Could North Korea follow the India-Pakistan nuclear path?

U.S. President Donald Trump’s renewed outreach to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has revived debate over whether Pyongyang could keep its nuclear arsenal and still win sanctions relief, following the path taken by India and Pakistan.

Under that scenario, North Korea would not be formally recognized as a nuclear-weapon state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but its arsenal would be tolerated in practice as sanctions are eased.

Trump said last Monday that Kim had responded to his requests for a conversation, though he gave no details about what was exchanged.

Comparably, in 2001, the Clinton administration imposed sanctions restricting economic and military assistance after India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in May 1998. Washington later eased some of those measures, and President George W. Bush waived the remaining U.S. sanctions tied to the tests on Sept. 22, 2001, 11 days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated in its 2002 yearbook that India had 30 to 35 nuclear warheads and Pakistan 24 to 48 as of January that year. Neither country had surrendered its arsenal when the remaining U.S. restrictions were removed.

Pakistan supported Washington’s counterterrorism campaign after 9/11. That cooperation gave the Bush administration a strategic reason to restore assistance. India went further in 2008, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group approved an exception allowing international civilian nuclear trade with the country even though it remained outside the NPT. The agreement also fit Washington’s broader effort to deepen strategic ties with India as China’s influence grew.

North Korea faces a much more complicated sanctions structure, though. The restrictions on India and Pakistan were largely rooted in U.S. law and could be waived by the president. North Korea has faced layers of UN Security Council sanctions since 2006 covering arms, finance, energy, shipping and trade. A U.S. president cannot unilaterally remove those measures.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, known as the P5, are the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. They are also the only states recognized as nuclear-weapon states under the NPT.

“North Korea cannot become part of the P5, but it has come close to Pakistan’s status,” said Lee Byong-chul, director of the North Korean Nuclear Issue Research Center at Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies. “Sanctions are like Swiss cheese, with plenty of holes, so Washington and Pyongyang have quite a few cards to play.”

U.S. forces struck Iran this year before Tehran had produced a nuclear weapon. North Korea, by contrast, already has an arsenal and is again a potential negotiating partner for Trump. The contrast may give Pyongyang another reason to resist giving up its weapons.

“But it would be unfair to call this a double standard,” Victor Cha, Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Cha said Iran’s nuclear program was still at an early stage and concentrated at known sites. That left it vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike. North Korea, by contrast, already has about 60 nuclear weapons, enough fissile material for roughly 30 more and several types of delivery systems. He argued that those capabilities make complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization unrealistic.

North Korea also differs from India and Pakistan because its weapons directly threaten South Korea and Japan, both U.S. treaty allies. If Washington tolerated Pyongyang’s arsenal, confidence in U.S. extended deterrence could weaken in Seoul and Tokyo at the same time.

“India and Pakistan offered strategic value in countering China and fighting terrorism,” a former senior South Korean foreign policy official said.

“What would the United States gain from tolerating North Korea’s nuclear arsenal other than satisfying Trump’s ‘big ego’?”

BY YOON JI-WON [[email protected]]