IT WAS just a matter of time until North Korea carried out another test of a nuclear bomb. Since Kim Jong Un inherited power from his father in 2011, he has accelerated the pace of trials of nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles. The imposition of new sanctions this year and stern talk at the ASEAN summit this week will not have pleased Pyongyang. So it was that on September 9th, the holiday that celebrates the founding of North Korea’s communist regime by Mr Kim’s grandfather, the country announced that it had carried out its fifth test.
The force of the explosion appeared to be at least 10 kilotons, and perhaps as many as 30, making it by far the most powerful device North Korea has yet tested. It triggered an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3, alerting South Korea of the event before its troublesome neighbour confirmed it. By comparison, North Korea’s previous test, in January this year, was estimated at six kilotons. (The prior three were in 2013, 2009 and 2006.)
North Korea’s increasing forcefulness is making the international community extremely nervous. It is thought to have a stockpile of some 20 devices to which it adds one every six weeks. The underground detonation carried out in January almost certainly was not the hydrogen bomb that North Korea claimed, but it has been followed by a series of missile tests. The government’s claim that it can now send a missile to America may be bluster, but it could almost certainly strike targets in both South Korea and Japan.
Most worrying is the question of whether North Korea can make a nuclear warhead small enough to put on one of those missiles, and robust enough to endure a trajectory that would take it into space and back. The North boasts that it can, although observers are sceptical. Yet there is no doubt that it is making rapid progress in its nuclear programme. It is clearly a priority for Mr Kim, who seems to be devoting even more of North Korea’s relatively meagre resources to it than his father did.
Japanese officials and those in other neighbouring states fret that the young Mr Kim is far less predictable than his father. Partly that is because the strength of his grip on the regime is unknown. That three of North Korea’s five nuclear tests have been carried out during his five-year rule suggests he wants to project strength domestically. That could be because he feels insecure, but might equally reflect self-confidence.
America, Japan and South Korea have responded with predictably harsh statements. Even China, North Korea’s closest thing to an ally, said it “resolutely” condemned the test. Barack Obama, America’s president, has made nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament something of a pet cause, pushing for a nuclear deal with Iran and visiting Hiroshima, one of the two Japanese cities on which America dropped nuclear bombs during the second world war. But there is worryingly little America and its allies can do to restrain Mr Kim.
The United Nations tightened sanctions on North Korea in March in response to the test in January. The new measures include a somewhat leaky ban on exports of coal and other minerals, one of North Korea’s main sources of foreign exchange. America added further sanctions of its own in July, specifically naming Mr Kim. Yet all this appears to be doing nothing to change Mr Kim’s behaviour for the better, and may simply be infuriating him.
America’s, Japan’s and South Korea’s main strategy is to exhort China to put more pressure on North Korea, since the North Korean regime relies on China for its economic survival. The Chinese government is increasingly frustrated by Mr Kim—it voted in favour of the UN sanctions this year, though it has not always applied them rigorously. But it worries that the collapse of Mr Kim’s regime might bring American troops to its frontier, along with a flood of refugees. And China’s relations with America and its allies in Asia are not at their best at the moment. It is disgruntled by South Korea’s agreement with America to host THAAD, a missile-defence system, and has been ruffling feathers in the South and East China Seas. The West’s best hope of restraining North Korea, in short, is a slender one
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/07/pakistani-generals-helped-sell-nuclear-secrets?CMP=share_btn_tw
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor Thursday 7 July 2011 19.35 BST
The story of the world's worst case of nuclear smuggling took a new twist on Thursday when documents surfaced appearing to implicate two former Pakistani generals in the sale of uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in return for millions of dollars in cash and jewels handed over in a canvas bag and cardboard boxes of fruit.
The source of the documents is AQ Khan, who confessed in 2004 to selling parts and instructions for the use of high-speed centrifuges in enriching uranium to Libya, Iran and North Korea. Extracts were published by the Washington Post, including a letter in English purportedly from a senior North Korean official to Khan in 1998 detailing payment of $3m to Pakistan's former army chief, General Jehangir Karamat, and another half-million to Lieutenant General Zulfiqar Khan, who was involved in Pakistan's nuclear bomb tests.
Both generals denied the allegations. "What can I say. [These are] bits of old info packaged together. [There is] not an iota of truth in the allegations against me. [There is] no reason on earth for anyone to pay me for something I could not deliver," Karamat wrote in an email to the Guardian. Lt Gen Khan told the Washington Post that the documents were "a fabrication".
The issue is seen as critically important by western governments. Seven years after Khan, the godfather of the Pakistani nuclear programme, made his public confession on Pakistani television, there is still uncertainty over the extent to which he was a rogue operator or just a salesman acting on behalf of the Pakistani state and its army. Western officials are also unsure whether the covert nuclear sales are continuing.
One of the documents published on Thursday was allegedly a copy of a 1998 letter in English to him from Jon Byong Ho, then the secretary of the North Korean Workers' party, who is believed to have masterminded the state's covert trade in nuclear and missile technology. The document states that "the $3m have already been paid" to Karamat, and "half a million dollars" and some jewellery had been given to Lt Gen Khan, who went on to run the national water and power company. The Washington Post interviewed senior US officials who said that the document contained "accurate details of sensitive matters known only to a handful of people in Pakistan, North Korea and the United States", and that the substance was "consistent with our knowledge" of the same events.
Khan's smuggling network was broken in 2003, and he delivered a confession on Pakistani television in February 2004 in which he admitted selling centrifuge technology for enriching uranium to Iran, North Korea and Libya to further those countries' nuclear weapons programme. He claimed in his confession that the Pakistani government had not been complicit.
Khan has since said he had been persuaded to absolve the Islamabad government in return for his freedom. He handed over his version of events to a British journalist, Simon Henderson, now an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Henderson said Khan gave him the North Korean letter "several years ago" as an "insurance policy", but later agreed to have it published.
"I think he wants to set the historical record straight," Henderson said. "This would appear to confirm that Khan was not a rogue operator; secondly, that the military was deeply involved in what he was doing; and that thirdly, it confirms the growing concerns that the Pakistani military is not working in our interests, at best, and is duplicitous at worst."
Among the documents Khan handed over to Henderson was the written account of his activities given to Pakistani investigators in 2004, in which he claims he handed over two deliveries of cash from the North Koreans to Karamat. He said the first payment was for half a million dollars and the balance was paid once details had been agreed on how Pakistan would help Pyongyang develop technology for enriching uranium.
"I personally gave the remaining $2.5m to Gen Karamat in cash at the Army House to make up the whole amount," Khan wrote. According to the Washington Post, he claims to have delivered the money in a canvas bag and three cardboard boxes.
David Albright, an expert on nuclear proliferation and author of a book on AQ Khan's smuggling network, Peddling Peril, said he had obtained the same account some years ago but that no western government had made a judgment on its reliability.
"In these documents, Khan blames everybody else, including [assassinated former prime minister] Benazir Bhutto," Albright said. He added that he still believes Khan was the driving force behind the network, rather than a mere servant of the Pakistani state. "He had tremendous autonomy which he used to build up his network, and he used the corruption of the state to further his goals
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