Japan Provokes North Korea Threat to Resuscitate Yongbyon Reactors? Think Again.

If you read only this Reuters report, you might think that Japan’s refusal to provide heavy fuel oil under the 2007 October 3 Six-Parties Agreement is to blame for North Korea’s threat to stop dismantling its core nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. Not true. All the five powers had decided to suspend fuel shipments after the December Six-Party talks because North Korea would not agree to a verification protocol, as this State Department briefing notes (it is more carefully laid out in this VOA report), although Russia and China appears to have later denied agreeing to such a thing. Reuters obviously failed to factcheck the Kyodo wire report on which the report was based. Besides, the tab for the “Japanese” portion of the fuel aid was going to be picked up by Australia, with the understanding that Japan would shoulder a proportionately larger share of the burden further down the line.

Then why is North Korea blaming Japan weeks after the deed? If you could read the original Kyodo wire, you would find that the whole thing stemmed from a somewhat misleading press briefing that Yoshihiro Kawakami, a hardcore pro-North Korea parliamentarian gave in Beijing after talks with an North Korean Embassy official there. Kawakami essentially did the proverbial “awakening the sleeping baby”. As an enterprising Asahi reporter in Tokyo later found out by asking Kawakami himself, the North Korean official had told him that “it doesn’t matter if (Japan’s share of the assistance) is [coming from] another country, but if it doesn’t happen, (the disabling operation) will be to that extent suspended. (（日本の分の支援は）別の国でも構わないが、できなければ（無能力化作業は）その分だけ中断される。)”

Of course the　North　Korean　official　would　have　badmouthed　the official Japanese line; he was talking to a　sympathetic Japanese　Diet　member, who could be expected to follow suit. But even that Kawakami took note of the fact and duly reported that it was the fuel oil (or its equivalent) that counted, not the name on the CARE package. As an aside to this post but a matter very significant for the security situation in the region, I note that the North Korean official indicated a proportional suspension of disablement, not a reversal thereof. This may have been a slip of the tongue by the official (unlikely) or misunderstanding by Kawakami (possible), but if true, it would be signal from the North Korean side that, for the time being, a freeze of the status quo—North Korea retains strategic ambiguity regarding its nuclear capacity but makes no overt move to enhance it—that I predicted more than a year ago is in store, at least until President-Elect Obama has settled in and is ready to deal with the issue, not a sure thing during the first years of his administration.

The New York Times actually gets a lot of the facts right in its December 29 editorial, although it predictably manages to misrepresent the Japanese position on fuel aid. To quote:

Japan was already reneging on its commitment to supply fuel aid, and Australia, which had stepped into the breach, announced that it would withhold its contribution.

This is a gross misrepresentation of the Japanese position and shows a lack of understanding of the October 3 Six-Parties Agreement, which states:

The DPRK and Japan agreed to make “sincere efforts” to normalize their relations.

Although it requires heavy reading between the lines, this essentially meant that Japan would give North Korea upwards of a trillion yen if the latter came clean on the abductees. Like it or not, for Japan, this is part and parcel of its rights and obligations under the Six Parties Agreement. From the Japanese perspective, it is North Korea who has reneged. I know that Americans think that Japan is nuts for insisting on putting the abduction issue on the Six Parties agenda, and I have been critical of the Japanese government and media on this matter. But it’s a whole nuther thing to ignore it as a fact of life like the NYT editorial does.

Shoichi Nakagawa’s Choice of Regrettables Is Not by Accident

The English-language media seized on the “extremely regrettable” comment that Shoichi Nakagawa, Finance Minister and well-known hardliner, made with regard to the U.S. delisting of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and took it as the expression of Japanese displeasure. There was one article that even speculated that Japan might stop the U.S.-DPRK agreement at the Six-Party Talks. In fact, Mr. Nakagawa’s words had served only to let off steam. That should have been clear from the circumstances and the wording.

First, the easy one. The Finance Minister does not speak for Japan on North Korea’s nuclear issue. He has as much authority with regard to the Six-Party talks as the death penalty. Or reproductive rights. And the list goes on.

Second, for “regrettable”, he used, “残念”, more a show of disappointment than “遺憾”, the word used in officialdom to register a protest or issue an apology. (It totally depends on the context; I know, that’s weird and somewhat weasely, but no more so than the “I’m sorry if you were offended” apology favored by American public figures.) “残念” lacks direction; it does not make any demands, explicit or implicit, on the Bush administration. In today’s Upper House Budget Committee Q&A, Prime Minister Aso used the word “不満”, or “dissatisfied”. Mr. Aso also avoided the most obvious choice of words if he had intended to register an official protest. The two political veterans knew what they were doing; “不満”, like ”残念”, are emotive words. What the two men did was to use words that are high on emotion but low on action in order to soothe local discontent while minimizing friction with the Bush administration.

What all this means is that North Korea is now a nuclear pseudo-power; China and South Korea will provide its upkeep, but Japan will not, and the abduction issue will recede into the background, until North Korea sees a way to use it to its economic advantage. That is the new status quo, the new equilibrium.

Asahi Reports on NYT Reports on Iranian Missile Launch: Shouldn’t Meta-Reporting Be Done More Cheaply?

This morning’s Asahi reports on a July 10 New York Times online report on the two near-identical photos of the Iranian missile launch; one from AFP showing four missiles in the air, the other from AP showing three in the air and another still on the ground.

Q: Why did it take a full day and-a-half to condense the fairly trivial NYT report—the Washington Post didn’t bother to run a mismatch story—when CNN had already reported later in the day (nearly a full day before Asahi posted its version on its website) a more significant story on the actual substance of the two-day missile launches*?

A: Asahi has a very slow connection on the Internets, and does not subscribe to cable TV.

I take note of this because it reminded me that an American asked me the other day why so much of the stateside news in the Japanese dailies is copied from the U.S. media and I didn’t have a good answer at the time. I see that the U.S. media also cites Japanese media reports from time to time. I also recognize that local reports are useful sources, not only for their content, but also as a social and political force in their own right. Meta-reporting has its own value. But Japanese media have, at least collectively, more resources on the ground in New York and Washington. My guesses:

1) Japanese reporters don’t have the foreign language skills to do interviews.
2) Their overseas assignments are too short to develop the personal contacts that enable them to generate
3) They miss the domestic kasha club system, where the political institutions, bureaucracies, business associations and other institutionalized news sources systematically feed their constituent media representatives. The English-language media, now much of their content conveniently online, are their virtual substitutes.

