North Korea
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U.S. President Donald Trump risks driving Iran towards nuclear proliferation and worsening a standoff with North Korea if Washington ends a nuclear deal with Tehran, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said late on Thursday.
[ More ]The author examines the history of the failure of the 1994 Framework Agreement with North Korea to make the argument that the U.S. should remain engaged in the multilateral nuclear deal with Iran to prevent further nuclear chaos in the Middle East.
[ More ]Diplomacy is the only path to stop Kim Jong Un from obtaining a nuclear weapon capable of striking the United States. Unfortunately, as President Trump grapples with the North Korean threat, he seems to have forgotten that same lesson we learned with Iran. After pursuing an atomic bomb for decades, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran was finally blocked when the world’s major powers secured the historic P5+1 agreement with Tehran two years ago. Trump is now attempting to unravel it.
[ More ]If the Trump administration makes good on its threat to pull out of the Iranian nuclear deal, the fallout will spread to North Korea where the possibility of any kind of diplomatic solution, which most experts see as the only viable path, will evaporate.
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North Korea, which conducted a fourth nuclear test in January in contravention of U.N. Security Council resolutions, can learn from a deal struck between Iran and world powers to freeze its nuclear program, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
[ More ]The success of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal has reared optimism for world powers to resolve the North Korean crisis in a similar fashion. But differences between the rogue nations may make that tough.
[ More ]After cutting deals with Cuba and Iran, President Barack Obama is talking up the idea of cutting a deal with North Korea. On Friday, Obama offered up an Iran-style deal to eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief.
[ More ]Joel S. Wit argues that a key lesson from the 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea is that implementation of nuclear agreements such as the nuclear deal with Iran requires careful attention to detail, and a plan for resolving disuptes from both sides to prevent disagreements from collapsing the nuclear deal.
[ More ]The author argues that while there are hopes that the Iran nuclear deal could add momentum towards negotiations to create a similar agreement with North Korea, the two countries and their nuclear programs are too dissimilar for there to be many parallels.
[ More ]North Korea ruled out talks for denuclearization, quashing hopes that Iran’s landmark accord with the U.S. and other world powers last week would inspire Pyongyang to follow suit. North Korea called comparisons between the isolated state and Iran “illogical” and said it wasn’t interested in freezing or dismantling its nuclear program unilaterally, a foreign ministry spokesman said Tuesday. The country says it is developing nuclear weapons to fend off U.S. threats.
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Perhaps more important, the RAND Corporation reports that the third North Korean nuclear test appears to many experts to be fundamentally different from its previous two efforts. North Korea's first tests used plutonium to trigger the nuclear explosion. This one, according to some atmospheric tests, likely used highly enriched uranium, exactly the form of nuclear weapon pursued by Iran. The question is whether the weapon North Korea tested this month was its own, Iran's or a joint project. A senior U.S. official told The New York Times, "It's very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries." It would be foolish for Iran to test a nuclear weapon on its own soil. Nuclear weapons cannot be detonated in secret; they leave unique seismic markers that can be traced back to their source. An in-country test would simply confirm the existence of a program that for years Iran has denied. It would also be unwise for Iran to immediately announce it had conducted a nuclear test. After all, the North Koreans could have detonated Tehran's only working nuclear weapon. The Islamic Republic would then be in the worst possible position, unmasked as a nuclear proliferator yet lacking a stockpile of weapons to deter U.S. punitive action. It would be safest to test the weapon in another country, confirm the design works and then quietly produce enough weapons to give America pause.
Another secret route to a bomb would be to acquire an operational nuclear weapon, fissile material or a parallel supply of LEU that could be diverted (without IAEA detection) to a clandestine Iranian enrichment site from North Korea. Such collaboration would be extraordinarily risky for both parties, and there is no publically available evidence suggesting that Iran intends to go this route. However, the two countries do have a history of ballistic missile cooperation, and in September 2012, they signed a technical and scientific cooperation accord – the same type of agreement that enabled North Korea’s past assistance to Syria’s nuclear program.48 Furthermore, in the wake of Pyongyang’s February 2013 nuclear test (which some suspect involved a weapon using highly enriched uranium, as opposed to plutonium), some analysts worry that Iran may have estab- lished connections to North Korea’s nuclear testing program.49 While the two countries have previ- ously worked together on missiles, there does not appear to be evidence yet of a nuclear connection.50 Regardless of the level of existing nuclear ties, how- ever, the possibility of future cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang cannot be ruled out.
“If the Iranians really wanted a store of enriched uranium, they could buy it,” says a longtime U.S. defense specialist with links to the U.S. military's world of clandestine operations. “And they don't have to process it themselves except for the national prestige it would give the country and to keep the international spotlight on Tehran.”
In fact, North Korea and Iran agreed to broad technology exchanges during an August meeting in Tehran of nonaligned nations. Large numbers of North Korean scientists have been traveling to Iran. The agreement calls for cooperation in research, student exchanges, and joint laboratories in the areas of information technology, engineering, biotechnology and renewable energy.
