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that the un watchdog monitors its activities via satellite. so that raises questions. are we looking at another missile test or other publication? is it simply going to use this as leverage and future talks with us or both? by an administration has a lot going on. there's gotta stand the pen, derrick, china, russia more. but it should pay close attention to this development and take any opportunity to begin nuclear talks with the north. here discuss that and more today's panel in washington d. c. jenny town. jenny is a senior fellow, the stimpson center and the director simpson $38.00 north program, which provides policy and technical analysis on north korea. also joining this is jean lee. she's a long time journalist in 2011. she became the 1st american reporter granted extensive access on the ground in nor korea and uncle ponder. he's a senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the carnegie endowment for

international peace. welcome everyone. let's start with this satellite imagery, jenny, i'm gonna ask you to walk us through this. we can go to my laptop. this is an image . looks like from august 25th over a reactor, but can you walk us through here? what, what's the concern? sure. so what we're seeing is north korea, 5 megawatt reactors, the gas gas grass by 20 production reactor and where the arrows to the water outfall what this is is this is usually a signature that the reactor is running. and so we're seeing some of the waste water being expunged. meaning if there's some kind of operations, whether they're flushing out systems or whether they're actually producing tony is still in question. we would normally see a couple other signatures as well. if that would confirm that the reactors running, but we at least know there's something going on there. we have not seen this kind

of activity since about 2018. and this is important because, you know, during the past couple of years, north korea has continued to enrich uranium which is also used for nuclear weapons . but it does need tony. i'm, if it's going to build more advance nuclear weapons designs, which is their own nuclear weapons, or even the miniaturized foreheads. and these are all goals that can be done and laid out and is a party congress in january of things that north will develop over the next 5 years . and to see this is really a sign that north korea is continuing to move forward with the development in advance its ability. okay. do you know this be doing anything else? is this reactor have any other purpose? well, so definitely right to tony production is really the reason this reactor exists. and the reason you know, the international community has grown familiar with the young b on complex over 30 plus years and attention that's been get into the reactor and

to broader facilities nearby. and this reactor as well. i do want to add one just technical note is that while the reactor is the sole source of spent fuel reprocessors nearby for the production of flu, tony and use of nuclear weapons, something else that the reactor i think has an important role in producing a north korea is a treaty on which is an isotope of hydrogen that's necessary for thermodynamically or weapons, which specifically, i was pointed out, kim john, go into january specifically called for the additional production of thermonuclear weapons. so it's concerning and serious development. i would have a ground beside the point that jenny also raised, which is that, you know, this is not worth career restarting. it's nuclear program program was never offended. they were producing uranium all while the stomach for going on. but the trump administration, i was just that, those reactor was shut down in december 2018 and now it appears according to the director general, the operations of likely, you know, looking at the timing of this gene. let's go to my computer real quick. i'm going

to share a headline with our audience and set this question for you. says notary of faces, economic ruin amid food and medicine shortages. that's a guardian article. it says because a cove it in the border being shut down that north korea having a particularly hard time economically. is that the case and could that have something to do with what some might see as a provocation here? well, there is no question that the last few years would have been extreme. ok . hey gina, we're having a bit of a problem with your mike. let's see if our tech guys can get that sorted. and we'll come back to you. jessica took off the same question to you. is this a particularly difficult time economically, or nor korea? and could that be part of the timing of this is definitely

a difficult time for the north koreans with the co long border closed shut down. because of course, there's just been a lot of a lot of problems that they're dealing with. whether or not it with the timing is tied to the restarting of this reactor or not. it is really unclear. there's been some of their technical things that, that have been going on at the reactor over the past 2 years. they have been working on the cooling system, which is also tied into the other reactor that they're trying to build the experimental light water reactor. and it may just be that those technical issues have now been worked out and they're ready to move forward. so i wouldn't connect all the dot so clearly. so there's a couple of comments and are you tube are ready that i want to bring into the conversation? michael says nobody has any interest in embedding nor korea. ricardo desousa says

