its feet on disclosing any current and past nuclear activities despite the “trust me” story they would do so by the end of this year. To add insult to injury, reports indicate scientists found traces of uranium were found. According to the Washington Post:

U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang’s denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources.

(Emphasis mine) As always, North Korea denies a lot of things especially its nuclear programs. This case should be no different nor surprising. In any case, if the reports are true North Korea has been enriching uranium, it does complicate the process. Thus, the denials and accusations are stepped up along with added snags in the already sticky negotiations process. In my opinion, North Korea will not open up, will most likely only cherry pick what they want to disclose, and since nobody knows what is really going on inside North Korea, all outsiders can do is (again) go on a “trust me” basis. This gives Kim a lot of leeway, and everybody knows it. So if uranium has been found, how does this change the field in the negotiations process? The article gives us a little more detail:

The United States has long pointed to North Korea’s acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the outer casing for centrifuges needed to spin hot uranium gas into the fuel for nuclear weapons. North Korea has denied that contention and, as part of a declaration on its nuclear programs due by the end of the year, recently provided the United States with a small sample to demonstrate that the tubes were used for conventional purposes.

This reminds me of a missing scene in Team America World Police. I can picture it now. Some high ranking official tells Kim he is up to no good and wants proof of his misdeeds. The official says to Kim, “Kim Jong Il, it has come to out attention you are making nuclear weapons. We need proof of what you are up to.” Kim looks at him, smiles and has one of his cronies hand the official a sample of what is going on and says with a childish ring to it: “Seeeee? This is onry for convrentional purposes. Tee hee.”

The official looks at the sample with a pained look on his face retorting, “Kim Jong Il, this looks like uranium. I would like to see the plant to make sure.”

Kim stands like a child with an innocent stance looking up to the ceiling, “Wry would you want to see the prant? I aready showed you a sample. That should be proof right there. There is nothring goring on. Trust me.”

It is almost comical, but not quite. On a more serious note, North Korea seems to be dragging its feet on the declaration of its past deeds while the nuclear experts disable the Yongbyon nuclear site (that must be dangerous and horrid work). They estimate the disablement might take longer than expected (from the Reuters article):

The official was upbeat about North Korea’s work to disable its Yongbyon nuclear facility, also due by Dec. 31, although he said this could slide into February for technical reasons. The foreign officials overseeing the disablement have chosen to go slowly on removing fuel rods for safety reasons.

“The disabling of the facilities is going ahead well. They have five of 11 tasks fully done and the others are under way. I think everyone involved with the disablement process is very satisfied,” he said.

Despite the progress of the disablement process, it should not stop North Korea from coming clean. However, it seems like they are not quite ready to give up its secrets much like everything else inside the reclusive country (from the same Reuters article):

The senior official told Reuters that reflexively secretive North Korea was reluctant to detail its nuclear proliferation activities — which it has steadfastly denied — as well as what it regards as military secrets in its declaration.

“They have real weapons and so they should tell us what the weapons program looks like,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.

“That is where you get into military secrets and, in a country that would keep a sweater size secret, you can imagine the difficulty in revealing military secrets,” he added.

North Korea has published no economic statistics in the past several decades and severely limits its citizens’ travel and contact with the outside world. Its leader, Kim Jong-il, has uttered only several words in public in his long career.

North Korea does not have long to make up its mind, and until Dec. 31 rolls around, there is not a lot a person like me can do but wait for the results to come in and see if the DPRK will come clean after all. I have my doubts, and I am also going to guess somewhere down the line the deadline will be pushed to compensate. This is the same cat and mouse game that has been going on for decades, but when nukes are involved, it raises the stakes a little higher. Will Kim finally come clean? I am not holding my breath.

back to the Washington Post article, it says something similar to the Reuters article:

The discovery of the uranium traces has been closely held by senior U.S. officials concerned that disclosure would expose intelligence methods and complicate the diplomatic process. North Korea has steadfastly refused to open up about its past practices, simply asserting that it is not engaged in inappropriate activities. However, the uranium finding will force U.S. negotiators to demand a detailed explanation from Pyongyang.

That’s when things can get really hairy. If North Korea has been in fact caught red-handed with uranium which they have denied all this time, what else have they been hiding? This can become very messy indeed, not that it has not been messy to begin with. If these allegations and findings are confirmed officially, what could happen in the negotiations process? That I cannot answer, but I can safely say it is not going to be easy to have Pyongyang admit to it after lying about it if it is true after all. On the other hand, officials are keeping mum about it:

Ross Feinstein, spokesman for the director of national intelligence, declined to comment on the uranium discovery, as did officials at the State Department.

No surprise there either considering the magnitude of the discovery if it is found to be true. The article does go on to say another possibility on where the uranium might have originated, but since I am not a nuclear expert, I have no idea how they will find out exactly where it came from. Perhaps they have ways to figure it out, and it seems from this article it can be traced. Personally, I do not know. Again, it is going to take time either way:

In addition to the possibility that the tubes acquired traces of uranium as part of an active enrichment program, sources said the tubing could have been contaminated by exposure to other equipment. Pakistan, for instance, has acknowledged providing North Korea with a sample centrifuge kit, and so the tubes might have acquired the enriched uranium from the Pakistani equipment. In 2003, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency detected traces of enriched uranium at an Iranian nuclear facility and ultimately determined that the material came from Pakistani equipment provided by a nuclear smuggling network.

Hm that I did not know. Interesting.

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, said the equipment did not need to be in the same room but could have picked up the uranium traces from a person who was exposed to both sets of equipment. He said that several Energy Department laboratories have highly sophisticated methods of detecting the nuclear material from items that had been thoroughly decontaminated.

“There is a real art in extracting enriched uranium from samples,” Albright said. The labs can detect micrograms of enriched uranium, which he said is “way beyond what any normal radiation detector would pick up.” However, he said, such minute quantities could easily have come from other sources.

Ultimately, he said, it might be possible to match up the enriched uranium discovered on the North Korean tubes with information known about the Pakistani material discovered in Iran to determine whether the enriched uranium on the tubes had been inadvertently transferred.

So from that, it seems with some time, experts can trace it to see where it really came from. Maybe that explains why officials will not comment to confirm or deny such findings as it can really mess things up if they jump the gun. In my opinion, I think something is up in North Korea, and I happen to believe they do have such a program but will deny it over and over again just like everything else. In the meantime, Washington wants the declaration, and is holding out the carrot to get North Korea out of its dark cave:

“We expect a complete and accurate declaration from North Korea,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters yesterday during a news conference with the Canadian foreign minister. “If we are to move forward, and if we are to move forward on all of the benefits that would come to North Korea through the successful completion of this second phase, we really must have an accurate declaration.”

All I can say is good luck on that one. With a newly elected ROK president and Bush’s tenure is coming to an end soon, North Korea still trucks along like it always did before. In my mind, this is going to be a game of cat and mouse for quite a while, and until the regime does finally implode, nobody is going to know the full extent of North Korea’s programs be it nuclear, chemical, biological or otherwise. Furthermore, nobody will know for certain the extent of the human rights abuses such as testing the chemical and biological agents on humans inside the gulags. North Korea has a lot to answer for, but as long as the Kim regime does remain in power, the dark curtain will still be there and we will only get small glimpses into it, and with only a partial picture.

Also see One Free Korea and ROK Drop