The agreements with Iran and North Korea are far more different than they are similar. The main differences were that the agreed framework with North Korea focused specifically on its plutonium program and failed to address uranium enrichment, and did not have sufficient implementation oversight. North Korea also had already produced more than enough plutonium for one nuclear weapon; this is not the case of Iran. The framework agreement with Iran includes eliminating the plutonium and severely restricting the uranium pathways, with extraordinarily complex monitoring and implementation. The verification measures already implemented under the JPOA and the new obligations anticipated in the final comprehensive agreement are far stronger and of longer duration than those in the Agreed Framework with North Korea. Under the agreement, Iran will not have enough nuclear material for a single nuclear weapon. In the 20 years since the Agreed Framework, the United States has developed more robust intelligence and verification capabilities that are, in any case, more effectively deployed towards a country such as Iran compared to the reclusive Hermit Kingdom.30
The North Korea case reinforces the need for the United States and others to comply with their obligations. The North Korea’s leaders have argued that one of the reasons it decided to break the Agreed Framework agreement was that the United States failed to comply with its obligation to provide more heavy oil fuel and assistance to North Korea. The United States must not give Iran an excuse to withdraw from a comprehensive agreement.
The North Korea case remains, nonetheless, the only case of the failure to successfully maintain safeguards agreements negotiated under the nonprolifera- tion treaty and a second such case must be avoided. Tehran, unlike Pyongyang, has to consider public opinion, which is strongly demanding the end of international pariah status and economically painful sanctions. Iran is not a democracy, but it is far from a dictatorship.
In 2007, the London Daily Telegraph reported that with North Korean help Iran could obtain a “low-grade device—less than half a kiloton—within 12 months.”7 It also said, “North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.”8 The story was attributed to a source in the UK Defence Ministry. The weapon matches the description of the 2006 North Korean nuclear test.9 In 2008, Russian journalist Lyusya Izrailova reported that Iran had acquired two “bulky” nuclear weapons.10 In May 2011, Fox News said that with help from Ukraine, Pakistan, and China, “two missile warheads with nuclear capability have been delivered to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps . . . ”11
There are a number of subsequent press reports that are consistent with the 2007 Daily Telegraph report of an agreement with North Korea to provide Iran with nuclear weapons and assist in the testing of the device. In 2012 the journal Nature reported, “North Korea may have conducted two covert nuclear weapons tests in 2010, according to a fresh analysis of radioisotope data”12 (emphasis in the original). This analysis by Lars-Erik De Geer, a Swedish Defence Research Agency atmospheric scientist, concluded that North Korea had conducted two covert tests “in the range of 50–200 tonnes of TNT equivalent.”13 He believes that the tests may be related to the boosting of the yields of North Korean nuclear weapons. Hans Ruehle, who from 1982–1988 headed the German Defense Ministry’s planning staff, has stated concerning these two reported low-yield nuclear tests conducted in North Korea in 2010, “Several intelligence services believe that at least one of them was commissioned by Iran.”14 According to the Times of Israel in 2012, Ruehle also said “a second North Korean test was also carried out that year on Iran’s behalf.”15 Obama administration officials are reported to believe that a September 2012 agreement between North Korea and Iran could involve cooperation in both ballistic missiles and nuclear programs. The agreement is reportedly similar to the agreement between North Korea and Syria that was related to the development of nuclear weapons.16
In February 2013, North Korea tested its third announced nuclear bomb. Just prior to the test, General Jung Seung-jo, Chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared that North Korea was likely to test a “boosted fission weapon,” a technique involving the use of thermonuclear material for producing a smaller, more capable nuclear bomb and a key component of a thermonuclear bomb.17 Soon after the test, North Korea threatened a preventive thermonuclear attack on the U.S.18 According to UPI, a Western diplomatic source told it that Iranian scientists may have been present at the third North Korean nuclear test and Iran may have paid North Korea tens of millions of dollars to stage the test.19 According to The New York Times, a senior Obama administration official concluded that “it’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.”20
The United States has few options for dealing with the North Korean nuclear challenge, and no good ones. A pre-emptive strike risks an unspeakable catastrophe. Sanctions have not worked, and tightening them further is no more likely to. Diplomatic talks will be difficult for the United States because an agreement would involve a compromise that would allow North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, if the goal is to prevent Pyongyang from developing an accurate nuclear-tipped ICBM, then negotiating with Pyongyang may well be the only way to try to defuse a looming crisis.
Even under current conditions, such talks would be fraught, the odds tilted against success. But if the U.S. thrusts aside the nuclear deal with Iran—and uses contrived evidence to do so—the message to North Korea and others will be that America’s word is disposable and the U.S. cannot be trusted to honor its commitments. This would deal a possibly fatal blow to any chance of a diplomatic effort to, if not halt or reverse, at a minimum slow down North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Indeed, walking away from the Iran deal, or contriving circumstances that force Iran to do so, would not only open up a now dormant nuclear crisis with Tehran, it would also close down perhaps the only option that might prevent a far more dangerous crisis with North Korea.
