Make Trade, Not Warheads : North Korea sends (weak) signal of possible peek by nuclear inspectors

Sudden sweet reason from the Pyongyang workers’ paradise?

North Korea now agrees to resume talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency about allowing outside inspection of its nuclear facilities. The move was a clear step back from Pyongyang’s terrifying declaration in March that it was pulling out of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Afterward, the Stalinist regime postponed its withdrawal pending negotiations with the United States, talks that ended Monday in Geneva.

It is still unclear how far North Korea will go in meeting worldwide concerns about its suspected nuclear weapons development. Pyongyang must unequivocally commit to outside inspections and renew its commitment to the treaty.

Those are two crucial factors in verifying that North Korea is not developing nuclear weapons. Pyongyang otherwise cannot and should not be trusted.

As an incentive for North Korea to curb its arms development, Washington might help in converting the existing North Korean nuclear power reactor to a light water process--a technology that cannot be used to divert fuel for weapons programs.

Pyongyang had been refusing to let the IAEA police its nuclear facilities, fueling suspicions--rampant in the United States, Japan and South Korea--that it has enough material to make at least one nuclear bomb. President Clinton warned North Korea during his visit earlier this month to Seoul that the United States would “quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate” if Pyongyang developed and used a nuclear weapon. And Beijing, to its credit, began to make noises that it too was unhappy.

If North Korea is not developing such a weapon, as it insists, then it should have nothing to fear in permitting IAEA inspections of its established nuclear power plants--and allowing agency officials, even on short notice, to look for evidence of nuclear weapons development.

Representatives from Washington and Pyongyang are to meet again in two months. Increased bilateral contact with the United States, which could lead to some trade relations, will require nothing less than a cooperative and committed North Korea.