Summary: The North-Korean Missile Programme
Talks between Washington and Pyongyang to terminate this programme
Sebastian Harnisch
Since the mid-1990s the USA has made great efforts to stop the North Korean nuclear weapons system and ballistic missile programs by means of bilateral negotiations. The socalled Geneva Agreement of 1994 succeeded in freezing the nuclear weapons program but did not address the question of production and export of ballistic missile systems. In 2000 a negotiators team of the Clinton administration made substantial progress concerning this question, but eventually failed to come to an agreement.
Pjongjang saw these negotiations as a chance to break the international isolation of his country and insisted on a high level state visit diplomacy. Implementing it, the number two of North Korea‘s military dictatorship visited Washington and, in turn, Pjongjang received US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Even a visit by the parting US President Clinton in North Korea was taken into consideration.
The new administration in Washington brought a change in US politics toward North Korea. President Bush did not feel bound by the negotiated results of his predecessor and struck different chords with Pjongjang. The US demanded improved implementation of the Geneva Framework Agreement, in particular the admission of inspectors to all North Korean nuclear sites, a verifiable limitation of North Korea‘s missile program, and an end of Pjongjang’s missile exports.
After the attacks of 11 September the US openly warned North Korea against using the crisis for military action against South Korea, and a month later the US President included North Korea into an "axis of evil" which lets its own population starve while threatening the world with the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction. In addition, in March this year, information leaked out that the USA had identified North Korea as one of the seven countries that would have to count on being a target of US nuclear weapons.
All in all, the chances that North Korea would end its missile program were reduced in 2001. Washington is unwilling to give up its demand of having inspectors on the ground to ensure the discontinuation of production and destruction of existing systems, and Pjongjang does not seem to be willing to go for bilateral agreements on the missile systems.
It is also of little help, that President Bush likes to listen too much to Vice-President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, both of whom reject any agreements with North Korea. The influence of such hardliners can only partly be balanced out by more moderate regional experts within the State Department. It can therefore not be ruled out, that North Korea might try to escape its marginalization by the USA by means of a provoked crysis.
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