Carter Says Claim That North Korea Cheated Is False
by Judy Mathewson
Bloomberg
November 3, 2006
The Bush administration claim that North Korea cheated or reneged on a 1994 agreement with the U.S. to freeze its nuclear program is ``completely false and ridiculous,'' former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said.
Carter, a Democrat who helped broker the agreement with the North Koreans on behalf of then-President Bill Clinton, said the pact was ``observed pretty well by both sides'' for eight years.
``It lasted until 2002 when the United States in effect abandoned that agreement and branded North Korea as an axis of evil,'' Carter, 82, said in an interview to be broadcast this weekend on ``Conversations with Judy Woodruff'' on Bloomberg Television. Carter also said the U.S. further undermined the agreement by condemning summit meetings that took place in 2000 between North Korea and South Korea.
President George W. Bush said on Oct. 11, two days after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb, that the 1994 agreement ``just didn't work.'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Oct. 10 said the North Koreans ``cheated'' on that agreement.
Bush and Rice also said such a history justified the administration's refusal to talk directly with North Korea and instead urged the Asian nation to return to six-nation disarmament talks.
North Korea said Oct. 31 it will rejoin that six-country forum if the U.S. agrees to discuss lifting financial sanctions imposed last year.
It's wrong to say that North Korea cheated on the 1994 agreement, Carter said. Under Clinton, North Korea agreed to bring back international atomic inspectors, freeze its nuclear program and put its spent fuel rods in cold storage, he said.
Rice Reaffirms
Rice reaffirmed her claim that the North Koreans cheated in an interview with ``Political Capital with Al Hunt'' to air this weekend on Bloomberg Television.''
``We know that not too long after they signed that deal, yes, they'd frozen their plutonium program and they'd begun to search for a highly-enriched-uranium route,'' Rice said. ``Now, I guess you can quibble about whether it is cheating to close off one route to a nuclear weapon and start another route to nuclear weapon. I would call it cheating.''
Jon B. Wolfsthal who lived on a North Korean nuclear reservation in 1995 and 1996 as a U.S. monitor, said the reality of how the deal unraveled is more nuanced than either the Carter or Rice account.
``There's plenty of blame to go around for both sides,'' said Wolfsthal, who is now a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In North Korea, his job had been to ensure that North Korea was complying with the 1994 agreement. |
Fuel Oil
To begin with, the U.S. didn't keep to its required schedule under the agreement for delivering fuel oil to the North Koreans. The reason was because in 1995 the Republican-controlled Congress exercised its constitutional right not to fund such shipments, Wolfsthal said in a telephone interview.
While the agreement didn't explicitly forbid the North Koreans from enriching uranium, Wolfsthal said ``the spirit of the agreement was that they shouldn't do that, though.''
``Eventually there was a breakdown in both momentum and trust on both sides,'' he said, with another reason being the U.S. failure to recognize North Korea in the same way that China and Russia had officially recognized South Korea.
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said one reason the U.S. was slow to fulfill its obligations was that many people mistakenly thought Kim Jong Il's government was about to collapse.
2000 Confrontation
``The North Koreans can rightly argue that they didn't get what they were promised,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``North Korea is accused of cheating by the United States, but the United States wanted the deal dead anyway.''
U.S. concerns that North Korea was enriching uranium led to a 2002 confrontation between the Bush administration, which was by then in power, and Kim Il Jong. The U.S. offered new incentives to North Korea if it would stop enrichment and publicly admit to it. North Korea rejected the offer, Wolfsthal and Albright said.
Carter, the 2002 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks, though he said they would probably have to be arranged discreetly at the six-party negotiations.
To arrange talks between just the U.S. and North Korea at a separate forum ``would result in too much loss of face by the current administration, but they could do it under the aegis of the umbrella of the so-called six-power talks, assembled with a secret, private, unpublicized agreement by the North Koreans in advance,'' Carter said.
Excessive Response
The Bush administration has said that bilateral conversations with North Korea have already taken place at the six-party talks and can occur again.
Carter also said Israelis ``responded excessively'' in the conflict with Hezbollah in July ``when they began a massive bombing operation against a major part of Lebanon.''
He said the Bush administration made a mistake by ``abandoning the effort in Afghanistan to stamp out al-Qaeda, to capture Osama bin Laden'' when it shifted most of the U.S. military effort from Afghanistan into Iraq. Carter called Iraq ``an unnecessary war based on false premises.''
Asked whether he thinks there should be some limits on free trade to protect American jobs, Carter said that while that issue is important, he is more concerned about what he called ``the growing chasm between rich people and poor people.''
International Trade
``The main thing I see in international trade is to be sure that we treat fairly the people who are already living devastated lives because of poverty and deprivation and not worry overly much about withholding trade from them in order to protect a few American jobs.''
Carter, the 39th president, served one term starting in 1977. He and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based human-rights organization, in 1982. Its mission is to improve human rights and alleviate suffering by resolving conflicts, improving health and promoting freedom and democracy.
