'War deterrent'

North Korea's state media recently warned that the communist country would bolster its 'war deterrent' to fend off what it alleged was a US plot to initiate a nuclear war. It looks like another hiccup in a denuclearisation process that will be fraught with technical and diplomatic difficulty.

Pyongyang, which often uses 'deterrent,' 'war deterrent,' or 'nuclear deterrent' as euphemisms for its nuclear programmes, can now expect to come under mounting pressure over the next few weeks following its failure to declare all its nuclear programmes by end-2007, as required under an agreement reached at the six-party talks last February.

Its threat came just as US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill embarked on a tour of six-party interlocutors Japan, South Korea, China and Russia. Pyongyang probably sees its threat as a way to pressure Washington in a US election year, but also Seoul, where policy towards Pyongyang is expected to become less accommodative under Lee Myung-bak, who becomes president next month. Lee, who won the December 19 presidential election by a landslide, has said he would repair Seoul's strained relations with Washington and not shy away from criticising Pyongyang.

Washington has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking or invading North Korea, and would normalise relations with Pyongyang if it yielded its nuclear programmes. Besides seeking to extract further energy aid and political concessions, Pyongyang may hope to engineer some form of compromise over the declaration of its nuclear activities, should there be some it does not want to own up to. For example, it is suspected of having a highly enriched uranium programme, which it denies.

Hill will meet Lee today (Thursday, January 9) and then travel to Beijing. His final stop is Moscow. He will continue to urge patience with the reclusive state, which has a history of missing deadlines and dragging its feet in its limited international dealings. More brinkmanship to extract maximum concessions may become a feature of 2008.