CVID? PVID?​
 

No. 2018-27 (May 11, 2018)

Park Jee-Kwang

Research Fellow, Diplomacy Strategy Studies Department

The Sejong Institute

jkpark@sejong.org

Recently, the unfamiliar term PVID has appeared frequently in the media. In the literal sense, CVID is an abbreviation of ‘complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement’ and PVID stands for ‘permanent, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement.’ Just as the South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said, “PVID is no different from CVID, while the former underlines the resolve to fundamentally solve the issue,” the South Korean society seems to regard the two terms as interchangeable.

However, if the two terms are basically identical, why did the U.S. officials begin to use the term PVID instead of CVID all of a sudden when they talk about North Korea’s denuclearization? The goal of CVID is to abolish North Korea’s current nuclear stockpile only while the PVID even addresses the nuclear weapons North Korea could potentially possess in the future. That is, PVID covers measures to prevent North Korea from manufacturing nuclear weapons in the future as well.

The U.S. strived to comprehend North Korea’s moves for denuclearization rationally. Whereas most Americans still consider these moves as a subterfuge to buy time, the Trump administration has different views. As it concluded that North Korea has genuine intentions of denuclearization after several exchanges with the North Korean regime, the administration set its policy objective of having a substantial outcome through the upcoming summit talks with North Korea.

Nonetheless, the Trump administration still does not have a clue why North Korea suddenly wants to abandon its nuclear weapons, the possessions that the regime holds so dear. Especially, the U.S. cannot understand why North Korea attempts to renounce its nuclear weapons at this moment, when it successfully developed nuclear weapons, withstanding a series of economic sanctions. Obviously, the North Korean authorities state that it is pursuing economic prosperity beyond the survival of the regime regarding its renunciation of nuclear weapons. The U.S. does not accept this account from North Korea. Also, Pyongyang insists that it will negotiate with Washington on an equal footing, based on the confidence as a nuclear power. In turn, Americans view this as contradictory—abandoning its source of confidence, their nuclear weapons.

If North Korea is sincerely committed to abandoning its nuclear arsenal, the only rational explanation—acceptable to the Trump administration—will be that North Korea abandons nuclear weapons ‘now,’ but will produce them in the future. The DPRK has already acquired the technology to develop nuclear weapons. In other words, it has nuclear scientists and a detailed blueprint of a nuclear warhead. Hence, even if North Korea discards nuclear weapons now, it has no difficulty in developing nuclear weapons again in the future whenever it desires. If the regime conceals plutonium, it is much easier to re-produce nuclear weapons. If Pyongyang surrenders its nuclear weapons, Washington will lift economic sanctions and normalize its relations with Pyongyang. And North Korea’s economic cooperation with South Korea and China will set sail earnestly. If so, North Korea is likely to achieve high economic growth over the next two decades, similar to what South Korea and China had undertaken earlier. Then, North Korea will have the capacity to mass-produce nuclear weapons much easier if it wishes to do so when the North Korean economy has developed rapidly after a decade or two.

Such scenarios appear to concern the U.S. Due to such trepidation, the U.S wishes to add the term ‘permanent’ on top of CVID. Thus, U.S. State Secretary Pompeo demanded North Korea to remove all data related to its nuclear tests and facilities and emigrate thousands of North Korean nuclear scientists abroad. This is because the only way to stop North Korea from producing nuclear weapons again in the future is to remove the human resources related to nuclear development.

Understandably, it remains doubtful whether North Korea will concede to this unprecedented demand from the U.S. Moreover, many obstacles stand in the way of actual implementation of such demand. Even if North Korea accepts this demand, how to distinguish and identify nuclear-related scientists in North Korea and where to relocate them and their families, which will be around 9,000 to 15,000 people, appear practically impossible. Nonetheless, the U.S. insists on such conditions as the administration believes that this is the only means to thwart North Korea from manufacturing nuclear bombs in the future using ‘current human resources and know-how.’

How should the U.S. react when North Korea refuses to emigrate its personnel related to nuclear development? Specifically, should the U.S. walk out of the denuclearization talks once North Korea claims that it could only accept CVID and not PVID?

I personally think otherwise. We have no idea how North Korea will be after ten or twenty years and it is uncertain whether North Korea, more economically developed and open, will be obsessed with nuclear development once again. Therefore, it seems unclear whether raising the bar of denuclearization higher from CVID to PVID suits the U.S. interests. It could utilize the PVID as a negotiation option, but the U.S. appears to raise the threshold higher excessively in the denuclearization talks with new conditions—exterminating biochemical weapons. I hope the U.S. does not ruin the negotiations by asking beyond necessary while North Korea seems willing to sit at the table to discuss denuclearization.