No New Deals With North Korea

...The United States promised annual fuel oil shipments equivalent to the energy output of all the nuclear plants Pyongyang had under construction...

...When the IAEA, after its first inspection in 1992, announced that Pyongyang might have covertly separated plutonium in violation of the NPT, Pyongyang threatened to withdraw from the treaty...

...ed states should come to an accommodation directly with Kim Jong Il...

...But for Pyongyang the agreement was just a piece of paper: It secretly proceeded to reprocess enough material to make one or more weapons...

...It requires an international rejoinder, one that treats Pyongyang as a violator—not of any deal reached with seoul or Washington, but of the NPT...

...In making this plea, Pyongyang gives no hint of being willing to surrender its nuclear weapons (it regards them as vital to its survival), only to refrain from brandishing them...

...In return, Pyongyang was supposed to freeze its plutonium production facilities and not make nuclear explosives (with plutonium or highly enriched uranium...

...Do we want Iran and other would-be nuclear states to conclude that there are penalties only for those who try and fail to get nuclear weapons...

...We can face the reality that Pyongyang is a nuclear violator and treat it as such...

...Unfortunately, most Asia hands see matters differently...

...This might not block Pyongyang from making more bombs, but anything less risks unraveling such restraints as remain on other would-be bomb-makers...

...Another suggestion is to return to the status quo ante—a favorite of Russia, China, and South Korea...

...Unfortunately, our diplomatic body language also gave Pyongyang the idea that it could pocket all the gains and cheat on this agreement, too...

...As far back as 1985, when Washington first learned of Pyongyang's construction of a military production reactor, the United States worked with Russia to get Pyongyang to join the NPT...

...After a year's operation, each reactor could generate 50 or more bombs' worth of weapons-grade plutonium...

...Security Council in New York to confront the world with North Korea's defiance of international agreements and to gain broad support for the demand that its violations cease...

...The latter course will signal to proliferators that they have nothing to worry about from the world at large once they get a nuclear weapon...

...The United States also promised to build two U.S.-type nuclear power reactors with an electric generating capacity ten times as large as that of the ones North Korea was building...

...At a minimum, we have to back the IAEA in taking North Korea's noncompli-ance to the U.N...

...In this, they side with Pyongyang, which wants the United states to accept it as a legitimate nuclear state...

...If the world cannot draw a nonproliferation line in this egregious case, is there any hope that it will ever do so...

...or we can engage in another round of self-delusion, in the face of nearly two decades' experience, hoping that a U.s.-brokered deal will finally get Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear weapons capabilities...

...We should close the project down, something the administration seems to have overlooked...

...BY HENRY SOKOLSKI & VICTOR GILINSKY WITH NORTH KOREA'S announcement Friday that it is withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), Pyongyang's nuclear defiance is no longer just an American or Korean problem...

...Pyongyang might give up something for suitable rewards, only to continue building bombs covertly...

...To sweeten the pot, the United States withdrew its tactical nuclear weapons from Korea...

...Victor Gilinsky is an energy consultant and former member of the U.S...

...That is the meaning of its withdrawal from the NPT and its demand for a "non-aggression pact...

...Pyongyang had to reach a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by 1987...

...We can be sure Iran is watching...

...Then, to fill the gap, Washington helped arrange a North-South agreement to forbid either Korean nation from having nuclear weapons or plants to separate plutonium or enrich uranium...

...We will have to wait them out...

...our choices are much starker than most diplomats suggest...

...Pyongyang can smell the weakness of South Korea and Japan, which want to "mediate" direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang to "resolve" North Korea's plutonium and uranium bomb-making projects...

...It didn't until 1992...

...parts and technology are necessary to complete the plants...

...Enforcing that treaty should no longer be open to negotiation...

...offering to complete these reactors might be a quick way to restart negotiations, but it's a crazy way to respond to a serial violator of the NPT...

...That suits Pyongyang, which knows that verifying the elimination of its covert uranium program is an impossible task, and that a negotiating partner anxious to reach an agreement will not press too hard...

...Security Council...

...So much for cutting nuclear deals directly with Pyongyang...

...President Clinton then cut a deal with Pyongyang, the 1994 Agreed Framework...

...What would they be without their bomb...

...We now know Pyongyang developed a covert uranium bomb project in violation of the NPT and its other nonproliferation pledges...

...We should use the IAEA in Vienna and the U.N...

...The alternative is to allow Pyongyang to violate the NPT and withdraw with impunity, which will only accelerate the spread of nuclear weapons...

...When called on this last October, North Korea responded by kicking out the IAEA staff monitoring compliance with the Agreed Framework's plutonium production freeze and threatening to restart plutonium production...

...Many of those who criticized the United states for not letting the United Nations handle saddam Hussein insist the UnitHenry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington and author of Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Praeger, 2001...

...Pyongyang knows that if it can get the United states to formally renounce its "hostile intent" and accept a nuclear standoff as a legitimate state of affairs, no other country is likely to protest the North's violation of any international agreement...

...IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei put it well in his advice to North Korea: "It is very important," he said, "that every country understand that not through defiance of its international obligations can it get political gains or strategic advantage...

...Sadly, we have been down this road before...

...The international rules ElBaradei is talking about flow from the NPT...

...This would mean no penalty for repeated violation of agreements...

...It is a world problem...

...That is not only common sense, but is required by U.S...

...This question, rather than how to get to yes with Pyongyang, must be our guide...

...Finally, we must stop kidding ourselves that any deal is possible that will prompt Kim Jong Il and his generals to surrender their nuclear ambitions...

...Construction would continue of the two large power reactors we promised North Korea under the 1994 Agreed Framework...

...As an inducement, Moscow promised to sell North Korea three light water reactors...

...nonpro-liferation law...

...It is through dialogue, but dialogue has to be based on respect for international rules...

...Now we have to stick to certain fixed points...

...The door to foreign aid would then reopen, and the grim, militaristic regime once again would get a new lease on life...

...All of them are watching how we handle this...

...At a minimum, we should announce that, having violated past agreements, North Korea is no longer eligible ever for the power reactors we agreed to supply (and which South Korea is now building and mostly paying for...

...Nuclear Regulatory Commission...

...In any case, it will not permit effective inspections or searches...