north korea be testing the new usa administration to see how far they can go on could. is this a test for the by the ministration? i don't really think so i may look the simplest reason for why north korea restarted this reactor. and just potentially producing them is simply because north korea is a nuclear weapon states that intends on keeping its nuclear arsenal on expanding its nuclear arsenal. qindzhong, it has been quite clear back in 2018 before this. thomas with the south korean president of the us president got can john unused his new year's day a trust that year to call for the mass production of nuclear warheads. and of course, they've been producing uranium and now it only makes the react restart. just one thing is that in addition to the difficulties faced by north korea economically and as a result of the panoramic. in 20192020, particularly in the summer months north re experienced a, you know, a spade of nuclear started natural disasters including flooding. i don't particularly dramatic flooding in 2020 so young chinese. right. you know,

they have been making, maintaining the site conducting, pursuing upgrades to the cooling system. but it also is possible that the reactor restarting, now instead of potentially last year or last fall before the by the ministration was even inaugurated, may have been a result of an expected damage from those natural disasters and the flooding of the site. i want to bring in another comment, this is from our honcho child to better sees in spain and special cultural delegate or nor korea took this up. the only choice that's more country like the dpi, can we, wendy, so many people that it has to be very self on preserve the life of citizens and do not end up like iraq, afghanistan, and many other countries on the woods of that using purely isn't used to the battle, the nuclear power by he made up the nuclear, we're going to send more specifically the term renewable weakens the country kind of secure the un if the united states is going to

a dock and beat north korea. because you can answer into any sports or the continental united states. you know, so jenny, why, why shouldn't or korea have nukes, i mean, if he gets up the program example, what happened was davi and saddam, did he take a lesson from that or? oh, he absolutely did, and i think there was a lot of discussion even at that time as if cut off be if we had had nuclear weapons with the u. s. i've done with those actually had been taken. i think there is a case to be made. you know, there's, there's some understanding of north korea is a small country. and it is a small country in the middle of large powers. and of other countries that have nuclear weapons the, their, their own or by proxy, by the us. and so i think there was a serious security underpinning to that decision to go nuclear. although it

does also serve other purposes as well, including the procedure prestige of being part of the nuclear club and also the ability to coerce more effectively. i think if you do look at the north korean calculus and all this, they are still a country that is at war with the us. the war was never actually, it never actually ended on the armistice agreements. so in order to really get to a point of being able to convince north korea that this is the wrong path, i think there are a number of security related issues that have to change. you have to be resolved, that would allow them the ability to make different decisions. but i think this whole approach of the nuclear eyes or else has been largely ineffective and,

and has it, if anything, helps the north koreans justify their action more badly. so gene, are you back with us now i was, i was hoping that you might fill us in a little bit on, on the people of north korea and how they're affected by the sanctions. and what's happening with the economy there and how that plays into this. yeah, sorry about that. and what i was saying about the sanctions is there's no question that the economy of north korea has been hard. but i think we need to make a distinction between the, the regime and the people. the people have been sacrificed that will be, has, has been sacrificed by the leadership for electrical angel and has, i do, i do worry about the everyday lives of the ordinary north greens and, and it was tough for all of this and the last few years and it's gotta be even tougher. now, let's be clear. this is kim john, treating his people like a human shield and holding them hostage to this kind of hardship because he has

a bigger goal. he has making certain decisions that is putting his people in harm's way because he has a bigger goal, which is to get his nuclear program to the point where perhaps the world has to treat north korea as a nuclear power. and that he'll a point where he can hold on to those weapons while perhaps negotiating amongst them away. so it's a really tricky question. you know, i think that we care about the, the state of the north korean population. but it, it can join himself who is holding them hostage and making decisions that is putting them in that mean for the effectiveness of, of sanctions. does the pain pass right through peeling young to the people and they don't take any kind of payoff for it. so the, you know, the sanctions do, i do think that the north koreans are incredibly clever. they've been with sanctions for a long time. they are very clever and very good at getting around them and sanctions are not effective unless they are enforced. so one of the challenges,

