Thursday, September 04, 2008

Stakes go up in Korea crisis

Sept.4, 2008

Stakes go up in Korea crisis

Reports that North Korea has started to reassemble its main nuclear facility should have come as a shock to the US, which appeared to have taken Pyongyang for granted after making the six-country disarmament-for-aid deal a few months ago.
While there is no substantiated confirmation that the North Koreans are indeed putting back into order its reactor and other plants at Yongbyon, it would appear to be a safe bet that they have started doing so, making good on threats after the United States failed to remove the country from a "terrorism" blacklist.
North Korea had indeed signalled that it was adopting a tough stand when it announced that it had suspended disabling its nuclear programme. Pyongyang issued a statement on Aug.26 saying that "the US is gravely mistaken if it thinks it can make a house search in (North Korea) as it pleases just as it did in Iraq."
Following that statement, the US State Department cautioned against getting “overly excited” about the recent increase in tensions with North Korea. The North Korean move also exposed the hollow claims in Washington that “substantive” talks with North Korea on the nuclear verification process had taken place.
For some time, it was clear that North Korea was getting increasingly angry at the intrusive verification demands on the dismantling of the programme.
Obviously, Pyongyang was expecting to pick itself up, economically and politically, after the US removes the country from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List as agreed in the six-party agreement struck this year.
Subsequently, the US attached conditions to the removal and this dealt a severe blow to North Korea's hopes. The reported reassembling of its main nuclear plant, which it disabled in late June in a dramatic gesture in the nuclear disablement process, is North Korea's way of getting back at the US and showing that it demands to be treated with respect.
Surely, the US-Russian conflict over Georgia has played a major role in prompting Pyongyang to take the decision because the Georgian crisis has weakened Washington and blunted its options.
Indeed, there would be immediate moves to convince
North Korea to reverse its move, but it is a foregone conclusion that Washington would find that the stakes have gone up dramatically when it launched fresh talks with Pyongyang.