19 FBIS Daily Report/East Asia, February 10, 1993, p.21.
20 According to a senior Russian official visiting Seoul in May 1993, Moscow seems determined to regain its former influence over North Korea by supplying crude oil and weapons to Pyongyang. The official’s public comment could be seen also an attempt to nudge South Korea toward greater economic contributions to Russia. See FBIS Daily Report/East Asia, May 28, 1993, p.19.
21 Moscow ITAR-TASS, February 5, 1993, as carried in FBIS Daily Report/SOV, February 8, 1993, p.11.
22 As noted by Kongdan Oh, North Korea in the 1990s: Implications for Future of the U.S.-South Korea Security Alliance. A RAND Note. Santa Monica: RAND, 1992, p.20. This source, citing South Korean reports, refers to military aid in four areas: an increase in “outright” aid from $300 to $600 million; an increase in military sales from $0.6 to $1 billion; training of 5,000 North Korean military specialists in China; and “a promise” to sell Beijing’s “most modern missiles” to Pyongyang.
23 “National Unification Board Urges More DPRK Trade To Counter Japan,” Seoul YONHAP in English, February 10, 1993, as carried in FBIS Daily Report/East Asia, February 10, 1993, p.21.
24 A senior Japanese government official is quoted as saying that Pyongyang’s decision to stay in the NPT without allowing international acceptance would be “totally useless.” Asahi Shimbun, June 13, 1993. In Seoul, President Kim Young Sam said, June 12, 1993, that he would not accept Pyongyang’s recent proposal for a summit conference unless the nuclear inspection issue is resolved. The Korea Herald, June 13,1993, p.2. In the last several years, given Seoul’s eagerness to cash in on a summit with Kim Il Sung, Pyongyang dangled a “summit card” before South Korean eyes. On this apparently divisive issue, some analysts claim that Seoul’s decision to sign the December 1991 agreement on reconciliation, nonaggression, and exchange and cooperation with Pyongyang–even before the resolution of the nuclear issue– was prompted in part by the wishful thinking of the Blue House (Seoul’s equivalent of the White House) that the signing would lead to a summit. See “Divided Perceptions Over Policy Toward North Korea,” Chung’ang Ilbo, October 29, 1990. For a view that President-elect Kim Young Sam should not be “tempted” by a possible Pyongyang call for a summit in 1993, The Korea Herald [Seoul], December 19, 1992.
25 See The Summit Council for World Peace. American Foreign Policy and the Future of the Two Koreas: Proceedings of a Summit Council Roundtable. December 17,1992, Washington, D. C. pp. 16-17; also American Foreign Policy, the Future of the Two Koreas, and World Peace, II. Proceedings of a Summit Council Roundtable, March 29, 1993, pp.18-20. For an argument that Pyongyang’s unravelling would be “staggeringly costly in economic, political, and human terms,” see John Merrill, “Prospects for Korean Unification,” a paper given at a Conference on Unification in Korea, The American University, February 18, 1993. However, not all analysts are alarmed at the prospect of a collapse of regime in the North, seeing analogies in eastern Europe and central Asia.
26 For an opinion in favor of this approach, see Gus Constantine, “Open Channels to Pyongyang, Expert Tells U.S.,” The Washington Times, January 10, 1992, A7; also Doug Bandow, “Its Time to End the Korean Cold War,” the Christian Science Monitor, October 14,1992, p.19.
27 For discussion of the possible impact of U.S.-North Korean negotiations on Japan and South Korea, see Divided Korea: Report of the Second Asia Society Study Mission. New York: The Asia Society, 1993, p.33.
28 Pyongyang. KCNA. June 12, 1993. The ambiguous wording, “suspension,” preserves Pyongyang’s option to bail out on the NPT whenever it chooses. So far at least, Pyongyang’s actions seemed to have staved off much-feared UN sanctions. The North may regard the June 12 joint statement between the two sides as a major political victory; that is because Washington’s pledge to “respect” the DPRK’s sovereignty and “internal affairs” may undercut the U.S. insistence that Pyongyang discontinue its human rights violations. For a South Korean perspective that North Korea registered “a diplomatic Victory” having gained the upperhand over the United States in the June negotiations, see “North Korea’s ,Suspension,: Back to Square One and Piles of Unresolved Tasks,” Chung,ang Ilbo [Seoul], June 14, 1993; also Seoul, YONHAP, June 11, 1993.
29 R. Jeffrey Smith, “N. Korea Won,t Quit Nuclear Ban Treaty,” The Washington Post. June 12, 1993, A1; and Douglas Jehl, “North Korea Says It Won,t Pull Out of Arms Pact Now,” New York Times, June 12, 1993.
30 Currently, exporting goods to the North for humanitarian use is exempt from the embargo; in 1991, an American firm obtained a permit to export $1.2 billion worth of wheat to North Korea. The unused license was renewed for two more years in February 1993. (In-person interview with a U.S. State Department official, May 18, 1993).
31 For a summarized South Korean government study to that effect, see FBIS Daily Report/East Asia, May 7, 1993, p.19. A Japanese source suggest that economic sanctions would deny Pyongyang an estimated equivalent of $500 million to nearly $900 million per year from pro-Pyongyang Korean resident groups in Japan; these sums would be equal to 33 to 60% of North Korea’s annual government budget. For this estimate, see Katsumi Sato, “Kim Jong Il’s ‘Devil’s Choice,,” Bungei Shunju [Tokyo], May 1993, pp.205-207; Japan’s connection seems significant also because 80% of $200 million total foreign investment in the North are accounted for by the pro-Pyongyang Korean groups in Japan. Chung’ang Ilbo, May 28,1993. For a report that Japan is playing ”
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