of course, is to make sure that the sanctions are effective. and that is, that is a challenge. china for one, and i would say russia possibly, they don't want to see north korea rumble. they don't want to see this destroyed economy on their doorstep, and so they will, even though they signed onto the sanctions that the un has impose, they may try to try to find a way to make sure that north creative collapse now. and the other thing that i am very concerned about is how this is driving the north koreans to look at ways to make money that they need not only for the nuclear program but also to keep their economy afloat. and so i'm looking very closely at cyber. how is all of this driving the north koreans to elicit, listed need to make sure they're getting the money that they need to keep the people or to keep the leadership afloat and to keep that nor nuclear program expanded. so if sanctions have like a job, jeanette police please. yeah. just as of the, you know, i agree with

a lot of what students that and the reality is to that the effect that sanctions have really does affect the people more than the regime regime will be the last people to feel bad. and so the point of the sanctions has largely been to, to deprive the regime of money and raise the cost of them making certain decisions and continue to pursue their nuclear development. but especially the pensions on commercial sectors, certain the people that i get hit for. so the fishermen, the farmers, people who have now lost markets and lost things. and now, with the border closures, everything is exacerbated because there is no longer the ability to get good for the people who were working in the market and selling goods to get goods from china to sell in the market. and so it's having this whole coven complication is having a lot of compounded effects on the people themselves. but the people who will

feel it the last and the least are going to be the least the one who we say that we're targeting the sanctions on it. so if you're looking at sanctions as the stick, maybe he's looking for a carrot i want to bring in. angela came, she says, sam nunn distinguish fellow for nuclear threat initiative. who has a question about what can be offered to him? north korea has been a nuclear power for some time already. it is always being demanded in the media that there has to be the complete the nuclear station of north korea. and to my mind the chairman came, joan is not going to undertake this anytime soon. he wants to be recognized, he wants to be recognized as a nuclear power. and at the same standing as for example, pakistan and india will also nuclear powers, but not in the nonproliferation treaty. so demand of dpr k to dismantle all of the

nuclear weapons. what is going to be the counter offer that has been given and there is nothing right now. okay. do you have any insight on that? yes, so the north koreans, i think, have told us on multiple occasions clearly and they are terms in some cases what they're looking for at the 100 summit, for instance, in february 2019, the north korean quest was for the united states to offer a very sort of large package of sanctions really mostly focusing on the un security council resolutions that were passed in 2016 or 2017 with the russian and chinese support out of time when north korea was very rapidly expanding its qualitative capabilities. and so far as the cooper was concerned, apart from data on the security side of things, there's a basket of measures that the north koreans call the hostile policy or us hostile moves. this includes everything from the provision of us, extended nuclear deterrence to allies in northeast asia, to physical us, the presence of us troops on the korean peninsula and nearby in japan. north korea

effectively has the united states to pull these back it when it comes to negotiating on north korea's nuclear program. though, you know, i do. i do tend to think that the short term, the more promising path that had especially were to shape kim jong as choices short of total disarmament to encourage north korea to stop qualitatively advancing its capabilities. to stop the quantitative growth of north korea's weapons fissile material for instance, having some kind of package of sanctions relief that could be implemented. what's not fact measures wire transfer the cheat or to not make good on their word. those sanctions could be reimpose may have some promise, but yeah, the print shop told us what they're looking for on the notion of north korea sort of. 1 you know, one of the, one of the things that i think makes doing diplomacy with north korea challenging, is that why would it's true that north korea has developed nuclear weapons after leaving the n p t is not comparable to india or pockets on because neither new delhi nor ever actually joined the n p t to begin with the fact that north korea pulled down at the nonproliferation treaty developed a nuclear arsenal, i think,

