North Korea At A Fork In The Road

CBS News reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News. He now covers the State Department.

So tense in fact that Hill threw down the gauntlet in response. "What we've really come to is I think a very important fork in the road. The DPRK (The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name for North Korea), if it wants an economic future — indeed, I would argue, if it wants a future — needs to get rid of these weapons," Hill said in remarks to the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS in Washington. "It can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both. And so it's got to, I think, think long and hard of which fork — or which road it wants to take."

Hill's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said such a test would be "very provocative" — and she wasn't the only leader reacting strongly. South Korea's government sent a "grave warning" to Pyongyang, China warned of "serious consequences" and Russia's foreign minister said "We must do everything so that (a nuclear test) doesn't happen." Japan's new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said such a test would provoke a harsh response.

With such diplomatic responses, the next move would appear to be up to Pyongyang. But to put some sort of international stamp of disapproval on a North Korean nuclear test there is diplomatic movement toward a Security Council statement — something short of sanctions — expressing the unified opposition of the world community to a test.

What does North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, really want? Selig Harrison of the Center for International Policy and a longtime follower of events on the Korean peninsula says Pyongyang does want to return to the six-party talks, but sees Washington's current policy as being aimed at regime change. He says it needs to see some assurances from Washington in return for coming back to the talks.

Harrison, just back from a four-day visit to North Korea where he met with a wide range of senior military and political leaders, says the Bush administration's recent financial squeeze on the DPRK (asking banks around the world not to deal with North Korea because of its counterfeiting and money-laundering activities) is having an effect, even slowing economic growth. "But there is no sign whatsoever that the sanctions are undermining the Kim Jong Il regime as the administration hopes," Harrison said at the U.S.-Korea Institute last week.

Whether it is the economic pressure that directly led to this week's threat is unclear, but Harrison argues "the only way to break the deadlock in the six-party talks is to find some way to resolve the sanctions issue through bilateral negotiations. There is no chance of North Korea capitulating without some face-saving compromise." Contacted by CBS News for his reaction to this week's announcement, Harrison said it was noteworthy "that they didn't commit themselves to a date" for a test.

In his remarks, Ambassador Hill saw it differently. He thinks Pyongyang, which made certain commitments to a roadmap (signing the Sept. 19, 2005, agreement) that would end its nuclear weapons programs, got itself into the position it's in. "And so I think if we look historically at what really happened, what happened was the North Koreans blinked. They looked at what they had agreed to do, and they decided they weren't sure they wanted to do it."

Hill says the United States would be forced to act "and act resolutely" if North Korea conducted a nuclear test "to make sure the DPRK and to make sure every other country in the world understands this was a very bad mistake." Speaking in unusually candid terms, Hill said, "I am prepared to say we are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea. We're not going to accept it. I am not prepared at this point to say exactly what that precisely means, but I'm telling you we cannot accept a nuclear North Korea. We're not going to."

Perhaps trying to preempt North Korean strategy, Hill, who is also Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, went a step further. "So if what they have in mind is the notion that somehow by exploding this thing they've created a fait accompli and we're just going to have to come to terms with a nuclear North Korea, they've got to think again," he said. "We're not coming to terms with a nuclear North Korea."

The question now is how to square the circle between the Bush administration's position and what Harrison was told by Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's chief negotiator at the six-party talks: "We really want to co-exist with the United States peacefully, but you must learn to coexist with a North Korea that has nuclear weapons. … we are definitely prepared to carry out the September 19 agreement, step by step, but we won't completely and fully dismantle our nuclear program until our relations with the United States are fully normalized. That will take some time, and until we reach the final target, we should find a way to coexist."

By Charles Wolfson