What do you think?

You know what? I think that the Japanese media can profitably move much of their overseas reporting home side, especially in OECD countries, and put some of the savings—my guesstimate is that a foreign correspondent takes at least two to three times as much corporate resources, financial and otherwise, to maintain and service than a domestic one—to good use by beefing up the original content generation activities in their foreign correspondence bureaus.

Incidentally, as of this morning Tokyo Time, Matt Drudge has a news flash item that I’ve copied below, after the footnote. If true, there’ll an even bigger NYT story later in the day that should have a downward impact on the oil market. Isn’t that the kind of information that online readers would appreciate?

* The CNN does mention the doctored photo, but it’s an appropriately minor point in the story.

** One of the reasons media people read Matt Drudge must be to get these leads so that they can avoid being scooped other media outlets. Then again, some of these leaks may be deliberate, to create a buzz so that their own reports attract more eyeballs and hopefully generate more revenue.

ADD. ...forgot to paste the following...

IRAN MISSILE TEST BLUFF: OLD ROCKETS, BOGUS VIDEO
Fri Jul 11 2008 15:18:02 ET

Many of Iran's claims related to missile tests during "Great Prophet III" war games -- appear to be smoke and mirrors!

The missiles tested DID NOT not have 2,000-kilometer range, the NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Saturday.

Iran DID NOT launch a Shahab-3 missile, able to reach Israel.

It was an older missile that was out of production, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE.

And a video showing what appeared to be many missiles being fired -- is actually one missile, filmed from different angles!

NYT's Bill Broad is planning to quote military insiders.

Developing...

The Fix Is in on Delisting North Korea as State Sponsor of Terrorism

Yesterday, the Chief Cabinet Secretary made the announcement, later confirmed by the Foreign Minister, that the North Korean authorities has agreed to reopen investigations regarding abductees and repatriate the remaining four of the nine Japanese radicals who highjacked a plane to North Korea in 1970 and received asylum there and two Japanese wives of theirs, who, together with the highjackers, are accused of playing key roles in the abductions. In return, the Japanese government will be lifting all sanctions on movement of personnel, and will also allow North Korean ships to enter Japanese ports to load humanitarian aid cargo. However, all sanctions on trade—including a total ban on imports from North Korea—as well as the less significant financial sanctions will remain.

To repeat: There is no reasonable scenario short of regime change in North Korea that will close the case. It is highly likely that the remaining eight of the thirteen abductees that the North Korean authorities have confessed to are dead, and just as unlikely that North Korea will be forthcoming even if any of them are alive.* There is also little chance that the North Korean authorities will fess up to the other four abductees that the Japanese government has recognized but the North Korean authorities have denied. On the other hand, it is near impossible for the North Korean authorities to prove that they are telling the truth.

Thus, I do not see the reinvestigation producing anything conclusive in any way. It is no wonder that the families of the remaining abductees show no optimism with regard to the latest turn of events. That lack of enthusiasm is likely to boil over into open displeasure as the process peters out with little to show for it. In terms of domestic politics, there is little to gain for the Fukuda administration, though the negatives down the road will be tempered by waning public interest with the passage of time since the 2002 revelations.

Then why do it? Actually, the Fukuda administration had little choice. The Bush administration is poised to cut a deal with the North Korean authorities that will freeze North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for among other things dropping it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. The bus will be leaving, with or without Japan on board, so Mr. Fukuda had to take what he could get. Besides, the main target of the sanctions are programs relating to weapons of mass destruction; it was only in 2006 October, after Shinzo Abe succeeded Junichiro Koizumi as Prime Minister, that the Japanese government added the abductees issue to the justifications.

Some people here will trace this change in tack to the very beginning of the Fukuda administration, when Mr. Fukuda indicated that he would be taking a more conciliatory approach to the issue. Indeed, the Fukuda administration indicated through the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Foreign Minister that it would ease sanctions commensurate with progress on the abductees issue. It is also true that Mr. Fukuda represents a less hawkish worldview than Mr. Abe, his predecessor as Prime Minister. Moreover, Mr. Fukuda has far less political capital invested in the issue than Mr. Abe, who basically rode that one-trick pony as an obscure sub-cabinet Deputy to Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda to the Prime Minister’s office in just four years’ time.

Thus, the more nationalistic/hawkish elements of the media will blast Mr. Fukuda for making the deal—Sankei has already come out strongly against easing the sanctions. But there was no viable alternative. There is no way that an LDP Prime Minister, whatever his personal inclinations may be, could hope to stand in the way of a nuclear programs deal that the U.S. government is determined to push through without losing face, or worse, just possibly throw the whole process off track by giving a somewhat implausible Congressional coalition of human rights advocates and national security hawks ammunition to cut down the main track agreement on North Korea’s nuclear program. The abductees issue has existed only between the lines in the agreement under the Six-Party Talks. There is no way that the Bush administration, or any U.S. administration for that matter, would allow it to take a front seat to the main issue.**

So the fix is in. Barring deal-breaking snags in the negotiations between the Bush administration and the North Korean authorities—and the devil is truly in the details when it comes to dealing with North Korea—the Fukuda administration will have to live with the political consequences of an unsatisfactory but unavoidable deal.

* It is notable that three of the nine highjack perpetrators reportedly died in North Korea of natural (illness and accident) when they were 35, 42, and 52 years of age respectively. This unusually high mortality rate mirrors that of the deceased abductees. The North Korean authorities claim that eight out of the thirteen that they have admitted to—five were repatriated alive, while the Japanese government recognizes four more missing people as abductees, bringing the total of officially confirmed victims to seventeen—also died of illness and accidents (and natural disasters), all in their twenties, thirties or forties.

** Note that John McCain, who is seen as deeply sympathetic to the plight of the abductees and their families, always makes a clear distinction between the nuclear weapons program and the abductees issue, which he always places in the category of “future talks”. See, for example, the following excerpt from his Foreign Affairs essay.

It is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities, two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation.