Bloomberg
November 3, 2006
The Bush administration claim that North Korea cheated or reneged on a 1994 agreement with the U.S. to freeze its nuclear program is ``completely false and ridiculous,'' former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said.
Carter, a Democrat who helped broker the agreement with the North Koreans on behalf of then-President Bill Clinton, said the pact was ``observed pretty well by both sides'' for eight years.
``It lasted until 2002 when the United States in effect abandoned that agreement and branded North Korea as an axis of evil,'' Carter, 82, said in an interview to be broadcast this weekend on ``Conversations with Judy Woodruff'' on Bloomberg Television. Carter also said the U.S. further undermined the agreement by condemning summit meetings that took place in 2000 between North Korea and South Korea.
President George W. Bush said on Oct. 11, two days after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb, that the 1994 agreement ``just didn't work.'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Oct. 10 said the North Koreans ``cheated'' on that agreement.
Bush and Rice also said such a history justified the administration's refusal to talk directly with North Korea and instead urged the Asian nation to return to six-nation disarmament talks.
North Korea said Oct. 31 it will rejoin that six-country forum if the U.S. agrees to discuss lifting financial sanctions imposed last year.
It's wrong to say that North Korea cheated on the 1994 agreement, Carter said. Under Clinton, North Korea agreed to bring back international atomic inspectors, freeze its nuclear program and put its spent fuel rods in cold storage, he said.
Rice Reaffirms
Rice reaffirmed her claim that the North Koreans cheated in an interview with ``Political Capital with Al Hunt'' to air this weekend on Bloomberg Television.''
``We know that not too long after they signed that deal, yes, they'd frozen their plutonium program and they'd begun to search for a highly-enriched-uranium route,'' Rice said. ``Now, I guess you can quibble about whether it is cheating to close off one route to a nuclear weapon and start another route to nuclear weapon. I would call it cheating.''
Jon B. Wolfsthal who lived on a North Korean nuclear reservation in 1995 and 1996 as a U.S. monitor, said the reality of how the deal unraveled is more nuanced than either the Carter or Rice account.
``There's plenty of blame to go around for both sides,'' said Wolfsthal, who is now a fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. In North Korea, his job had been to ensure that North Korea was complying with the 1994 agreement. |
Fuel Oil
To begin with, the U.S. didn't keep to its required schedule under the agreement for delivering fuel oil to the North Koreans. The reason was because in 1995 the Republican-controlled Congress exercised its constitutional right not to fund such shipments, Wolfsthal said in a telephone interview.
While the agreement didn't explicitly forbid the North Koreans from enriching uranium, Wolfsthal said ``the spirit of the agreement was that they shouldn't do that, though.''
``Eventually there was a breakdown in both momentum and trust on both sides,'' he said, with another reason being the U.S. failure to recognize North Korea in the same way that China and Russia had officially recognized South Korea.
David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said one reason the U.S. was slow to fulfill its obligations was that many people mistakenly thought Kim Jong Il's government was about to collapse.
2000 Confrontation
``The North Koreans can rightly argue that they didn't get what they were promised,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``North Korea is accused of cheating by the United States, but the United States wanted the deal dead anyway.''
U.S. concerns that North Korea was enriching uranium led to a 2002 confrontation between the Bush administration, which was by then in power, and Kim Il Jong. The U.S. offered new incentives to North Korea if it would stop enrichment and publicly admit to it. North Korea rejected the offer, Wolfsthal and Albright said.
Carter, the 2002 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, called for direct U.S.-North Korea talks, though he said they would probably have to be arranged discreetly at the six-party negotiations.
To arrange talks between just the U.S. and North Korea at a separate forum ``would result in too much loss of face by the current administration, but they could do it under the aegis of the umbrella of the so-called six-power talks, assembled with a secret, private, unpublicized agreement by the North Koreans in advance,'' Carter said.
Excessive Response
The Bush administration has said that bilateral conversations with North Korea have already taken place at the six-party talks and can occur again.
Carter also said Israelis ``responded excessively'' in the conflict with Hezbollah in July ``when they began a massive bombing operation against a major part of Lebanon.''
He said the Bush administration made a mistake by ``abandoning the effort in Afghanistan to stamp out al-Qaeda, to capture Osama bin Laden'' when it shifted most of the U.S. military effort from Afghanistan into Iraq. Carter called Iraq ``an unnecessary war based on false premises.''
Asked whether he thinks there should be some limits on free trade to protect American jobs, Carter said that while that issue is important, he is more concerned about what he called ``the growing chasm between rich people and poor people.''
International Trade
``The main thing I see in international trade is to be sure that we treat fairly the people who are already living devastated lives because of poverty and deprivation and not worry overly much about withholding trade from them in order to protect a few American jobs.''
Carter, the 39th president, served one term starting in 1977. He and his wife Rosalynn founded the Carter Center, an Atlanta-based human-rights organization, in 1982. Its mission is to improve human rights and alleviate suffering by resolving conflicts, improving health and promoting freedom and democracy.
posted by Swallowtail at 15:55
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