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CNN Senior Asia Correspondent
Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Posted: 9:32 PM EST (0232 GMT)
A defiant Kim Jong Il refuses to heed international calls to drop its
nuclear program
A defiant Kim Jong Il refuses to heed international calls to drop its
nuclear program
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CNN's Mike Chinoy reports that North Korea needs U.S. support and wants to
be treated as a legitimate equal.
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CNN's Sohn Jie-Ae reports on the diplomatic efforts of a South Korean
presidential envoy, who is visiting North Korea to resolve the nuclear
standoff.
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 A long history of tensions

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- Repeatedly in recent weeks, Kim Il Sung Square
in Pyongyang, North Korea has been packed with crowds shouting
anti-American slogans. North Korea claims that more than a million people
turned up for one such rally.

But behind the militant facade, North Korea is in serious trouble.

Its economy is in tatters and the population is still facing acute
shortages of food, fuel and electricity.

This is largely due to the fact the United States cut off promised
shipments of fuel oil to pressure the communist regime to give up its
efforts on a uranium-based nuclear program.

In response, Pyongyang reactivated nuclear reactors mothballed since 1994,
expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, and pulled out of a global nuclear
non-proliferation treaty.

The government of Kim Jong Il is growing increasingly anxious that the
Bush administration, with its campaign against the "axis of evil" -- Iran,
Iraq and North Korea -- and its doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against
hostile rogue states, may make North Korea its next target after Iraq.

"What has happened since 9/11 seems to confirm the assumption that the
Americans have a regime change domino policy and they might be next,"
Steven Linton, an expert on North Korean affairs, told CNN.
Direct negotiations

This sense of vulnerability to American pressure is the key to
understanding North Korea's behavior and its demand for direct
negotiations with the U.S. on a non-aggression pact.

"They want the U.S. to treat them as equals. To accept that their security
concerns are legitimate," James Hoare, a former British charge in
Pyongyang, told CNN.

North Korea has repeatedly called for direct talks with the United States
and an assurance it would not be attacked.

"They said that our security concerns about the nuclear program will be
addressed if we addressed their concerns about possible hostilities by the
U.S. against North Korea," former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald
Gregg says.

But in the absence of negotiations, Kim Jong Il's regime has made clear
its nuclear program will go ahead.

"They wanted not to be our enemy but they are afraid of us. Unless we are
willing to deal with this in a serious way, we are going to wind up with a
North Korea that has nuclear weapons to protect themselves," explains Leon
Sigal, author of Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea.

That is the stark choice facing the Bush administration.

Unless it reverses course, North Korea could have enough plutonium for a
half dozen nuclear bombs in just a matter of months.