President Bush Backs Up on North Korean Enrichment Verification

On April 28, President Bush, while talking about the purpose of the disclosure of the Syrian nuclear facility with regard to North Korea, said that “it's essential that you have a complete disclosure on not only your plutonium activities, but proliferation, as well as enrichment activities.” It clearly raises the hurdle on North Korea’s uranium enrichment program. As a matter of pure logic, he could have made a distinction between a declaration and an acknowledgement of concern. But that would have consigned the entire Chris Hill package to oblivion in the face of Congressional opposition. Either way, the deal looks headed for a deadlock, unless the North Koreans put out on its enrichment program.

It’s not very long, the one relevant Q&A in the entire press conference that President Bush held on April 29; so I’ve copied it below. The entire transcript can be found here.

Q Mr. President, thank you, sir. Previously when asked about Israel's September bombing of the Syrian facility, you refused aggressively to discuss it. Then suddenly last week, your administration released classified photos and details of that bombing, intelligence officials claiming that it showed that this facility was a North Korean-designed nuclear facility being actually built with the help of Pyongyang. Why the turnaround, sir? What did you hope that that would accomplish? And what do you say to lawmakers of both parties on Capitol Hill who are quite concerned that indeed if this was what this facility was, that it took some eight months for you to inform them, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Let me correct the record. We briefed 22 members of Congress on what I'm about to tell you. First, we were concerned that an early disclosure would increase the risk of a confrontation in the Middle East or retaliation in the Middle East. As I mentioned to you early on, we did notify 22 members of Congress, key committee chairmen. And I was -- I'm mindful that there was going to be this kind of reaction, and of course, we wanted to include more members of Congress at a time when we felt the risk of retaliation or confrontation in the Middle East was reduced, and so that moment came upon us, and then extended the briefings.

We also wanted to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans, to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think, and therefore, it's essential that you have a complete disclosure on not only your plutonium activities, but proliferation, as well as enrichment activities.

And then we have an interest in sending a message to Iran, and the world for that matter, about just how destabilizing a -- nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East, and that it's essential that we work together to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at getting Iran to stop their enrichment programs. In other words, one of the things that this example shows is that these programs can exist and people don't know about them -- because the Syrians simply didn't declare the program; they had a hidden program.

And finally, we wanted to make it clear to Syria -- and the world -- that their intransigence in dealing with helping us in Iraq, or destabilizing Lebanon, or dealing with Hamas -- which is a destablizing force in our efforts to have a Palestinian state coexist peacefully with Israel -- that those efforts are -- gives us a chance to remind the world that we need to work together to deal with those issues. So that's why we made the decision we made.

Ahmadinejad Sates Bloggerlust

Look.

More on Latest Revelations over North Korea-Syria Nuclear Ties

Siegfried Knittel sends me this post on the blog China Matters and wants to know what I make of the speculation “that Kim Jung Il revealed information about the plant as a confidence-building measure to advance North Korea’s agenda with US negotiators, while hanging the Syrians out to dry. Maybe those incriminating pictures inside the purported Syrian reactor were snaps by a North Korean technician that Dear Leader passed on to Chris Hill.” The blogger probably does not realize it, but it would echo the revelations that Great Leader made to Prime Minister Koizumi regarding the abductees. So it's an interesting hypothesis, and it’s pretty clear that Israel/US had access to official or semi-official records, not “just a few furtive snapshots taken by a daring spy”.

However, the access most likely consisted of clandestine operations by the Israelis, the Mossad, and not through a Kim Jong Il leak. Think, Occam’s Razor. Besides, letting Chris Hill know that you've given assistance to a clandestine nuclear program of a third country (and a “state sponsor of terrorism” at that) while continuing to deny it publicly would be a strange way to go about getting a deal accepted in the US.

In support of his guess, the blogger assumes that John Bolton is holding back on his criticism of the State Department people because he knows what’s going on. To quote:

Specifically, I am not seeing the signs of orgasmic release I would expect from John Bolton if this revelation was a bombshell that promised to destroy the Six Party Agreement and shatter the reputations of his detested adversaries inside the State Department.But this not only assumes that he supports the deal, but that he somehow had access to the information, the Kim Jong Il leak, that had not been available when he resigned from the Bush administration.

Pardon the blogger’s French, but there's the following quote from the Washington Post:

On the conservative side, John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has been critical of U.S. policy on North Korea, said: "I think this should drive the stake through the six-party talks. It shows why the North Koreans can't be trusted, why you need intrusive verification of anything they say."

Sounds to me like one happy guy, IYKWIAS. I'm sure he said much more, but there are so many other newsworthy sources closer to the action, such as angry Republican Senators and Congressmen, that there’s only so much ink to spare for someone who is at present no more than a talking head. And now to the real point of this post:

If you don’t find something in the media, that doesn’t mean that the media hasn’t carried it. But if you do find it in the media, that doesn’t mean that it has happened. And if the media didn’t carried it, that still doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.

Part of the reason why I blog, actually.

ADD: Incidentally, I think that the main reason why Israel didn't go to the IAEA with the information is because it didn't want to face questions about its own nuclear weapons program.

Bush Administration Delivers the Goods on North Korea’s Assistance for Syria’s Nuclear Program

I speculated here in essence that the Bush administration was getting ready to a) give North Korea a pass on its uranium enrichment program as well as its cooperation with Syria and b) delist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and release it from restrictions under the Trading with the Enemies Act. My point was that Japan would be called on to begin easing its sanctions (and, now that I think about it, also pitch in with some aid) if and when the entire plutonium cache and its status had been verified and the destruction process began. I saw the easing of sanctions as the logical conclusion of the reasoning and circumstances surrounding the 2006 October determination by the Abe Cabinet. I had intended to look at the implications of such a politically sensitive operation. But I think that I should put it off in light of the latest developments on persuasive evidence regarding North Korean assistance for a Syrian nuclear program. WaPo appears to have the most for a single news outlet. (I searched WaPo for (north korea nuclear), in case you want to skip the rest of my post/posts and fill yourself in on the story.

ADD: This is the briefing video.)

The consequences of the unexpected revelations, more than six months of silence after the Israeli attack on the facilities site and less than ten days after White House Press Secretary stated almost offhandedly that President Bush was on board the tentative deal that Chris Hill had struck, are unclear. What is clear is that getting the deal past Congress has become even more difficult.

One question that intrigues me (a lot of people, actually) is: Why now? The well-sourced David Sanger appears to be leaning towards the view that it’s an attempt by Vice President Cheney and his people to sabotage the deal that Chris Hill cut with his North Korean counterpart, ending his report with this paragraph:

“[Chris Hill]’s feeling pretty abandoned by Rice and Bush,” one of his colleagues said Wednesday. Mr. Hill did not respond to messages.

