South Korea said yesterday that North Korea's nuclear-weapon operations involve 20 facilities employing 3,000 personnel, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Oct. 22).
Lawmaker Lee Mi-kyung, reading from a South Korean Unification Ministry report, said that there are roughly 200 scientists and researchers among the North's nuclear work force. The Yongbyon nuclear complex contains 11 of the nuclear-related sites, while nine uranium mines and related facilities are found at two other locations.
The Unification Ministry did not dispute the data.
"[Seoul] needs to set up a concrete plan on how to manage North Korea's nuclear facilities, its scientists and overall resources" in the event that the government in Pyongyang collapses, Lee said, according to the Yonhap News Agency.
Under a denuclearization agreement, North Korea closed Yongbyon in 2007. The communist nation declared it would again begin plutonium reprocessing from spent fuel rods at a facility there after it ended negotiations with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States in April (Agence France-Presse I/Google News, Oct. 22).
After carrying out a second nuclear weapons test in May and conducting several missile launches, Pyongyang was hit with another set of U.N. Security Council sanctions. Recent signs from the North that it would be willing to return to the six-party talks have been interpreted by some as a sign that the sanctions are having their desired effect.
Pyongyang has primarily sought bilateral talks with the United States.The No. 2 nuclear negotiator for North Korea, Ri Gun, is expected in New York today, Kyodo News reported.
Washington reportedly intends for Sung Kim, the U.S. representative for the six-member talks, to meet with Ri during his visit so that the two can discuss moving forward with formal direct negotiations that would include U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Bosworth. The Obama administration has said that a condition of any bilateral discussions taking place is that Pyongyang agree to resume six-party negotiations.
A meeting between Ri and U.S. officials was expected to take place in San Diego, where the North Korean diplomat is scheduled to attend a conference on Monday and Tuesday. It now appears that informal talks might start in New York soon after Ri arrives.
Ri is expected to return to New York no later than Oct. 30, where he is set to participate in another conference. He is scheduled to depart the United States on Nov. 2 (Kyodo News/Breitbart, Oct. 22).
North and South Korean officials were in Singapore last week for talks on a possible bilateral summit, Reuters reported.
"North Korea requested this meeting," a source told the South Korean television network KBS. The source said the two Koreas could talk again in a third country.
Two previous summits in Pyongyang resulted in substantial South Korean aid to its neighbor as well as promises from Seoul to assist in strengthening the North's economy (Cho Mee-young, Reuters I, Oct. 22).
Government officials in Seoul have yet to verify the media reports about summit talks. However, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said that advancements in ending the North's nuclear weapons program would be a crucial requirement for having a summit with the North.
"We have to take various things into consideration such as progress on the South-North relations and the North Korean nuclear issue," Hyun said to legislators. "The most important thing is resolving the North Korean nuclear issue."
Rumors of a summit meeting were heightened this week when Pyongyang's intelligence head of relations with South Korea was spotted in Beijing on Tuesday (Jae-Soon Chang, Associated Press/Taiwan News, Oct. 23).
Meanwhile, two U.S. organizations released a report yesterday that calls for increased economic ties between the United States and North Korea as a means to improving the behavior of the Stalinist nation, Reuters reported.
"Sanctions alone cannot provide protection from the threat posed now or in the future by North Korea," says the study by the Asia Society and the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.
"Instead, economic engagement starts a process that may lead to significant benefits without enhancing the D.P.R.K.'s military capabilities or making the U.S. or its allies more vulnerable," the report adds.
More scholarly dialogue, new aid projects and intermediary assistance with the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank are all recommended for North Korea in the report.
The authors recognized that the North has not displayed much desire for economic reform and that there are few indications that would change soon (Paul Eckert, Reuters II , Oct. 22).
Elsewhere, Kim's presumed successor, his youngest son, has apparently had a falling out with his father, AFP reported.
South Korean Institute for National Security Strategy chief Nam Sung-wook said Wednesday that Kim Jong-un had "confronted" his father last summer on his handling of military staffing matters. After that, the older Kim ended the propaganda effort meant to smooth the transition process between the two.
"Talk about power succession has submerged since August," Nam said (Jun Kwanwoo, Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Oct. 22).
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