OneWorld.net (U.S.)

CLOCK TICKING: US NEEDS VIABLE DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY AS NORTH KOREA THREATENS TO TEST A NUCLEAR WEAPON

Washington, D.C. – The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation warned that the threat from North Korea will only continue to escalate unless the United States pursues a more effective and viable plan to engage North Korea in negotiations that will lead to North Korea abandoning its nuclear weapons and missile programs. After several weeks of international suspicion that North Korea was preparing an underground nuclear test, North Korea announced that it was in fact planning to test a nuclear weapon.

Leonor Tomero, a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Policy Analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, noted “The Administration’s strategy of focusing on form over substance by insisting on negotiations only in the context of the six-party talks has clearly failed to make us safer from the North Korean nuclear threat, instead allowing North Korea to produce enough material for perhaps as many as ten nuclear weapons.”

Lt. General Gard (USA, Ret.), Senior Military Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, warned “It is high time the United States negotiate in good faith and put forward a serious proposal, that would include a non-aggression pact, a promise not to threaten the North Korean regime, and economic and energy incentives, in exchange for North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapon program and accepting intrusive inspections.”

Tomero added “We only delude ourselves if we continue to believe that North Korea is not a threat to US and international security just because its missile program might not be advanced enough to reach the United States. We should be very concerned about the possibility that North Korea could sell bomb-grade material to terrorists, its ability to threaten its neighbors, and its potential to cause Japan or South Korea to eventually reconsider their non-nuclear weapon status.”

According to Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy, who met with high-ranking North Korean officials in Pyongyang last month, North Korea’s lead nuclear negotiator Kim Gae Gwan stated in a Global Security Newswire report that “The United States should be concerned about the possibility of fissile material being transferred third parties or nuclear weapons beings transferred to third parties.”

Following the break-down in negotiations after an agreement was reached in September 2005, North Korea has refused to rejoin the six-party talks citing international condemnation of its July missile tests and a US crack-down on financial institutions that enable North Korea’s counterfeiting activities.