U.S. drafts sanctions regime for Pyongyang
James Dao/NYT The New York Times
Monday, February 17, 2003
iht.com
But Washington plan would likely stay on hold until after Iraq
WASHINGTON The Bush administration is developing plans for a package of multilateral sanctions against North Korea, ranging from interdicting weapons shipments to halting remittances from Japan, in the event Pyongyang continues its march toward developing nuclear weapons, senior administration officials said. The administration does not plan to push for the sanctions in the United Nations any time soon, in part because the Security Council is expected to focus on Iraq for the next few weeks, the officials said. Russia and China are also unlikely to support sanctions against North Korea at this moment, contending that less confrontational forms of diplomacy should be given more time. North Korea has said it would consider sanctions an act of war. But officials in the Pentagon and State Department are developing detailed contingency plans for using sanctions to penalize and further isolate North Korea in case it takes provocative new steps toward developing powerful weapons, such as resuming tests of long-range missile or starting a reprocessing plant for nuclear fuel rods that can produce weapons-grade plutonium. Many administration officials say it is just a matter of time before North Korea takes one or both of those steps, and they are particularly concerned that if the United States invades Iraq, Pyongyang will use that opportunity to push forward with its weapons programs. ‘‘If they start to dismantle their weapons programs or refreeze the reactor at Yongbyon, then we can talk about incentives,’’ a senior administration official said, referring to a mothballed reactor that Pyongyang claims to have restarted. ‘‘But if they torque up the pressure, you’re looking at the other direction,’’ the official said. ‘‘That’s when sanctions become much more likely.’’ Pentagon planners are looking particularly closely at using American military forces to stop, turn back or even seize ships and aircraft bound from North Korea that are suspected of carrying missiles or nuclear weapons materials. Sales of missile technology to Iran, Iraq, Yemen and other countries have been a major source of foreign currency for the impoverished North Koreans. Last month, a Spanish warship working in conjunction with American military and intelligence officials stopped and boarded a freighter from North Korea that was found to be carrying missiles bound for Yemen. But the Bush administration, at the urging of the Yemen government, determined that it had no legal right to seize the cargo and ordered the freighter released. To prevent a similar situation, administration officials say that they will probably need authorization from the Security Council to seize or turn back weapons shipments from North Korea. At a Senate hearing last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld advocated revamping international rules to allow aggressive interdiction of North Korea’s weapons exports, calling the country ‘‘the world’s greatest proliferator of missile technology’’ and a threat to sell fissile material to terrorists or rogue nations. ‘‘I see North Korea as a threat as a proliferator more than I see them as a nuclear threat on the peninsula,’’ Rumsfeld said. ‘‘Unless the world wakes up and says this is a dangerous thing and creates a set of regimes that will in fact get cooperation to stop those weapons, we’re going to be facing a very serious situation in the next five years.’’ Administration officials said a United Nations resolution authorizing weapons interdiction would probably be part of a broader sanctions package intended to strangle overseas ventures that have helped finance North Korea’s large military or enrich its ruling elite. The package would probably include measures intended to cut off remittances from Korean-owned gambling parlors in Japan, which are thought to send hundreds of millions back to Pyongyang each year, and allow the interdiction of drug trafficking from the North. American officials contend that profits from those ventures mainly support North Korea’s Community Party leaders and that constricting them will not worsen the already dire plight of North Korea’s general population, which is suffering through a famine. |
