Split Develops Over North Korea’s Right to Civilian Nuclear Power

As another round of six-nation talks over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program approaches, a rift has developed between the United States and the other parties over whether the North would retain the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, brushed aside those differences Tuesday, telling reporters at a briefing in Washington that they were “not a showstopper.”

Bush administration officials have stated repeatedly that North Korea cannot be trusted with any type of nuclear facility, even for power generation or scientific purposes, because it has cheated so many times on past promises not to build nuclear weapons.

Among the six nations involved in the talks, only Japan stands solidly with the U.S. position.

South Korea, Russia and China all appear sympathetic to various degrees with the North Korean position that civilian nuclear power is its right as a sovereign nation.

Bolstering its arguments, North Korea points to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’s Article IV, which upholds “the inalienable right of all parties to the treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.”

North Korea kicked United Nations nuclear inspectors out of the country in late 2002 and withdrew from the treaty shortly afterward.

Diplomats familiar with the talks believe that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has made a strategic decision to return to the treaty, but only if the United States gives ground on civilian nuclear energy.

“Legalistically, they are making a valid argument. The North Koreans have been quite smart in the way they’ve done this,” said Daniel Pinkston, an analyst with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif. “From a standpoint of international law, it could become a big stumbling block for the United States to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council on this issue.”

The six-party talks are supposed to resume next week in Beijing. But there is no firm date, and Hill said Tuesday that he had not yet booked a flight or hotel. Two weeks of intensive negotiations broke down Aug. 7 after the United States and North Korea locked horns on the question of civilian nuclear power.

In an unusually public airing of differences, South Korea last week appeared to split with the Bush administration. A key official, Chung Dong Young, who is responsible for relations with the North, said Pyongyang had a “basic right” to nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

Since then, South Korean and U.S. officials have been trying their best to smooth over the rift. Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon backed away from Chung’s remarks in an interview Sunday with CNN in which he said North Korea’s civilian use of nuclear power could be discussed “once the restoration of confidence is done, with full dismantlement of nuclear weapons.” In his remarks Tuesday, Hill hinted that the Bush administration might have some flexibility on the subject.

“I think we can come up with something,” Hill told reporters. “But I cannot be more specific than that because we are in the middle of a negotiation.”

Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, a San Francisco think tank, said that he believed that there might be a “creative solution,” such as having North and South Korea jointly handle civilian nuclear energy to provide some U.S. oversight.

Hayes said, “The point is that North Korea doesn’t just get out of prison and go back on the street the next day. They have to show some good faith.”

There is little disagreement between the U.S. and allies that North Korea’s 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon must be shut down. That reactor, which purportedly was to be used to produce electricity, has been basically operated as a factory for weapons-grade plutonium.

But there is less consensus about uranium enrichment. That technique, which uses centrifuges, can produce the fuel for civilian nuclear reactors, but when the uranium is highly enriched, it can be converted into fissile material for a nuclear bomb. Under a 1992 denuclearization treaty, North and South Korea pledged not to conduct any uranium enrichment.

The United States says that North Korea has acknowledged having a uranium enrichment program, but Pyongyang denies that such a program exists.