I’m not sure about that. Mr. Hill doesn’t seem to be the kind of person who would let on even if he felt that way. My money is on a deal between the two sides in the Bush administration: If we’re going to give North Korea probation on everything but the plutonium stockpile, let the world know that we have the goods, and see if the deal passes the stink test.

Okay, it does kinda stink, now that they tell us.

Chris Hill’s Latest Foray Yields Tentative Agreement, or a Half: Some Implications

...needs more editing, but I ran out of time and energy...

An agreement on the implementation of phase two of the 2007 February 13 Six-Party Action Plan is in the air.

On, April 8, Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill’s held talks in Singapore with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan. After the talks, he flew to Beijing the same night and on the following day briefed his Chinese, South Korean, and Japan colleagues in the Six-Party Talks process (and the Russian Embassy in Beijing). After returning to Washington, on April 10, he briefed U.S. lawmakers in a closed session. According to this well-sourced Reuters report, Mr. Hill and his North Korean counterpart reached a tentative agreement along the following lines:

Several people familiar with Hill's [April 10] briefing said he gave U.S. lawmakers the impression he hoped to bring about such a [North Korean] declaration [on its nuclear program] within weeks. According to these people, the declaration would have three parts:

-- North Korea's disclosure of its plutonium stockpile, which Pyongyang has estimated at 66 pounds (30 kg), as well as records that would allow the United [S]tates to verify this figure;

-- a U.S. "bill of particulars" laying out U.S. concerns about North Korea's suspected uranium enrichment program as well as its suspected nuclear proliferation activities;

-- North Korea's acknowledgment of the U.S. concerns.

On Monday, April 14, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino confirmed in a press briefing that President Bush is also on board. Like it or, not, everybody has been duly informed; the clock is running again. But to what end?

Now even if － we’re talking about North Korea － the deal goes through, such a declaration by no means concludes phase two. As Ms. Rice stated in her remarks on April 11:

Any document that we get, any declaration that we get, has to be verified and it has to be verifiable. And we have to make certain that we have means to assess what the North Koreans tell us, and we have to have means to verify what the North Koreans tell us.

Now, you can’t verify overnight some of these complicated programs that the North Koreans have been engaged in. But we have to be absolutely certain that we’ve got means to do it. And by the way, it’s not just the United States. It is all of the members of the six parties that have to be a part of this process of accounting for the North Korean programs and then verifying what we’ve been told and then finding ways to dismantle them.

So it does not necessarily amount to a U.S. copout, unless, of course, the Bush administration delists North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and releases it from restrictions under the Trading with the Enemies Act before “accounting for the North Korean programs and then verifying what we’ve been told and then finding ways to dismantle them.” After all, if past behavior is any indication, North Korea will do its best to wrest as many concessions as possible every step of the way. And that’s assuming that it really wants to move forward on phase two. In this respect, it is little short of flabbergasting that more than four months after the December 31 deadline, we still don’t know what the situation is in Yongbyon, as Ms. Rice readily admitted in the same April 11 remarks:

The North Koreans, of course, also have obligations in terms of disabling the Yongbyon facilities, and so we are not yet at a point where we can make a judgment as to whether or not the North Koreans have met their obligations and we are therefore not at a point at which the United States can make a judgment as to whether or not it’s time to exercise our obligations. But when we have made that judgment, we will be prepared to exercise the obligations that we’ve undertaken.

So, it is hard for me to believe that the Bush administration will make moves that give up any meaningful leverage unless they are paralleled by significant moves in the right direction. At a minimum, North Korea’s entire plutonium cache and its status would surely have to be verified before it does. But the uranium enrichment program is a different animal. Merely recognizing U.S. concerns however explicitly they are stated is not a declaration at all. It does not on the face of it require any further North Korean action. Read Ms. Rice’s comments again:

Any document that we get, any declaration that we get, has to be verified and it has to be verifiable. And we have to make certain that we have means to assess what the North Koreans tell us, and we have to have means to verify what the North Koreans tell us.

I ask you, how do you verify an acknowledgement of concerns? You can’t. The uranium enrichment program appears to have been put aside, mothballed, if you will, as an issue.

This is the height of irony. Remember, we wound up in this lengthy process because in 2002 October, James Kelly, Mr. Hill’s predecessor, challenged North Korea with allegations of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. In the meantime, North Korea conducted ballistic missile tests and likely a nuclear test (albeit incomplete at best). Iraq, Iran, and now, North Korea. I know that in my case it’s mostly hindsight, but, still, I can’t help thinking － the Bush administration hit the trifecta of evils. But I digress.

However, will Congress accept this bill of goods? It can stop the executive branch from delisting North Korea, you know. And why would the Democratic Party want to give the Bush administration a pass on this, in an election year to boot? Some Republicans － presidential candidate and Mr. National Security John McCain for one － also may not want to cave on the uranium enrichment program and leave the mysterious Syrian facilities obliterated by Israel as well as allegations of possible North Korean ties to Iran on hold. Then, there’s also the human rights angle. Remember, the state sponsor designation still rests in part on the abductees issue, albeit highly toned down in the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2007. Could a majority of the U.S. Congress ignore appeals from the families of the Japanese abductees, especially after adopting the Honda resolution on the comfort women? Will the Korean-American lobby stand by and ignore the plight of the far more numerous South Korean victims, especially now that the sunshine policy has been occluded (if only in part) by Roh Moo-hyun’s less sympathetic successor?

So there are serious uncertainties concerning the prospective agreement between nailing it down with the North Koreans, bringing Congress on board, and executing it. I still remain highly skeptical of North Korea’s intentions, I also have serious doubts about a lame-duck administration that has no one with a stake in pushing the agenda in the presidential election (no, Ms. Rice is not going to run for Vice President) being able to get the double delisting past Congress.

But what if it does happen? Who knows, maybe the North Korean regime has come to the conclusion that going forward on its plutonium program actually enhances its chances for survival. What would that mean to Japan?

To consider that matter, first let me remind you what the other members of the Six-Party Talks process want from Japan. That consists of two things: 1) give massive aid to North Korea as the consequence of the normalization of the bilateral relationship in the event of a successful conclusion; and in the meantime 2) Give humanitarian, economic, and energy aid to North Korea and ease/drop economic sanctions thereon as quid pro quo for progress.

