Pyongyang could be prepping nuke test before Obama’s visit

Posted on : 2014-04-23 15:27 KST Modified on : 2014-04-23 15:27 KST
Not yet clear if N. Korea is really planning to hold a test, or bluffing to protest political situation

By Choi Hyun-june and Kim Oi-hyun, staff reporters

With US President Barack Obama set to visit South Korea on Apr. 25-26, North Korea is stepping up its preparations for another nuclear test. But opinions about whether Pyongyang will actually carry out a test are divided, not only among experts but also inside the South Korean government.

First of all, the fact that North Korea is showing signs that it might conduct a fourth nuclear test, one year after the previous test in Feb. 2013, is evidence that the North Korean nuclear diplomacy of its neighbors, including South Korea, the US, and China, has failed. This is because North Korea’s preparations for a nuclear test run counter to efforts to resume the six-party talks.

Indeed, from February until recently, North Korea’s neighbors had by all appearances been engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity about the North’s nukes: Chinese diplomat Wu Dawei visited Pyongyang and Washington, the leaders of South Korea, the US, and Japan had a trilateral summit and their six-party talks envoys held deliberations. But there is no sign that these efforts led to any substantial progress. No compromise was found between the opposing positions of North Korea and China, who call for the unconditional resumption of the six-party talks, and South Korea and the US, who insist that Pyongyang must first show its sincerity by taking steps toward denuclearization.

Most significantly, China’s pushback against the South Korean and American strategy of using China to put pressure on North Korea is intensifying. The larger the chasm between the approaches adopted by China and by South Korea and the US, the harder it will be to find a solution to North Korea’s nuclear program.

On Apr. 10, Chinese ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai flatly rejected an American request to put pressure on North Korea, referring to it as an “impossible task,” Then, on Apr. 22, Yan Xuetong, professor at Tsinghua University in China, asked just what leverage China is supposed to use with North Korea during a plenum organized by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Yan is believed to exert considerable influence on Chinese foreign policy.

There are different views inside the South Korean government about when and if North Korea will push forward with a nuclear test - which would have major political and diplomatic ramifications - even after it has reached a state of technical readiness that would allow it to conduct a test at the push of a button.

During a briefing on Apr. 22, the Ministry of National Defense informed the media of the status of North Korea’s nuclear preparations, and the Ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff activated a combined crisis management task force, lending credence to the argument that a nuclear test is imminent. The Ministry even took the unusual step of revealing private remarks by North Korean officials about “getting ready for a major strike”, intelligence likely obtained through wiretapping, which is raising suspicions that the Ministry might have ulterior motivations.

“We are picking up a lot of chatter,” said Defense Ministry spokesperson Kim Min-seok. Kim quoted North Koreans as saying, “We are preparing to take the next step, which will be unimaginable for our enemies,” “Something big is going to happen before Apr. 30,” and “We are getting ready for a big strike.”

When asked about the source of these remarks, a military officer said on condition of anonymity that he understood that the remarks, which are being openly made in North Korea, were captured through various channels.

On the other hand, the Unification Ministry is adopting a more cautious stance on the imminence of the nuclear test, pointing to the fact that North Korea has not made a specific remark about the timing of a nuclear test in its official statements.

Opinions also differ among experts. “When we consider past experience and the current international political situation, it is likely that the movements toward a nuclear test are more of a bluff than a reality,” said Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies. Yang believes that they are a sort of protest before Obama’s visit to South Korea.

But Kim Yeon-cheol, professor in the unification department at Inje University, has a different take on things. “North Korea believes there is no need to wait any more since the path of dialogue is blocked,” Kim said, though he conceded that it was unlikely that North Korea would carry out the nuclear test before Obama visits South Korea. In Kim’s analysis, North Korea will concentrate on improving the technical quality of its nuclear weapons even after Obama’s visit to South Korea if there is no breakthrough in the political situation.

 

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