|
|
|
|
|
Nothing to gain, plenty to lose in NKorea missile storm, say experts With a lot to lose and nothing obvious to gain, North Korea is using preparations for a missile launch as a new card in an old game of nuclear brinkmanship, analysts say. Despite warnings from the United States and Japan that it would pay a high price for a rocket launch, North Korea appears to be continuing with preparations at a remote launch pad in the northeast of the country. Given North Korea's history of using brinkmanship as an unsettling negotiating tactic, analysts said Pyongyang was trying to use sabre-rattling to end the deadlock in its nuclear standoff with Washington. "We hear a lot about the United States being frustrated with North Korean intransigence," said Jun Bong-Geun at Seoul's Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security. "This shows North Korea feels the same way and wants to focus US attention on its demands." Six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program have been stalled since November last year when the Stalinist state accused Washington of imposing sanctions over allegations of financial irregularities. Millions of dollars in North Korean cash have been frozen since last year in a Macau bank that Washington said was a willing pawn in the North's money laundering activities. North Korea says it wants Washington to lift those financial restrictions before it will return to the stalled talks, that also includes China, South Korea, Russia and Japan, aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program. Washington, bogged down in Iraq and facing a separate nuclear standoff with Iran, has refused to contemplate Pyongyang's latest demands. "This is North Korea saying, we have missiles and we have nuclear weapons too," said Jun, a former advisor to the South Korean minister of unification, the cabinet member who handles relations with North Korea. However, the benefits of grabbing US attention would be outweighed by the potential penalties of a test, said Kim Tae-Woo, a research fellow of the state-financed Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. "If North Korea fires the missile, it would risk simply too much, especially in the form of more US-led financial sanctions," he said. "Pyongyang is already feeling the pinch from the US financial sanction," he said. "It would also lose many of its friends in South Korea." Although Japan and the United States have threatened North Korea with retaliatory measures if it fires a missile, South Korea and China have maintained a low profile. Experts say the South Korean government is unlikely to reverse its engagement policy with North Korea as a result of a missile test. China, North Korea's main backer, is also unlikely to join in sanctions against Pyongyang, a factor that would seriously weaken any action Washington and Tokyo may take in response to a test. Some analysts believe the position of Seoul and Beijing could embolden North Korea in the end to go ahead and test the missile. "There is the view that North Korea has done the math and thinks that on balance, a missile launch might help," said Jun. North Korea's first and only previous long-range missile test in 1998 ignited a storm of indignation, he recalled. But it proved transitory. "In the mid to long term it may have actually helped to get things turning round in their favour," he said. "Soon after, negotiations with the US were back on track." North Korea declared a moratorium on long-range missile tests in 1999, a year after its missile launch. Pyongyang then boasted last year it had nuclear weapons and agreed in principle to give up its program in exchange for aid and security guarantees. But it later walked out of the six-party talks, intensifying the nuclear standoff with the United States. ---------------------------------------------------
Prison Planet.tv: The Premier Multimedia Subscription Package: Download and Share the Truth! Please help our fight against the New World Order by giving a donation. As bandwidth costs increase, the only way we can stay online and expand is with your support. Please consider giving a monthly or one-off donation for whatever you can afford. You can pay securely by either credit card or Paypal. Click here to donate. |
