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Email this citationCIAO DATE: 06/04
North Korea: A Phased Negotiation Strategy
August 1, 2003
Abstract
Time is slipping away for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and pulled out of the 1994 Agreed Framework, a plan to provide it with energy in exchange for abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions. It has restarted its plutonium generating nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and now claims to have such weapons. Even if this claim is not true and is being made to push the United States into negotiations, the situation is extremely dangerous. North Korea has the materials and the capability to develop nuclear weapons -- more than 200 of them by 2010. A nuclear-armed North Korea could threaten its neighbours and could export weapons, nuclear material or technology to other countries or terrorist groups. Even if it refrained from actively proliferating weapons, its possession of them could spark a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia.
