PRESS BRIEFING BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S ENVOYFORKOREANPENINSULA

 

The announcement by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Thursday that it possessed nuclear weapons and that it would refuse to return to disarmament talks should be regarded not as the end of the negotiating process, but as an “unhappy twist in the road”, Maurice Strong, the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Korean Peninsula, told correspondents this afternoon.

Nevertheless, the road to negotiations still ran through the Six-Party Talks (between China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation and United States), he said, reminding correspondents that the Six-Party negotiations had not been cancelled.  The DPRK had simply said that it was not prepared to participate in those talks under the conditions that it had described, but it had not annulled them.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan had strongly reaffirmed his belief that the Six-Party Talks were the primary forum in which continued negotiations would take place, he continued.  Bilateral negotiations continued and had been an accompanying feature of the negotiating process.  All along, there had been bilateral talks between the DPRK and the other parties in the talks, with the exception of the United States.

Very few people close to the situation were surprised at anything but the timing of the announcement, since the DPRK had made it clear that it was continuing its programme of developing nuclear weapons.  He said it had stated, not in public, but in private discussions, that it had nuclear weapons.  That had simply been affirmed now, more publicly, in their recent statement.  While that was a disappointment, it was not a surprise.

The DPRK had stated that it was committed to a peaceful settlement of the problem, he stated.  It said that it wanted, or at least was committed to, a nuclear-weapon-free Korean peninsula.  At the same time, it insisted that its necessary security requirements be met and that some of the restrictions against the country’s full participation in the international economy be lifted.

The work which the Secretary-General was doing and entrusting to Mr. Strong was designed to be fully supportive of the Six-Party Talks, recognizing that it would not be possible to achieve a peaceful resolution of the nuclear weapons issue without an economic and energy component.  His work was simply preparatory and analytical work, designed to ensure that, when there was a breakthrough in the discussions on nuclear weapons, there would be a basis for accompanying agreement on the energy and economic issues.  In his view, it would not be possible to reach agreement on the nuclear weapons issue without an economic and energy component.

Also, he continued, there was no question that humanitarian assistance, which the country still needed, had been significantly impaired by the escalation of the hostile atmosphere in which the discussions were now taking place.  As a result of the country’s latest announcement, it would continue to be more difficult to respond to its more immediate humanitarian needs.

The Secretary-General, he reiterated, was deeply concerned and had instructed him to intensify support for the resumption of the Six-Party Talks.  He expected that there would be a peaceful resolution, because the consequences of not resolving the issue were horrendous for all parties, and that, in itself, provided a strong incentive to overcome the deep-seeded distrust and hostility that had been bottled up between the parties, particularly between the DPRK and the United States.

Asked about the timing of DPRK’s announcement, Mr. Strong speculated that the timing was related to the second Bush Administration just being put into place and the new Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, making statements which included references to the DPRK.

In response to a question on possible repercussions for the case of Iran, he noted a great difference in the case of Iran, which had insisted on its right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology, and that its nuclear programme was designed only for peaceful use.  The DPRK had made it clear that its only reason for wanting nuclear weapons was to ensure its security until it received other acceptable assurances of that security.  The two cases were the same in that they both involved nuclear proliferation issues, but very different in the context.  He did not believe that the DPRK would divert attention from Iran.

The DPRK’s statement had already given rise to an escalation of concern by the United States and others, he continued.  It did elevate the climate of hostility and misunderstanding, which had been a major impediment to the continued discussions.  There was no question that, when the dialogue was conducted at the level of “bellicose rhetoric”, which had been heard by both the DPRK and the United States, it did not help in setting the stage for constructive negotiations.  It was hard to overcome the distrust and hostility built up over the past 50 years.

Peace was the only answer, he stressed, and not just a temporary peace but a termination of the “state of war between the United Nations and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”.  “People forget often that that state of war has never actually been brought to an end, and it must be brought to an end.”  His hope, which the Secretary-General shared, was that the negotiating process under way would continue to the point of enabling a peace treaty to bring the problem to a permanent and peaceful end.

As for what he would be doing in the coming days, Mr. Strong said that the role of the United Nations was not to take over the negotiating process, not to tell the parties what they must do but to be clear in transmitting its understanding of the latest positions of each of the parties.  The DPRK had been asking the United Nations to help train the people that run its economy to participate more effectively in the international economy.  They had stated that they wanted to join the international system and committed to opening up their economy.  There was obviously a process of change occurring there.  Hopefully, that change would lead to the kind of peace that the country needed and that everyone else wanted.

Asked if it would help if the United States changed its stance and engaged in bilateral talks with the DPRK, he said that the DPRK had been strongly insisting on that since the beginning and it had demonstrated a degree of flexibility in agreeing to the Six-Party Talks.  But it had not at all lost its primary interest in bilateral talks.

A correspondent asked whether the exertion of more economic and political pressure by the United States Administration on Pyongyang had been among the main reasons for the rapid progress in the development of nuclear weapons by the DPRK.  Mr. Strong replied that he did not know if that was the case, but he did know that the economy of the DPRK had been in a desperate state for some time.  It did want to improve its economy, but it knew that it would not be able to really do that without greater internationalization of that economy, not only through assistance but also through participation in trade, opening up to investments and removal of the impediments that existed to prevent investment and development assistance.  The reasons it gave was that it needed nuclear weapons as the only effective guarantee of the country’s security at the current stage.

Regarding the role of China in the situation, he said that China had taken the lead in convening and hosting the Six-Party Talks, and its role was absolutely vital in keeping the talks going and in ensuring their resumption.  China had a traditional relationship with its neighbour, the DPRK and, in effect, controlled the lifeline to the DPRK.  It was the primary provider of food and other necessary commodities to the DPRK.  They also had differences.  The Chinese shared the views of the other parties in the talks that nuclear weapons should not be allowed on the Korean peninsula.  No one was working harder than the Chinese to keep the process on track.

As for how many nuclear weapons the DPRK had, he noted that experts had said that there could be five or six, perhaps even seven or eight.  However, there were questions about their deliverability, and they were likely to be rudimentary weapons that were not able to be put on the nose of a missile.  But that did not mean they were not dangerous.  The DPRK had stated that it did not intend to use them but only wanted them for their own security.

On whether their admission would accelerate the possibility of a solution, he said that one aspect of the situation that had not been mentioned yet was that the United States and others were concerned and believed that there was not only the nuclear weapons issue but also a uranium enrichment programme, which was another route to nuclear weapons.  The DPRK had denied that.  The United States and the other parties to the talks were deeply concerned about that and wanted evidence that an enrichment programme did not exist or an admission that it did, in addition to subjecting that to scrutiny and monitoring.

In response to another question, he said that human rights issues did enter into the discussions.  The DPRK had indicated that, in becoming a more active participant in the international community, it might sign on to human rights instruments.  That concern could not be isolated and dealt with on its own.  It would only be dealt with as part of the overall negotiating process, in which it was an underlying issue.

He reiterated that it was only through engagement that the issue could be resolved.  Concerning the involvement of the Security Council, he did not believe the process was at that point now.  The DPRK had made it clear that referring the case to the Council would be regarded as a hostile act.  Council action would not contribute to engagement.

If the DPRK had nuclear weapons, he said in response to another question, it was possible that it could make the technology available to others.  However, it was known that much of the technology had actually come from others.  The nuclear technology it had used to develop its programme was not isolated from the proliferation issue.  The DPRK was certainly not alone in whatever contributions it had made to nuclear proliferation.

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