Nuclear Dangers in North Korea? : International groups should press inspections

North Korea has been a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty for nearly six years, but unlike other signatories and in defiance of NPT requirements it refuses to let inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency view its facilities. What might Kim Il Sung’s communist regime be hiding? Plenty, according to U.S. and South Korean officials, who fear that North Korea is fast driving toward a nuclear weapons capability that could imperil regional stability.

North Korea has been pursuing a nuclear weapons program for the last dozen years or so, and now its efforts may be nearing fruition. U.S. satellite surveillance of the large nuclear complex near Yongbyun, about 55 miles north of Pyongyang, has noted a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant under construction. Reprocessing extracts plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons, from spent nuclear fuel rods. “There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why . . . any small country needs reprocessing as part of a (peaceful) nuclear program,” Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee last year. “I think one has to assume the worst in terms of intentions.”

The South Koreans do. They worry that the north could have a nuclear device as early as the mid-1990s. That view may be somewhat alarmist, but not by much. Ronald F. Lehman, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, warns that “in a few trouble spots, like the Korean peninsula . . . time is running out.”

South Korea’s President Roh Tae Woo on Friday said it would be his country’s policy “not to manufacture, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.” His goal is a Korean peninsula wholly free of nuclear weapons, Korean or foreign. But Roh said more: “Nuclear weapons in North Korean hands would be so dangerous and destabilizing that they would . . . threaten the very survival of our nation.” That perception seems to hint strongly at the chance of a preemptive military strike by South Korea, if Pyongyang doesn’t change course.

Is there time to derail or at least slow the north’s nuclear weapons program? In September, North Korea became a member of the United Nations. That provides one channel for bringing international political pressure to bear against nuclear proliferation. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is meanwhile preparing to demand the right to inspect suspect nuclear facilities. North Korea can refuse, but doing so would escalate suspicions and add to the pressures on it. Nuclear inspections are of course not foolproof; Iraq was able to hide most of its nuclear weapons program from IAEA scrutiny. But inspections, if coupled with rigorously enforced controls over nuclear technology exports, can be effective.

South Korea, the United States and Japan, as well as China and the Soviet Union, all have a major stake in preventing destabilizing nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia. But the clock is ticking ominously, and the time for effective action may be growing short.