DPRK (North Korea)
Expected Council Action
The Chairman of the Sanctions Committee on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Ambassador Giulio Terzi di Sant’Agata of Italy, will brief the Council in informal consultations in October. The Committee must report to the Council every ninety days.
No Council action is expected. The Chairman’s report will be limited as there has been no Committee activity since July 2007. (Seventy-three countries plus the EU have now reported to the Committee on steps taken nationally to implement the sanctions regime.)
Key Recent Developments
Although the situation had been improving for a period (with North Korea making substantial progress with disabling the Yongbyon facility, permitting monitoring by the IAEA, submitting on 26 June a declaration of its nuclear programme—including a list of stockpiles of nuclear material and facilities used to produce them and destroying on 27 June the cooling tower at Yongbyon) new problems have emerged recently. A table is attached which tracks the phases of the six-party talks.
On 24 September, North Korea removed seals and surveillance cameras at Yongbyon, saying it intended to reactivate the reprocessing plant within a week. IAEA inspectors were also barred from the site. (Using nuclear material already on site, it seems that the DPRK could reprocess sufficient plutonium for several more nuclear weapons quite quickly.)
North Korea announced on 19 September that it was reversing its position on deactivating Yongbyon because the “action for action” principle agreed in the six-party deal had not been observed as the US had not begun removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
“Recalling the commitments to 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, the US will fulfil its commitments to the DPRK in parallel with the DPRK’s actions based on consensus reached at the meetings of the Working Group on Normalisation of DPRK-US relations.”
Subsequent to the submission by the DPRK of the declaration on its nuclear activities, the six parties met in Beijing from 10 to 12 July. It seems that they agreed in principle that the declaration needed to be verified, but they were unable to agree on the process itself. The parties therefore deferred the issue of specifying the types of inspections to future negotiations at the working group level. The parties, however, reiterated their commitment to complete delivery of energy and economic aid as pledged in the February 2007 agreement once disablement of the Yongbyon reactor is complete. On 12 July, North Korea had said this would be completed by the end of October.
It seems that the US is interpreting the six-party deal as requiring the DPRK to accept a comprehensive method of verifying the DPRK list of nuclear programmes before starting to remove the DPRK from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. North Korea seems to argue that:
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this was not a precondition agreed in the six-party deal;
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removing the designation should be happening “in parallel” with the Yongbyon disabling and submission of the declaration; and
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it is impermissible under the past agreements to link it to verification which was an issue to be negotiated subsequently.
Another grievance from North Korea is that although it dismantled 80 percent of its nuclear facilities, only 40 percent of the pledged aid was provided by the five other parties. At this point it is unclear whether there is a misunderstanding on one or both sides or whether there is a deeper problem.
In separate developments:
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On 15 September, South Korean sources said that North Korea conducted an engine ignition test for a long-range missile at the Tongchang-ri site.
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There was speculation in September that North Korea’s Kim Jong-il was seriously ill after he failed to appear at a parade on 9 September marking the 60th anniversary of the country.
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North Korea is experiencing its worst food crisis in a decade. On 2 September the World Food Programme announced that it would launch a major relief campaign to help 6 million people.
Key Issues
The main issue is whether the current situation justifies discussion in the Council. At time of writing it seemed likely that for Council members a resumption of negotiations within the framework of the six-party talks would remain the preferred arena. However, in the absence of progress on the diplomatic front, and if North Korea actually does reprocess plutonium, the issue may move back to the Security Council.
Recent developments make it unlikely that the Council will discuss whether the frequency of the Sanctions Committee’s reports should be reduced.
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Selected Security Council Resolution |
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Selected Letter |
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Other |
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Six-Party Talks Phases for the Denuclearisation Process |
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Joint Statement of the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks (19 September 2005): North Korea agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons programme in return for energy assistance from the other parties and normalised relations with Japan and the US. |
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Initial Actions for the Implementation of the 2005 Joint Statement (13 February 2007):The parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the Joint Statement in a phased manner and in line with the principle of “action for action”. DPRK consented to disable and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons complex with a 60-day phase one (this took 4 months to complete). The other parties made pledges for normalised relations and the delivery of heavy fuel oil. |
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Second Phase Actions for the Implementation of the 2005 Joint Statement (3 October 2007): This specified the steps each party would take during the next phase of denuclearisation process. The DPRK agreed to disable all nuclear facilities and to provide a complete declaration of all its nuclear programmes. The other parties committed to more economic, energy and humanitarian assistance and the US committed to remove the DPRK from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and to rescind economic sanctions on DPRK “in parallel” with DPRK actions. |
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“Six-Party Talks Move Towards North Korea’s Denuclearization”, WMD Insights, August 2008
