Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)
The missile
program of the DPRK, otherwise known as North Korea, threatens the United
States. President Clinton is considering whether or not he should
continue talks that could shut down the missile system. One of the
questions to take into account is how to verify that North Korea has actually
discontinued its missile program.1 It
refuses to comply with the safeguards agreement it made with the IAEA.
In 1999, it allowed the IAEA to only perform certain safeguards, such as
the verification of the freeze of graphite moderated reactors and other,
similar, facilities.2
At the end
of the Gulf War, Iraq, who is a signatory of the NPT, was found to have
a secret missile program. The IAEA safeguards had not been able to
detect it. Iraq continues to avoid verification. In 1998, the
country forced inspectors to leave, in May 2000 it did not want inspectors
from U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission to review
its facilities for certain weapons.3
As
a result of having missed nuclear facilities in the DPRK and Iraq, the
IAEA decided that it needed to improve its safeguard system.It launched
the first part of it’s program, “Program 93+2,” in January 1996.Monitoring
was expanded to include new methods, such as environmental sampling and
remote monitoring.No-notice inspections within declared facilities were
also a part of the new program.
The second part of the program required
member states to add a protocol to their current agreement with the IAEA.
The Model Protocol made the following changes:
the
amount of information states need to give increases, for example, they
must tell the IAEA their “nuclear fuel cycle-related research and development
activities--not involving nuclear materials”
the
IAEA can now visit more facilities, whether or not they are undeclared,
and on short notice
Inspectors
can conduct their short-notice inspections faster through a new visa process
that would allow them fatster entry into the country.
environmental
sampling is now legal to use in inspections
By
June 1999, fourty countries had ratified the protocols and added to their
IAEA agreements, with all the nuclear countries doing so except for Russia.4
1Perlez,
Jane.“Clinton Trip to North Korea
is Mired in Transitional Politics.”The
New York Times20
Dec. 2000.http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/20/world/20KORE.html
2 “Safeguards.”International
Atomic Energy Association.2000.
http://www.iaea.org/worldatom/Documents/Anrep/Anrep99/safeguards.pdf.
3“Despite
Baghdad’s opposition, U.N. still planning arms inspection.” CNN.com.24
May
2000.http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/05/24/un.iraq/index.html.