Condoleezza Rice's Tenure As Secretary of State - North Korea

North Korea

Rice has focused international attention on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Beginning in 2003, a series of talks featuring China, North Korea, South Korea, the United States, Russia, and Japan, dubbed "The Six Party talks," have been aimed at denuclearization.

On February 10, 2005, North Korea withdrew from the talks after President Bush's 2005 State of the Union Address, in which he stated that North Korea's nuclear program must be dismantled and pledged to go on the offensive against tyranny in the world. North Korea complained that the United States harbored a "hostile policy" toward their country and stated that they were permanently withdrawing from the Six-party talks. In the following months, there was uncertainty over whether Rice could convince Kim Jong-Il to re-enter the negotiations, but in July 2005, North Korea announced that they had been convinced to return to the discussion.

After the first phase of the 5th round of talks, which took place November 9–11, 2005, North Korea suspended its participations in the negotiations because the United States would not unfreeze some of its financial assets in a Macau bank. Rice has consistently called for the regime to return to the talks. On May 1, 2006, Rice stated that North Korea needs "to return expeditiously to the talks without preconditions, to dismantle its nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, and to cease all illicit and proliferation activities."

On June 19, 2006, matters with North Korea were further complicated when it finished fueling an intercontinental ballistic missile that the regime said it would test fire. North Korea had previously self-imposed a missile-firing moratorium, but threatened to launch the missile anyway. Rice stated that "it would be a very serious matter and indeed a provocative act" for the North to follow through on the act, and that if the North decided to do so, "it would be taken with utmost seriousness."

On July 5, 2006, North Korea test-fired seven rockets, including the infamous Taepodong-2, sparking international backlash. Rice, in a press conference held on the same day, stated that she couldn't even begin to try to judge what motivated the North Koreans to act in such a way. Rice felt that North Korea had "miscalculated that the international community would remain united " and "whatever they thought they were doing, they've gotten a very strong reaction from the international community." Following the missile test, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting and strongly condemned the actions, though no official sanctions resulted at the time.

Then, in early October 2006, North Korea claimed that it was preparing to test a nuclear explosive device. While the rumors could not be substantiated by satellite surveillance beforehand, the test was actually carried out on October 9, 2006 with only twenty minutes warning. The nuclear detonation test was, purportedly, in response to the United States's decision to not hold direct bilateral talks with the regime, as well as America's increasing pressure on the government, which North Korea claims is evidence that the United States wishes to attack or invade their country. Rice disputes North Korea's claim that the nuclear test was committed to deter America from invading, saying, "We shouldn't even allow them such an excuse... It's just not the case... here is no intention to invade or attack them. hey have that guarantee."

Rice has also repeatedly offered direct negotiations with North Korea in the context of the Six Party Talks, but she has held her ground in her decision not to hold bilateral talks with the dictatorship, stating, "We've been through bilateral talks with the North Koreans in the 1994 agreed framework. It didn't hold... The North Koreans cheated pursuing another path to a nuclear weapon, the so-called 'highly enriched uranium' path... f wants a bilateral deal, it's because he doesn't want to face the pressure of other states that have leverage. It's not because he wants a bilateral deal with the United States. He doesn't want to face the leverage of China or South Korea or others."

Following the nuclear test, Rice made numerous calls to foreign leaders to consolidate support for taking punitive action against North Korea. Rice was able to draw condemnations from even some of North Korea's closest defenders, including China, who admitted the test was "flagrant" and "brazen." On the same day as the nuclear detonation, the United Nations Security Council convened another emergency meeting, where a clear consensus was apparent in favor of sanctions against the regime, with even China saying that it supported punishing the regime, changing its position from July, 2006, when it vetoed any sanctions on North Korea following its missile tests. On October 14, 2006, Rice worked with allies to pass a UN Security Council resolution against North Korea that demanded North Korea destroy all of its nuclear weapons, imposed a ban on tanks, warships, combat aircraft and missiles in the country, imposed an embargo on some luxury items that government officials enjoy while the general populace starves, froze some of the country's weapons-related financial assets, and allows for inspections of North Korean cargo. Rice called the resolution "the toughest sanctions on North Korea that have ever been imposed" and hailed the unanimous passage of the sanctions, which even North Korean–friendly China supported.

But Nobel Laureate and cold-war nuclear strategist Thomas Schelling criticized Rice for organizing a punitive response, when she should have encouraged Taiwan, South Korea and Japan to reaffirm the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

While Rice consistently affirms that the United States will not preemptively invade, attack, or topple the North Korean regime, she emphatically assured Japan during an October 18, 2006, visit that "the United States has the will and the capability to meet the full range—and I underscore full range—of its deterrent and security commitments to Japan," which many have interpreted to mean that America would not hesitate to use its military might should North Korea attack one of America's allies.

In mid-June 2008, Rice defended U.S. diplomacy toward North Korea, saying an agreement earlier in 2008 for Pyongyang to disable its nuclear reactor and provide a full accounting of its plutonium stockpile, "acknowledge" concerns about its proliferation activities and its uranium enrichment activity, and continue cooperation with a verification process to ensure no further activities are taking place, made Asia and the U.S. safer. Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, Rice said that "North Korea will soon give its declaration of nuclear programs to China." In a mid-January 2009 interview, Rice made the case that the Bush administration has made unappreciated strides in eliminating that country's nuclear weapon programs. Rice argued that events turned out for the best. "Yes, it's unfortunate that they reprocessed in that period of time, creating some stockpile of plutonium, but, frankly, given the attention now on their program . . . I think it is a very good development" because, she said, nations in the region now have joined together in a diplomatic process to persuade Pyongyang to give up the weapons it built.."