Keep Pressing North Korea

North Korea is so secretive that it’s uncertain whether it actually has nuclear weapons or, if it does, whether it’s developing more. The danger, however, is great enough to demand more urgency. Tuesday’s overdue announcement of a new round of talks in Beijing later this month was welcome but did little to dispel the impression of a shortsighted lethargy by the United States and other nations at risk from a nuclear North Korea.

In December 2002, North Korea expelled international nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and threatened to begin extracting plutonium from 8,000 fuel rods. Last month, a private U.S. group, including members who had dealt with North Korea in the past, visited the Yongbyon plant where the fuel rods had been kept and reported them missing. Are they being used as fuel for nuclear weapons to add to the one or two the CIA thinks Pyongyang already possesses? No one knows. North Korea said it wanted the visitors to view its “nuclear deterrent,” yet it showed only the site where the rods once were and a container of something radiological but unidentified.

The U.S. will try to present a unified position with China, Japan, South Korea and Russia when it talks to North Korea for only the second time in half a year. There is little reason to expect a breakthrough beyond freezing Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Such a freeze is likely to require U.S. assurances -- which should be easily given -- that it plans no aggression against North Korea. The ultimate goal is to get North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons, if any, and stop trying to develop more. To get all that, and the return of international inspectors, will require large amounts of foreign aid, with the U.S. and Japan taking the lead.

Verification is important because the U.S. says it caught North Korea violating a 1994 agreement in which Pyongyang said it would stop nuclear weapons development in return for U.S. oil deliveries and help in building atomic reactors designed only to produce electricity. A North Korea with nuclear weapons would be a threat to South Korea and Japan, both nations where thousands of U.S. troops are stationed. A Korean peninsula made unstable by unconventional weapons should worry China too. Beijing, Washington and others with an interest in this dangerous enigma should not drop the pressure after the coming round of talks.