Yongbyon nuclear facility assessments: three contradictions

By Yang Moo-jin

The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report issued at the end of August that North Korea appears to have restarted its 5-megawatt reactor and reprocessing facility in Yongbyon.Many different assessments of the Yongbyon nuclear facility were reported in the media and it seems that quite a few of them are contradictory and biased, as if revealing the disorderly state of the North Korean nuclear issue itself. I would like to outline them in the following "three contradictions."

First, is the Yongbyon nuclear facility a "disaster" or just a "lump of scrap metal?" Some political groups say that North Korea's restarting of the Yongbyon nuclear facility will bring about a "disaster" that will threaten South Korea.

However, many other people disagree, because two years ago, they disparaged Yongbyon as an old facility not worth negotiating with, and therefore concluded at that time that it was a "lump of scrap metal." Although Yongbyon has not changed, how can the assessments of it be so different depending on the situation? These assessments seem to be acts with political intentions rather than oriented towards actual solutions.

Dr. Siegfried S. Hecker, who visited the Yongbyon area in 2010, called Yongbyon the "heart" of North Korea's nuclear material production. He pointed out that new facilities, such as a uranium enrichment facility and an experimental light water reactor, have been built since the expulsion of the IAEA inspectors in 2009, and also refuted the assessment that the Yongbyon facility was obsolete.

However, it is very likely that North Korea is operating a facility that produces highly-enriched uranium outside of Yongbyon and that it has strengthened its nuclear capabilities through six nuclear tests and ICBM test launches. Therefore, it is also true that Yongbyon's importance in North Korea's nuclear arsenal is clearly different from what it was in the 1990s, when only the Yongbyon facility was available.

Considering the fact that the Yongbyon area has a nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility, which are the only facilities that can produce plutonium and tritium, and that there is also a uranium enrichment facility, the Yongbyon nuclear facility plays a very critical ― if not the main ― role in North Korea's nuclear material production. I think this view represents a balanced assessment of Yongbyon.

Second, "will the U.S. not buy the same horse twice," or has it ever even bought a horse? Some experts cite the American proverb, "Don't buy the same horse twice" and emphasize that North Korea has not fully implemented agreements to freeze and dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility in the past.

North Korea ceased its nuclear activities in Yongbyon after signing the 1994 Agreed Framework and the Feb. 13 Agreement of the 2007 six-party talks, while IAEA inspectors were monitoring it and residing there. Does the reason why these agreements were not completely fulfilled rest only on the shoulders of North Korea?

In fact, the responsibility also lies with the fact that proportional responses in exchange for denuclearization steps, such as an improvement in U.S.-North Korea relations, the conclusion of a peace treaty, and the supply of a light-water reactor, did not go well. Due to not having the actual intention to "pay for" the full cessation of Yongbyon properly, the U.S. in the end did not actually "buy" Yongbyon in the first place.

Dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear facility means not only halting the production of nuclear materials, but also enhancing experts' understanding of North Korea's overall nuclear weapons program, by gaining access to Yongbyon sites. Dismantling is not everything when it comes to denuclearization, but can be an important impetus for getting denuclearization to start full-scale and in promoting the dismantlement of the other nuclear facilities through building mutual trust.

From this perspective, it's really unfortunate that the Trump administration called for North Korea to declare all the parts of its nuclear weapons program as well as rejected North Korea's proposal to dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear facility at the summit between the U.S. and North Korea in February 2019.

Third, despite recent indications that nuclear activities in Yongbyon have resumed, South Korea and the U.S. keep trying to talk to North Korea. Is that a prudent attitude or a deliberate attempt to hide information? While some experts have regarded the U.S. government's response to signs of the resumption of nuclear activities in Yongbyon as prudent, so as not to get caught up in North Korea's trickery, they have criticized South Korea for disclosing only favorable information in order to promote dialogue with the North, including the resumption of cross-border communication.

The U.S. and South Korean governments have coordinated closely on North Korea policy since the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden, and actively sent messages to the North for dialogue through the South Korea-U.S. summit in May. The two governments have showed the same position that the recent report from the IAEA provided, supporting evidence on the urgency of engagement with North Korea to solve the problem.

If experts make completely different comments on the same response by the South Korean and U.S. governments, we will have no choice but to ask them what their rationale is for making such disparate comments.

As the North Korean nuclear issue has continued on unabated, and North Korea's nuclear capacity has advanced, doubt and distrust have continued to grow. We should face the heart of the matter and return to the basics. The key to the problem is to build trust by reducing the threat and easing hostility. It is now time to adopt a practical and rational approach to solve the problem without ideological or political intentions.

Yang Moo-jin (yangmj@kyungnam.ac.kr) is a professor at the University of North Korean Studies and the vice chair of the Korean Association of North Korean Studies. He is also a standing committee member of the National Unification Advisory Council and a policy consultant at the Ministry of Unification.