Cooperative Verified Dismantlement of Nuclear Programs: An Eye Toward North Korea

The admission by North Korea in October 2002 that they may be pursuing an unsafeguarded uranium enrichment program presents yet another obstacle to the goal of a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula. Evidence indicates that the technology that North Korea is developing for uranium enrichment is the gas centrifuge. If North Korea were to disavow its uranium enrichment program, it will have to take significant steps to assure the international community of its commitment. The process of verifiable dismantlement of a gas centrifuge program has some precedent in the experience of Iraq and South Africa. In addition, the North Korean case presents specific obstacles. The inspection body will have to make decisions on the amount of information that North Korea needs to provide, in particular, how much information do the inspectors need about the design of the enrichment equipment; research, testing, and development activities; and production-scale activities. The verification tasks will also include methods to verify both the correctness and completeness of a declaration, the role of procurement information in verifying the dismantlement of a program, the amount and type of access to sites and facilities, and procedures for interviewing officials and scientists in the enrichment program. It will be critically important to identify steps aimed at ensuring irreversibility of the enrichment program. This may include the destruction of equipment, components, and documents, and the installation of ongoing monitoring activities. Because this type of verification task is unprecedented, it is now necessary to design a verifiable dismantlement procedure that takes the steps necessary to create a transparent dismantlement process and ensure that a proliferant state cannot reconstitute the enrichment program without timely detection by the international community.