North Korea Complicates Bush 'Axis of Evil' Strategy

CARLA ANNE ROBBINS, DAVID S. CLOUD and GREG JAFFE / Wall Street Journal 18oct02

Nuclear-Plans Admission Creates Obstacles For U.S. Policy on Iraq and Asian Diplomacy

WASHINGTON -- North Korea's admission that it has a secret nuclear-weapons program could buttress President Bush's argument that Pyongyang belongs in his "axis of evil." But it has abruptly complicated U.S. strategy toward Iraq and Asia.

As the president tries to rally international support for a new war to topple Saddam Hussein, many close allies are privately worried that the White House has wider ambitions to eventually take on North Korea as well as Iran, the third member of Mr. Bush's axis -- ambitions that U.S. officials deny. But the sudden appearance of a new crisis with Pyongyang could reinforce those fears and complicate the administration's diplomatic efforts.

President Bush was notably silent on the subject of North Korea -- even as he denounced Iraq -- and the White House is painfully aware of the complications. U.S. officials said that the administration has known since early July that North Korea had acquired key equipment for enriching uranium, but the White House was hesitant to go public with the evidence as it was gearing up for a confrontation with Baghdad.

"There was a lot of thought about how to deal with the new information. No one wanted to distract from Iraq," said one U.S. official, adding, "the timing of this thing is terrible."

In Asia, the U.S. and its closest allies have long been divided over how to handle North Korea, a rift that could widen if the U.S. presses too hard for a showdown with Pyongyang. Still, the gravity of the situation was underscored when two top State Department officials arrived in Beijing Thursday for discussions on how to respond to the disclosures. The two officials will then head off for meetings with other U.S. allies, and Washington seems eager for now to tamp down any talk of confrontation.

Complicating things further, U.S. officials say that North Korea acquired some of the parts for its clandestine program to produce highly enriched uranium from Russian suppliers, although they couldn't say if the Russian government knew of the transactions.

Progress at U.N.

Separately, U.S. officials said they believe that they are close to reaching agreement with France, and perhaps Russia, on a new United Nations Security Council resolution that demands Iraq submit to U.N. inspections and give up its weapons of mass destruction. But the proposed U.S. language, which warns of "severe consequences" should Baghdad fail to comply, sidesteps the difficult debate over when to go to war with Iraq and whether the U.N. needs to first authorize military action, saying only that the Security Council would convene if there is a violation. U.S. officials maintained that they wouldn't need another resolution if the U.S. decides to launch a war.

The administration's sense of urgency may have been somewhat tempered by the knowledge that North Korea already has enough plutonium to produce one or two nuclear weapons -- and may have already built them -- and its belief that it hasn't yet begun to produce enriched uranium, which can also be used in such weapons.

On Sept. 12, the same day Mr. Bush addressed the U.N. about the dangers posed by Iraq, the president met quietly in New York with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to brief him on the U.S. intelligence findings about North Korea. U.S. officials were worried that Mr. Koizumi, who was scheduled to visit Pyongyang several days later, was prepared to re-establish full diplomatic relations with the North. "The message to Koizumi was to be careful what concessions and promises you make," said a U.S. official familiar with the meeting.

Desire for Rapprochement

The American warnings didn't blunt Japan's desire for rapprochement with the North. After North Korean leader Kim Jong Il admitted that his country had kidnapped a number of Japanese citizens and agreed to extend a moratorium on missile tests for another year, Mr. Koizumi agreed that the two countries should pursue normalized relations -- a significant warming of their ties that now also looks like a snub to the U.S. Yasuo Fukuda, Japan's chief government spokesman, said Thursday that Japanese officials would "raise the issue" of Pyongyang's nuclear program but would continue normalization talks.

The administration is showing very little of its usual public bluntness when it comes to North Korea, apparently restrained by concerns about Iraq, saying it plans to work with its allies to pressure North Korea into halting its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials said privately that Washington's support for the 1994 Agreed Framework, which would provide Pyongyang with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for a halt to its nuclear-arms program, is dead. The U.S. is almost certain to suspend its delivery of free fuel oil to the North, another part of the accord. But so far the administration has decided to hold off announcing that it will cut its support while officials consult with Japan and South Korea, which are providing most of the financing for the new reactors, and others.

U.S. officials said they are hopeful of putting together a united international front calling for North Korea to abandon its weapons program. President Bush will have a chance to raise the issue directly with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, who is scheduled to visit Mr. Bush next week at his Texas ranch. U.S. officials believe that China, which provides extensive economic support to Pyongyang, has the best chance of getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear program. "We are not going to be belligerent," said one senior official. Officials also said they won't even try to persuade other countries to go further and cut relations with North Korea.

Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a hard-liner toward North Korea, arrived Thursday in Beijing for talks on the North Korea situation. Mr. Bolton will travel to Britain, France, and Russia over the next 10 days. He is accompanied in Beijing by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, who is seen as far more moderate in his views toward Pyongyang and who will go separately in coming days to Japan and South Korea. Mr. Kelly was the U.S. official who in early October confronted Pyongyang with intelligence information pointing to the existence of the enriched-uranium nuclear program.

U.S. officials still are privately worried that both Japan and South Korea may argue for even more engagement with Pyongyang as a way to wean it of its nuclear ambitions.

In Seoul, Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Tae Sik called for continued dialogue and said South Korea would raise the issue of Pyongyang's nuclear program in a round of cabinet-level talks between the Koreas scheduled for Oct. 19-22 in Pyongyang. The incident isn't likely to bring inter-Korean talks to a sudden halt, said Yoo Jay Kun, a lawmaker in Seoul. Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that Moscow hadn't seen evidence of North Korea's nuclear program and called Pyongyang a partner. "We will conduct appropriate consultations, including with our partners from North Korea, and after that we will have the information needed to comment on these statements," Mr. Ivanov said.

'Confessional Diplomacy'

North Korea's admission could be seen as a further attempt at "confessional diplomacy" -- like its earlier disclosure about the abduction of the Japanese -- intended to engage the world in a wider dialogue. Indeed, when confronted with the evidence of their equipment purchases, the North Koreans could have stonewalled the Americans instead of admitting their wrongdoing.

U.S. officials have a very different view. They see Pyongyang's admission, including its defiant statement that it has even more powerful weapons, as a repeat of its 1993 brinkmanship with the Clinton administration and a clear effort to blackmail the U.S., Japan and South Korea into providing more aid and recognition, while making few concessions of its own. At least some U.S. officials are worried that the North Korean leader may now try to drive a deeper wedge between the U.S. and its regional allies. In one nightmare scenario, Mr. Kim offers to visit Seoul, just as the U.S. is calling on the South Koreans to isolate the North to pressure it into dropping its nuclear program.

The North Korean admissions also are a particular problem for China, which borders North Korea and longs for stability on its frontier. Though its influence over Pyongyang has fluctuated, China has expended diplomatic capital and hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to keep North Korea from economic collapse and nudge it toward change. All that effort, the Chinese strategists say, could now unravel.

With a clear eye to the Iraq debate U.S. officials went out of their way to say that the Iraqi and North Korean problems are fundamentally different, and therefore require different responses. Even as he said that he believes North Korea already has a "a small number" of nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asserted that Iraq is unparalleled in the threat it poses to the world. "Iraq has unique characteristics that distinguish it and that suggest that it has nominated itself for special attention because of the breadth of what they're doing."

-- Charles Hutzler in Beijing contributed to this article.