Unlike South Korea (or, of course, China or Russia), Japan’s position is based not only on concerns over North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction but also the fate of its abducted nationals. With regard to point 1), i.e. normalization, it is in essence a bilateral issue, and the other members of the Six –Party Talks process should be expected to live with whatever Japan and North Korea, with the standoff over the abductees issue, manage to do with it. But point 2) is different. Given the fact that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal (assuming it has one) is basically targeted at Japan*, it is Japan that has the most to gain in terms of national security. Accordingly, it makes sense for the other members to look to Japan to come forth as progress is made.

The United States is also linked to the abductees issue, but only tangentially through its designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. The Bush administration has been mindful of the political sensitivity of the issue to its Japanese　allies － Kim Jong Il’s admission and apology in 2002 when Prime Minister Koizumi attempted to normalize bilateral relations backfired and created the first major crisis for the Koizumi administration; the problem remains intractable today － but the 2007 February 13 Action Plan implicitly allows that the US will go forward with its own normalization agenda on the basis of the progress on the nuclear issue alone. As we have already explored here, the Bush administration is clearly prepared to move ahead.

As we have also seen, Congress could get in the way. But if the process does move forward, the Fukuda administration will be put in an increasingly awkward spot in the Six-Party Talks process unless a viable way in terms of domestic politics can be found to delink the abductees issue from the North Korean nuclear program. The politics of the matter are complicated, and I hope to explore the subject on another occasion. In the meantime, let me repeat the following footnote to this December 19 post:

****** In the unlikely event that North Korean side does declare its nuclear stockpile, I’m sure that the Bush administration will move to delist North Korea. The Japanese authorities will acknowledge the matter gracefully; they have no choice. It will be useful to remind the Japanese public that Japanese sanctions against North Korea were first linked to the abductees issue (to the best of my knowledge) in 2006 October, when restrictions were tightened in response to the North Korean nuclear test. Thus, if there is meaningful progress toward actual destruction of the stockpile (as opposed to mere declaration), Japan will be rightfully expected to begin rolling back those sanctions. But that is a bridge that will not be reached in the foreseeable future.

It looks likely that where “the unlikely event” is concerned, half of it has prospects of occurring, the U.S. Congress willing**. In the following months, we will see if “the foreseeable future” stretches beyond the Bush administration.

* Narushige Michishita has this 2007 article that among other things illuminates this point.

** An early indication of the extent to and speed with which the Bush administration intends to move forward should appear in the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2007, to be issued as early as the end of this month.

Follow-Up to March 1 Post on North Korea

Sam Jameson is the go-to guy for everything you need to know about Japan and its environs but don't know enough to ask about. With regard to this post, Mr. Jameson has kindly checked his notes and confirms that there is nothing there to contradict my version of the gist of his exchange with Mr. Takesada, although my memory appears to have substantially paraphrased the actual wording of their comments. Robert Dujarric, the foreign relations and security expert who hosted the events at TUJ, has also confirmed my recollections.

The following is an excerpt from Mr. Jameson’s message that I am posting here with his permission:

[Mr. Takesada] is the third expert to admit to me in public settings that reliable inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities are impossible. The other two were Satoshi Morimoto*, who affirmed my statement about the extensive underground digging [North Korea] has done over the years and then added, “That's why the 6-party talks are a chaban-geki (a farcical play).” Ken Quinones**, in another press conference, replied by saying full inspections were impossible because “North Korea is like a big chunk of Swiss cheese. It's full of holes.”

* Mr. Morimoto (森本敏) is a diplomat turned academic and a highly sought-after authority on national security and international relations.

** Ken Quinones is a retired State Department expert on North Korea.

Does North Korea Have a Better Reason for Nukes?

Professor Hideshi Takesada, Executive Director of the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) of the Japanese Ministry of Defense (MOD), gave an on-the-record talk on February 29 at Temple University, Tokyo Campus. When veteran journalist Sam Jameson referred to North Korea’s extensive network of underground tunnels and warrens and asked how the US could ever hope to verify any claims and acts by North Korea with regard to its WMD and missile programs under the Six-Party process, Mr. Takesada appeared to agree with the implications of Mr. Jameson’s question and wondered why the Bush administration ever thought that it was doable. He also appeared to favor the interpretation of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as an integral part of a scenario where North Korea uses a nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against US intervention while it makes a last-ditch effort to unify the Koreas on its own terms by using the threat of a conventional war against its southern neighbor before it loses its (self-perceived?) superiority in conventional warfare by way of its special forces. If we follow the implications of Mr. Takesada's comments to their ultimate conclusion, it means that North Korea can and will continue its WMD program regardless of anything coming out of the Six-Party talks.

Now Mr. Takesada did come not out and issue an outright rejection of Chris Hill’s efforts nor did he offer an unequivocal endorsement of the doomsday scenario. Besides, he is not a government spokesman and, if US military colleges are any indication, his views do not necessarily mirror the majority view within the Japanese defense establishment. Still, at a minimum, his darkly skeptical comments highlight Japanese fears over the North Korean nuclear program. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a difference in Japanese and US interests here that goes well beyond mere nuance. The US fears proliferation; Japan is afraid of an attack. Seen in that light, Japan’s hard-line in the Six-Party talks cannot be explained away as a mere psychological hang-up over the abductees issue. After all, what works for the US may not work for Japan.

Parsing the Recent Flurry of Inactivity over the North Korea’s Nuclear Program

The 31 December deadline for North Korea to disable three nuclear facilities including the Yongbyon reactors and to provide a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear program passed without comment from the North Korean government. It did not escape notice by the Bush administration though, which issued this statement through the U.S. State Department on December 30. The following is a somewhat ungrammatical excerpt that initially reveals its displeasure, putting the blame on the North Korean side on both counts:

It is unfortunate that North Korea has not yet met its commitments by providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs and slowing down the process of disablement.


However, the following day, the White House seemed to give North Korea a pass, as the following excerpt from this press gaggle* at the White House shows:

“The United States actually slowed down part of the disablement process, and that is not something that we blamed the North Koreans for, but we wanted that to be done in a safe and secure manner. So we are not blaming the North Koreans for the slowdown in that disablement process”.

