Why Nuclear Weapons Alone?

(From Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry (JJTI))

Byline: Hatakeyama Noboru

Last month the new President of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, visited the United States for the first time in his life and met President George W. Bush of the United States. They issued a joint statement confirming their common position of not allowing North Korea to possess nuclear arms. They also expressed deep concern about North Korea's reprocessing of nuclear spent nuclear fuel rods. But the requirement for North Korea not to develop biological or chemical weapons was not referred to. More recently, Prime Minister Koizumi Jun-ichiro met President Bush at his Crawford ranch. They reportedly warned North Korea that they would take tougher measures if North Korea takes steps to strengthen its nuclear arms program. However, they do not seem to have discussed bio-chemical weapons. Furthermore, last April, the United States, China and North Korea held talks in Beijing. As far as I know, there was no discussion of bio-chemical weapons on this occasion either. Even in the case of the joint statement between Japan and North Korea announced on Sept. 17 last year, the bio-chemical issue was not mentioned. In the case of Iraq, the issue has always been the abolishment of weapons of mass destruction, including bio-chemical weapons. Since Iraq has used its chemical weapons in the past, the focus of the inspections was on bio-chemical weapons rather than nuclear weapons. Even after the end of the war with Iraq, the necessity to find weapons of mass destruction seems to have increased to demonstrate the legal legitimacy of the allied forces having entered into the war. However, when it comes to North Korea, why do the leaders of Japan or the United States mention nuclear weapons alone without mentioning weapons of mass destruction? It has been reported that North Korea has more than 5,000 tons of chemical weapons as of now and, although it does not possess biological weapons yet, it has already completed a system to culture bacteria to be loaded on a missile whenever necessary. [Monthly GENDAI, 2003 June] North Korea has already declared that it possesses nuclear bombs. Perhaps this declaration may be Pyongyang's effort to distract the world leaders' attention from the bio-chemical weapons North Korea possesses now. When ...