US - North Korea
U.S., China, Others Showing Strong Consensus on North Korea
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer
July 16, 2009
Washington — Senior Obama administration officials praise the international community’s “extraordinary convergence” over the seriousness of North Korea’s nuclear program as well as the need to implement United Nations sanctions to achieve the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula.
The officials, who spoke at the State Department July 15 under condition of anonymity, said meetings between U.S. officials and those in South Korea, Japan, China and Russia have shown a “very strong consensus” on North Korea. The five countries are North Korea’s interlocutors in the Six-Party Talks and are seeking Pyongyang’s return to talks and the implementation of the joint 2005 statement calling for abandonment of North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for cooperation on economic, trade and other areas. (See “North Korea Agrees To Abandon Its Nuclear Weapons Programs.”)
“If and when they’re ready to engage and reaffirm and act on their commitments made in 2005 to eliminate their nuclear program … we’re ready to achieve that,” one official said. “We don’t intend to reward the North just for returning to talks, but if they are actually prepared to do the kinds of things that we’ve suggested that they need to do, then obviously, we’ll be prepared to reciprocate.”
North Korea’s partners are “not really interested in halfway measures,” the official said. They need to see “complete denuclearization and for them to take irreversible steps toward that goal.”
On July 16, the U.N. Security Council designated an additional five individuals and five companies as being subject to travel bans and a freeze on their financial assets under Resolution 1874, which was approved in June 2009, for involvement with the North Korean program. The council also listed certain types of graphite and para-aramid fiber as being additional materials that member states are prohibited from supplying to North Korea because of their use in ballistic missiles.
Along with freezing certain North Korean business assets, Resolution 1874 calls on member states to prevent “any financial services from being provided that could benefit North Korea’s nuclear missile or [weapons of mass destruction] program-related activities,” one official said.
This provision is “particularly powerful” because North Korea intentionally engages in deceptive financial conduct that obscures its transactions, to such an extent that it can be impossible to distinguish between North Korea’s legitimate and illegitimate business, one of the briefers said.
The North Koreans “use cutouts and front companies. They suppress the identity of the true parties to the transaction. They try to use cash couriers and large amounts of cash in situations where there’s no legitimate reason to use large amounts of cash, and similar sorts of behaviors, using companies that, from the names of them, you can’t tell what the true nature of what they do is and obscures their North Korean contacts altogether,” the official said.
The United States has been sharing information on North Korea’s conduct with banks around the world. Private banks have no interest in becoming involved in illicit transactions, including those related to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, the officials said.
“They don’t want to get involved … both because they’re good corporate citizens, but also because they are very protective of their own reputations,” the official said. “In the financial world, transparency is a fundamental value.”