North Korea already harbors heightened suspicion and mistrust of Washington’s motives, fearing that the U.S.’ real objective is removal of the Kim regime and reunification of the Korean Peninsula under South Korean leadership. U.S. abandonment, without just cause, of the Iran deal would both validate and exacerbate those beliefs; to Pyongyang, the lesson would be that Washington saw diplomacy merely as a prelude to efforts to isolate, pressure and seek to remove the Iranian regime. Why would Kim Jong Un even begin negotiations if he is convinced that Washington would then look for excuses to unravel an agreement, should one be reached?
The message from Washington, of course, would not be heard in Pyongyang alone. The administration’s too-clever-by-half strategy of messing around with the Iranian nuclear accord—doing just enough to tempt Tehran to walk away from the deal after Trump publicly acknowledged that his goal is to undo it—almost certainly would undermine its credibility with nations whose cooperation it desperately needs to deal with the North Korean nuclear challenge. The recent unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution imposing tougher sanctions on North Korea demonstrates two things: first, that a unilateral U.S. approach is impracticable; and second, that China and Russia can be useful partners in pressing Pyongyang on its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. If anything, the Trump administration is banking too heavily on Beijing to somehow solve the problem on our behalf.
But consider China’s reaction should the U.S. treat the nuclear agreement with Iran in a slapdash, dismissive manner. Beijing might well be angered given its interests in buying Iran’s oil and investing in its infrastructure. But it would be positively alarmed at the implications for North Korea, which presents China with a major security headache on its doorstep. China long has maintained that diplomacy with Pyongyang is the only viable answer to the North Korean nuclear problem, and it believes in the six-party format, which, not entirely unlike the seven-party format of the Iran negotiations, includes both China and the U.S. The precedent of the U.S. effectively dismissing an accord negotiated by a team of countries and ratified by the U.N. Security Council would give China considerable pause, raise serious questions in its mind about whether the U.S. can be trusted not to act similarly with North Korea, and make it virtually impossible for Beijing to vouch for Washington’s good faith vis-à-vis Pyongyang.
Allies also might lose faith. Throughout the long-simmering nuclear crisis with North Korea, the Bush and Obama administrations managed to preserve solidarity with South Korea and Japan. Going forward, any sustainable solution to this crisis will require implementation of a joint U.S.-South Korea strategy backed by Japan. Moon Jae-In, South Korea’s newly elected president, is a strong proponent of engagement with the North, and both Seoul and Tokyo are desperate to contain the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities. It’s hardly an exaggeration to suggest that both would be apoplectic if, by repudiating the nuclear accord with Iran, the U.S. effectively cut off the path to a diplomatic solution on the peninsula.
The odds against a negotiated agreement with North Korea are preternaturally long, but it would be the height of irresponsibility not to test its possibility. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently offered the welcome suggestion that the U.S. is open to diplomacy and reassurance to Pyongyang that the U.S. is not intent on regime change. Surely, both he and others in the administration—Generals James Mattis, H.R. McMaster and John Kelly in particular, all of whom reportedly lobbied for Trump to certify Iranian compliance with the nuclear accord the last time around—understand how hollow those words will ring if, the next time certification is in play, they fail to persuade the president. The least one can hope is that they will see the linkage, because it’s a pretty good bet that this president won’t. And it’s just as good a bet that, by failing to peek just around the corner, he would be creating the prospect of a two-front nuclear crisis that America and the world can ill afford.
There are too many dissimilarities between the governments, motivations and ideologies of North Korea and Iran for the U.S. experience with the 1994 Agreed Framework to serve as any useful guide for the Iranian nuclear deal.
- Agreed Framework with North Korea was a success in that it avoided a larger war, a metric that also applies to the deal with Iran
- Deal with Iran is not comparable to previous agreements with Libya and North Korea for several reasons
- Multiple differences between Iran and North Korea agreement give more confidence that the Iran agreement will succeed
- North Korea case is too dissimilar to be used as a cautionary tale for the Iran deal
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The 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea is widely recognized as a failure as it allowed North Korea to keep its nuclear power program as long as it agreed to submit to further inspections. However, as we now know North Korea never intended to abide by the agreement and used the pause to continue its nuclear weapons development in secret. Policy makers should evaluate the lessons from the North Korean agreement so we do not make the same mistake with Iran.
- North Korea was cheating both before and after the signing of the Agreed Framework
- Lessons from failure of North Korean agreement should be a warning for current nuclear deal with Iran
- Iran deal repeats the mistakes of the failed Libyan and North Korean agreements
- Risk with nuclear deal with Iran is, as we learned from North Korea, that if they do cheat we may not be able to do anything about it
- Obama administration officials concede its possible North Korea may have been testing for Iran
- Open source intelligence indicates that North Korea may have conducted its nuclear tests on behalf of Iran
- North Korea may be testing nuclear weapons for Iran
- Iran is cooperating with North Korea on intercontinental ballistic missiles
- Iran could be cooperating with North Korea to develop nuclear weapon