North Korea, took the bait and bit off more by way of a January 4 Foreign Ministry statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency of D.P.R.K., the state wire service (but not yet available on the KCNA English page). The following is an excerpt of sorts from this NYTarticle:

North Korea said the disablement work at Yongbyon was “completed within the technologically possible scope as of Dec. 31.”

But since the aid** delivery “has not been done even 50 percent,” the North had to “adjust the speed of the nuclear disablement process,” it said. The work of unloading spent fuel rods from the North’s nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, a crucial part of the disablement, will take an additional 100 days, it said.

North Korea appears to agree with the White House that they carry no blame for not meeting the deadline. Although there is a whiff of that maddening ESL/partial-quote vagueness here, it appears that the North Korean “adjustment” is the threat of a post-December 31 delay, and does not refer to the pre-deadline “slowdown”. The following excerpt from a subsequent January 4 press briefing shows the U.S. State Department also taking that tack and choosing to all but ignore the North Korean threat:

We also look forward to their completing the disablement phase up at Yongbyon. That is moving forward and there is good progress on that.

So the opening North Korean bid for 2008 seems to be:

Half of Phase Two for half the 1,000,000 tons HFE.

Clearly, this part of the deal is doable. But the other half － the “complete and correct declaration” of the North Korean nuclear program － looks far more difficult. On that point, KCNA has, again according to the NYT article, the following:

The [North Korean Foreign Ministry’s] statement said that North Korea had already conducted “enough discussions” with the United States officials after they demanded more negotiations on its November draft declaration and that “[a]s far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, the D.P.R.K. has done what it should do.”

This claim could have been interpreted to mean that North Korea would not give any more information on the uranium enrichment program that it had denied having once the Six-Party talks began, or on its plutonium stockpile and nuclear explosive devices. The State Department Spokesman chose to give it a positive spin, reminding us of the following:

[T]he fact is they haven't turned in a final declaration yet. They're going to turn that in to the Chinese as chair, conveners of the six-party meetings and we don't have that yet. We look forward to a full and complete declaration.

Further:

And part of the reasons why they are not right now is we are breaking new ground in terms of what we're doing, in terms of disabling Yongbyon and in terms of working with North Korea in the six-party talks to get a full, complete picture of their nuclear program, not something that has ever been done before***.

But even the amount of processed plutonium is in dispute, if the following excerpt from thisWaPo article is to be believed:

A Japanese newspaper quoted North Korean and U.S. officials as saying that the North has reported making about 66 pounds of plutonium, considerably less than U.S. estimates.

The article continues with the following riff on the state sponsors of terrorism list, injecting another element into speculation over North Korean motives:

In Pyongyang, there appears to be anger and frustration over the U.S. government's reluctance to remove North Korea from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The Bush administration suggested in October that it would pursue such a removal, but has since made clear that all promises regarding nuclear facilities and programs must first be met.

And there the article abruptly ends, without even a mention of a Japanese role in the alleged U.S. step-back. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the Bush administration standing up to Congress and large segments of the Republican constituency for a deal that takes North Korea off the list without a satisfactory and explainable rendering of its nuclear program. Japanese insistence on the abductees issue should cast a shadow there as well, particularly in light of the 2007 House of Representatives resolution on the comfort women.

As for the Six-Party talks as a whole, the State Department spokesman stated the following in his response to the question on the North Korean statement on the nuclear program:

The first thing I'll note about what they said is that they are committed to the six-party process. That is, I think, the kicker line in their statement and there is every evidence that they are still committed to the six-party process and are moving forward with the implementation of this phase of the agreement as was outlined back in October.

So it looks like the talks will continue, with North Korea extracting the maximum possible from the disablement process and prolonging the nuclear program declaration as long as they can.

It is barely conceivable that the lame-duck Bush administration could bring the North Koreans around to a deal on the declaration that it can defend against Congressional accusations of caving in. But that would require North Korea to make a couple of difficult decisions, at least one of which would completely strip North Korea of the strategic ambiguity that it currently enjoys.

First, the two sides must come up with a plausible explanation of the scope and extent of North Korea’s uranium program, or, much less likely, a convincing case that there is no such thing. This is possible if North Korea determines that its uranium enrichment program is so rudimentary and its lead time accordingly so long that its strategic value is small enough to trade it in for delisting and the rest of the 1,000,000 tons. Let me put it this way; I don’t have any information that shows that to be impossible. But second, the two sides must come up with a plausible explanation of the scope and extent of North Korea’s plutonium stockpile and nuclear arsenal, such as there is. This is far more problematic than the enrichment program. The power, real and imagined, of these two elements that comprise the bulk of North Korea’s nuclear deterrent and serve as the symbol of the conflict with the U.S. is substantially amplified by the opacity of North Korea’s nuclear program. The perception of vulnerability as the result of a defensibly (from the viewpoint of the Bush administration of course) transparent deal will have serious domestic implications for the North Korean regime. Frankly, I don’t see North Korea jumping this shark any time soon, though I hope to be wrong.

Beyond 2008, a Democratic administration could very well re-inject a human rights angle into the picture, adding further complications, even if the Chris-Hill approach survives regime change. Given that the perception of a U.S. threat and the resultant perpetual state of emergency are actually a stabilizing element for the authoritarian regime, and that South Korea and China appear willing to continue to buy off the North Korean regime indefinitely, my money is on phase two extending itself deep into the foreseeable future. And in the less probable case of a North Korean decision to effectively conclude phase two, North Korea will find reasons to perpetuate the Six-Party talks at the threshold of phase three.

The upside, if you can call it that, to these short- and long-term outcomes that I find likely is that they entrench the status quo. The nuclear threat lies dormant in a North Korea in near-institutional stasis, while everyone waits for Kim Jong Il to pass away. This is obviously not the worst case scenario for Japan. For the Fukuda administration, this situation allows it to table a decision on the abductees issue at least until after the next Lower House election, a decision that could open the Prime Minister’s flank to an attack from the LDP right wing.

* Official term.

** The “aid” refers to the 1,000,000 tons of heavy fuel oil equivalent.

*** Note that on this point, the NYT article erroneously links the two sides of the deal, saying, “The State Department’s spokesman, Sean McCormack, said that the United States and the other countries involved in the talks had not reacted more strongly to the missed deadline because foreign nuclear experts were continuing their work to dismantle the Yongbyon plant, hoping through that work to learn more about aspects of North Korea’s nuclear program.” Such discrepancies happen because the State Department correspondent cannot be expected to fully understand a press briefing that covers anything from North Korea’s nuclear program to Kenya’s presidential election. But someone should have checked it against the transcript.

