Ron Smith: DPRK: Would they actually do it

For a number of years around the turn of this century, I was a member of an international group that brought together academic and official persons to discuss nuclear security problems in the Asia-Pacific region.  It was part of a wider project to reduce tension and build confidence, which worked in parallel with formal diplomatic meetings.  Apart from technical persons, it also included diplomats, but because of its relative informality, it tended to be referred to as ‘Track Two’.

Ron Smith: North Korea comes in from the cold?

It is just about twenty years now since the present leader’s grandfather (Kim Il Sung) participated in just such a process, as has now been announced, for North Korea. North Korea (more properly known as the People’s Democratic Republic of Korean, DPRK) has apparently offered to suspend various nuclear activities, and allow the return of IAEA inspectors, in return for aid. Kim Il Sung died before what became known as the Agreed Framework was signed in 1994, so that the North Korean leader responsible for the commitments entailed, was the second in the Kim dynasty, Kim Jong-Il (father of the present leader, Kim Jong-Un).

In the original agreement, the focus of the international community was on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, based on the production of weapon’s grade plutonium in a reactor at Yongbyon. North Korea pledged to cease this production, to not reprocess spent fuel from the plant, and to cease its development of nuclear weapons. In return for this, North Korea was to receive energy resources, specifically fuel oil, and, in the longer term, help to build up a civilian nuclear power capability. The 1994 Agreed Framework was widely supported, including (financially) by New Zealand.