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South Korean officials have expressed hope that the United States would drop North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states by the end of this year, citing the "smooth" implementation of the country's disarmament pledges. But analysts here caution against overly optimistic views, saying the North's next steps will be crucial to a U.S. decision. Pyongyang has yet to provide a full accounting of its atomic weapons programs. Japan's opposition could also delay a U.S. move to delist the communist country.
North Korea has been on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism since it was found to have been involved in the 1987 bombing of a South Korean airliner in which 115 passengers and crew were killed. The North has also been blamed for a 1983 bombing in Myanmar (then Burma) that killed 17 high-ranking South Korean officials.
The designation as a state sponsor of terrorism has prevented the North from receiving U.S. economic aid and blocks loans from the World Bank and other international lending institutions heavily influenced by the United States. The United States has also banned arms-related exports and sales to the North, while controlling exports of dual-use items and prohibiting economic assistance, which has worsened the isolation and poverty of the communist country.
North Korea has already suffered from U.S. restrictions under the Trading with the Enemy Act since the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, a law that allows for a near-total economic embargo of countries at war with the United States. Under the law, the United States has also frozen North Korea-related assets in the United States estimated at US$15-30 million.
Pyongyang has long demanded that the United States remove its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and cancel sanctions applied under the Trading with the Enemy Act, describing them as tools of "hostile" U.S. policy against North Korea.
Under an agreement reached Oct. 3 at the end of six-party talks in Beijing, the United States promised to remove the North from the terrorism list as one of the economic and political rewards for disabling its nuclear facilities. But the accord did not specify the timing of the delisting, just saying that the U.S. measure would come "in parallel with" action taken by the North to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all its nuclear programs.
However, South Korean news reports say the United States has actually promised to delist North Korea and end restrictions under the Trading with the Enemy Act by the end of this year to reward the North for its steps toward denuclearization. On the sideline of the Oct. 3 six-nation meeting, Washington and Pyongyang reached a secret deal on the timeline of U.S. measures, according to the conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo and progressive daily Hankyoreh over the weekend.
"(These measures) are supposed to be done by the end of the year," a high-level South Korean official in Washington was quoted as saying.
"The remarks indicate that U.S. President George W. Bush could announce the rewarding measures in the near future if the denuclearization process goes smoothly," Chosun said.
After the Oct. 3 agreement, the North claimed the United States had agreed to remove Pyongyang from the terrorism blacklist and terminate application of the Trading with the Enemy Act by the end of the year. The United States has yet to confirm the claim. But South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had made clear that Washington would take these steps.
Returning home from an eight-day trip to the United States and Canada Sunday, Song said the U.S. measures would come in accordance with the North's disablement of its nuclear facilities and a declaration of its atomic stockpiles by year's end. But other officials and analysts say the U.S rewards are unlikely to come in the near future as both Democratic and Republican lawmakers remain doubtful about whether North Korea could be trusted to come clean on its nuclear activities and follow through on the denuclearization pledges.
Analysts say a U.S. move would depend on whether the North sincerely carries out its anti-nuclear commitments, declaring all of its nuclear programs by the end of this year, including a suspected uranium-enrichment program.
"A crucial step for North Korea is to provide a full accounting of its nuclear programs, which will end the second phase of the denuclearization process," said Cho Min, a researcher at the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification. Cho and other analysts say Tokyo's strong outcry against the North's past abductions of Japanese citizens is another factor that could delay U.S. rewards for Pyongyang.
Japan, one of the six nations involved in the nuclear talks, has pushed Washington not to take the North off the list before Pyongyang provides details about Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reportedly plans to express strong concerns about this when he meets next week with Bush.
A group of family members of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea and their supporters left Sunday for the United States to press top U.S. officials to keep North Korea in the list of terrorist-sponsoring nations.