BBC Hearts Deepak Chopra? Me Salve Deus!

Faithful readers have been aware of my disenchantment with BBC as a credible news outlet. On 31 December, in a fawning, one-hour interview of Deepak Chopra, a BBC “Sorry I Don’t Do Hard Talk” host lobbed one softball question after another without even any follow-up questions. I looked through the BCC website, but could not find a trace. I hope that it was a bad dream.

In case you don’t know who Mr. Chopra is, he is a medical doctor by training who makes a lot of money by connecting sound medical facts to gooey New Age blather. Think, Hiroyuki Ehara with an M.D. …if I only knew how they did it…

---

Speaking of BBC, read this. To quote:

Since the landmark disarmament deal was agreed in February, North Korea has closed its main reactor at Yongbyon. Steps are currently underway to permanently disable it.

But the second stage of the process - a written declaration providing a complete account of all Pyongyang's nuclear activities - has proved more problematic.

In fact, this is not as ridiculous as it seems. U.S. authorities are letting it leak that North Korea missing the Yongbyon deadline (which the BCC unknowingly overlooks altogether) is a technical glitch, and will be rectified in a few months. We’ll see.

Why Did the US Vote for Kibaki then Vote against Him?

In a move reminiscent of the premature endorsement of the unsuccessful attempt to unseat Hugo Chavez in 2002, the U.S. withdrew its initial congratulations to Kenyan incumbent and President-Elect Mwai Kibaki.

Why the flip-flop? First of all, Ms. Rice was never that good in the first place. Second, and this is more important, political appointees and career officials alike have been bailing out, and nobody who’s any good is going to climb on board for a one year ride on a sinking ship. There are simply not enough people to keep watch beyond the Middle East.

Playing short-handed has repercussions here in Northeast Asia as well, where the prospects of an uneasy stalemate that I first speculated on here has grown. The U.S. Congress is not going to let the Bush administration give Chris Hill his “deal at any price”, while North Korea appears to be willing to play the short game only. And I will be surprised if the U.S. Congress ratifies the FTA with South Korea, even though the climate should be improved under the new South Korean president.

Is It Time to Consider the Effect of Peace on the Korean Peninsula on Japanese Policy on National Security?

The Chinese authorities were the first to complain when ballistic missile defense (BMD) came up as a possible option for the Japanese Self-Defense Force in the early nineties in the form of the US theater missile defense.

The National Defense Program Outline in and after FY 2005 (sorry, I can't find a translation) gives the reason for its introduction as follows:

" The thinking on the response to and the institutional arrangements of the Self-Defense Forces for the new threats [including the progress of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, and the activities of international terrorist organizations, etc.] and the wide variety of situations [that influence peace and safety] is as follows:

a) Response to ballistic missiles: Against ballistic missile attacks, [we] shall deal effectively by establishing the necessary institutional arrangementｓ including the deployment of a ballistic missile defense system. Concerning the threat of nuclear weapons against our nation, [we] shall deal appropriately by such undertakings, together with the nuclear deterrence powers of the United States.

…"

It is not clear what is meant by the "wide variety of situations that influence peace and safety", but it does not explicitly exclude the rapid, continuous build-up of Chinese military capacities that the 2005- Outline lays out as follows:

"China, which has a major influence on security in this region, has pushed the modernization of its nuclear and missile military powers and naval and air power, and is also attempting to expand the areas of activity on the oceans; and it is necessary to continue to pay attention to such developments."

However, if the Chinese authorities still have serious qualms as the Japanese Ballistic Missile Defense System prepares to go into operation, the media are not paying notice.

Perhaps they have been assuaged by Japanese assurances like this:

"In relation to the right of collective self-defense, the purpose of the BMD systems that the GOJ will introduce this time is to exclusively defend Japan, and it will be operated based on Japan's decision on its own initiative and will not be used for the defense of third countries. From this point of view, no issue of the right of collective self-defense comes up." (Statement by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, "On the Introduction of Ballistic Missile Defense Systems and Other Measures " on December 19, 2003)

In other words, in the case of a military showdown over Taiwan, Japan will not dispatch those AEGIS ships equipped with SM3 missiles to shoot down Chinese ballistic missiles launched against Taiwan. (Or the US.)

On the Japanese side, at the beginning, the defense and foreign policy establishment appears to have been somewhat ambivalent, presumably over the financial costs and technical feasibility of the program. There may also have been some reluctance to antagonize China, with whom Japan had been careful to maintain good relations even after the 1989 Tienanmen Incident. However, the Nodong (1993) test in the Japan Sea and, more significantly, the Tepodong (1998) shot over Japanese air space into the Pacific Ocean appears to have galvanized domestic support. On other words, it was North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs that jointly tipped the scales in the BMD's favor. At a minimum, the introduction of the BMD would have taken a more tortuous road to fruition without Kim Jong Il's help.

Now, through the Six-Party Talks, North Korea seems to be seriously seeking a new equilibrium on the Korean Peninsula. I still think that by far the most likely better-case scenario for the foreseeable future is North Korea disabling its three facilities but holding onto its current nuclear arsenal and ballistic missiles system at their current levels, enough to allow China and South Korea to keep sustaining the current North Korean regime without incurring US disfavor, but well short of normalization of the US-DPRK relations. Still, there is enough movement in the Six-Party Talks to make it worth considering: What will Japan's defense posture be like without a nuclear threat from North Korea? More specifically, what will become of the Japanese BMD System once China becomes the sole concern of direct military threats to the homeland?

Full Text of Joint Document of the Second Session of the Sixth Round Six-Party Talks

Here.

070925What the State Department Thinks of North Korea as a Sponsor of Terrorism

Ever wondered what the bureaucrat-vetted version of U.S. policy concerning North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism looked like? I thought so.

Well, I'm going to force you to read them anyway, with excerpts of the introduction to the chapter on State Sponsors of Terror Overview and the section on North Korea. For both 2005 and 2006!

They were both published in April of the subsequent year. Two major differences:

The introduction in the 2006 Report has dropped reference to North Korea altogether. This is no oversight. The 2006 introduction is much longer, 280 words to 2005's 127.

The 2006 section on North Korea has also been truncated. Moreover, it includes the ominous statement:

In the February 13, 2007 Initial Actions Agreement, the United States agreed to "begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism."

What of the abductees? The 2005 Report says:

Pyongyang in 2003 allowed the return to Japan of five surviving abductees, and in 2004 of eight family members, mostly children, of those abductees. Questions about the fate of other abductees remain the subject of ongoing negotiations between Japan and the DPRK. In November, the DPRK returned to Japan what it identified as the remains of two Japanese abductees, whom the North had reported as having died in North Korea. The issue remained contentious at year’s end. There are also credible reports that other nationals were abducted from locations abroad. The ROK government estimates that approximately 485 civilians were abducted or detained since the 1950-53 Korean War.

But the 2006 Report says:

The Japanese government continued to seek a full accounting of the fate of the 12 Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted by DPRK state entities; five such abductees have been repatriated to Japan since 2002.

What at the end of 2005 remained a contentious issue was now merely a continuing demand from the Japanese government for a full accounting. All reference to other abductees, including South Koreans, had been removed. Moreover, there was no evident link between the Japanese demands and North Korean de-listing.

What happened in between was, of course, the February 13, 2007 Initial Actions Agreement.

It had become something of a ritual, where Deputy Assistant Secretary Chris Hill would intimate de-listing without regard to the Japanese abductees, then the Japanese powers-that-be would claim that they had talked to President Bush, or Condoleezza Rice, and received reassurances that such was not the case. Now, the latest report from Washington says that Secretary Rice has also defected to the other side. I should not have been surprised, since, on September 16, I had already watched then LDP Secretary-General Nobuteru Ishihara kiss off the Six-Party Talks in a fit of anger at the U.S. "change of heart".

In turn, though, I wonder how Mr. Ishihara could have held it in so long, since February 13? And if he had needed any further confirmation to have the message sink in, surely he should have read the writing on the cyberwall when he saw the April 30 Report.

Or maybe, just maybe, these people had known what was going on all along?

Consider this post complementary to this.

---

Country Report on Terrorism (2005)
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
April 28, 2006

Chapter 6 -- State Sponsors of Terror Overview

Libya and Sudan continued to take significant steps to cooperate in the global war on terror. Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria, however, continued to maintain their ties to terrorist groups. Iran and Syria routinely provide unique safe haven, substantial resources and guidance to terrorist organizations.

State sponsors of terrorism provide critical support to non-state terrorist groups. Without state sponsors, terrorist groups would have much more difficulty obtaining the funds, weapons, materials, and secure areas they require to plan and conduct operations. Most worrisome is that some of these countries also have the capability to manufacture WMD and other destabilizing technologies that can get into the hands of terrorists. The United States will continue to insist that these countries end the support they give to terrorist groups.

North Korea

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.

Pyongyang in 2003 allowed the return to Japan of five surviving abductees, and in 2004 of eight family members, mostly children, of those abductees. Questions about the fate of other abductees remain the subject of ongoing negotiations between Japan and the DPRK. In November, the DPRK returned to Japan what it identified as the remains of two Japanese abductees, whom the North had reported as having died in North Korea. The issue remained contentious at year’s end. There are also credible reports that other nationals were abducted from locations abroad. The ROK government estimates that approximately 485 civilians were abducted or detained since the 1950-53 Korean War. Four Japanese Red Army members remain in the DPRK following their involvement in a jet hijacking in 1970; five of their family members returned to Japan in 2004.

Country Report on Terrorism (2006)
Released by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
April 30, 2007


Chapter 3 -- State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview

State sponsors of terrorism provide critical support to non-state terrorist groups. Without state sponsors, terrorist groups would have much more difficulty obtaining the funds, weapons, materials, and secure areas they require to plan and conduct operations. Most worrisome is that some of these countries also have the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other destabilizing technologies that could get into the hands of terrorists. The United States will continue to insist that these countries end the support they give to terrorist groups.

As a result of the historic decisions taken by Libya's leadership in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its WMD programs, the United States rescinded Libya's designation as a state sponsors of terrorism on June 30. Since pledging to renounce terrorism in 2003, Libya has cooperated closely with the United States and the international community on counterterrorism efforts.

Sudan continued to take significant steps to cooperate in the War on Terror. Cuba, Iran, and Syria, however, have not renounced terrorism or made efforts to act against Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Iran and Syria routinely provided safe haven, substantial resources, and guidance to terrorist organizations.

Venezuela was certified by the Secretary of State as "not fully cooperating" with U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The designation, included in Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act, was based on a review of Venezuela's overall efforts to fight terrorism. Effective October 1, the decision imposed sanctions on all commercial arms sales and transfers. It remains in effect until September 30, 2007, when it may be renewed by a determination by the Secretary. (Venezuela is the only nation certified as "not fully cooperating" that is not a state sponsor of terrorism.)

North Korea

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987. The DPRK continued to harbor four Japanese Red Army members who participated in a jet hijacking in 1970. The Japanese government continued to seek a full accounting of the fate of the 12 Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted by DPRK state entities; five such abductees have been repatriated to Japan since 2002. In the February 13, 2007 Initial Actions Agreement, the United States agreed to "begin the process of removing the designation of the DPRK as a state-sponsor of terrorism."

North Korea's Impeccable Sense of Timing

Talks Held between WPK and Syrian Political Party

Pyongyang, September 21 (KCNA) -- Talks were held between Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the C.C., the Workers' Party of Korea, and Saaeed Eleia Dawood, director of the Organizational Department of Syria's Baath Arab Socialist Party, on September 21.
Present at the talks were officials concerned from the DPRK side and the director's party and the Syrian charge d'affaires ad interim here from the Syrian side.
At the talks both sides informed each other of activities of their parties and exchanged views on the issue of boosting the friendly and cooperative ties between the two parties and a series of issues of bilateral interest.
The talks proceeded in a friendly atmosphere.
- Sept. 21, Korean News

Israel, U.S. Shared Data On Suspected Nuclear Site
Bush Was Told of North Korean Presence in Syria, Sources Say

Israel's decision to attack Syria on Sept. 6, bombing a suspected nuclear site set up in apparent collaboration with North Korea, came after Israel shared intelligence with President Bush this summer indicating that North Korean nuclear personnel were in Syria, U.S. government sources said.
- Sept. 21, Washington Post


Do they need failure to thrive - like the Tamil Tigers, ETA, and the IRA?