makes international diplomat. it's quite careful about how we approach this problem because we don't want to send president, whereby korea, as seen as enduring a little bit around 2 decades of intense sanctions and other measures and effectively get away with developing a nuclear arsenal about i think we've set up or a dangerous precedent for the non proliferation regime. more probably. so a couple more questions from youtube. currently, leanne says diplomatic discussions are better than sanctions. and last my password says, has kim dungan expressed any signs of wanting real dialogue? jenny? i'm also curious to add to this, it seemed like in the trump administration, things took a weird turn there for a little bit. and i'm just curious, where are we now? has it reset to back before or did things change? because a trump's different approach and is qindzhong interested and having similar meetings with biden or do we now well, you know, during this,

from administration and, and actually several times the north koreans have committed to deni grades asian of the korean peninsula. and certainly there's some learned a meaning to some of that, but this idea of are they willing to negotiate? yes, they're willing to negotiate. but the reality is, is that they're not going. that doesn't mean they come to the table and simply put the nuclear weapons on the table and say, here, what can i get for this? this is a process. and like i said, there is some security underpinning to their nuclear program that also needs to be addressed in that process. and what you saw in singapore, in 2018, was an agreement to an agenda that included that relationship. changing the nature of the security situation, changing us korea can relation working towards a piece regime and working towards the nuclear is asian. and these are all things that need to be done sort of together,

not just about finding the right patients package. it is about creating an environment in which, again noisy, i can feel confident in making certain choices that it will benefit them and they won't bear the brunt of that decision in the future. what we have now with the bible ministers station is a, revert back to the kind of language we had in 2016 where the relationship is talked about in, in this threat dynamic north korea poses a big threat. and a focus on the glare is asian only as the goal. and so if you're the north koreans looking at says, you know, already extended a lot of political capital in 2018 to go through the summit process and didn't necessarily get anything tangible to show for it is going to be more reluctant to come back to the table now, especially if there isn't a real sense of what they're going to get and the public messaging other than the

being willing to meet anytime anywhere doesn't give any indication that outcomes, especially in the short term, are really possible. and it's almost as if the language is like 2018 never happened. we're really back to this threat scenario and this and real nation. so please today i was going to say but, but at least where they're starting the vitamin efficient starting from this complete the nuclear is ation of the cream for not to say that i support that language. but in a sense that they're not quite all the way back to 2016. in a sense they are starting from the language that was laid out in singapore, in 2018. and so not starting completely from 0, i would say. but remember that the following year in 2019 that jo learned left, her neu hit to get back on her train for 66 hours or whatever it was. and he didn't

have anything to show for. and so he's not going to go back to negotiation. i mean, i do think that he wants a negotiation, but he's not going to go to a negotiation unless he knows he's going to get something out of it unless he's in a stronger position. and in a sense what we're seeing now with the restarting, the possible restarting is of this portion of the young gun. and maybe we'll start to see some other types of provocations is expanding the or the arsenal. right? so that they are in a stronger position. if, when they get back to that negotiation and also creating sense of urgency, knowing that the binding, the patient is distracted trying to create a sense of urgency in the region about their nuclear ambition. another comment i want to bring in this is from daniel kingston that he's the international relations lecture. troy university. and he speaks a bit to the mindset i think of kept on maybe the southern part of the korean

peninsula already has been de nuclear arrived. south korea is in full compliance with this nuclear nonproliferation treaty commitments. however, north korea has demonstrated over decades that the leadership is committed to producing, acquiring, and deploying nuclear weapons. i don't believe north korea will abandon its nuclear ambitions unless the leadership abandons its hostile ideology towards the rest of the world. they view the world is a menacing environment where north korea is constantly under threat is and you could as a north korean nuclear program inevitable. i mean the problem exists, but then be a full nuclear state. is it inevitable? while they are, they are a deeply weapon state today, and i think they intend to retain that status. we've already heard about some of the reasons why they've decided that this nuclear weapons are an essential component of their national defense strategy. everything from prestige to

practically deterring the united states. i do think that they will retain this for the long term unless you know the fundamental conditions that today they perceive to exist in the international environment around the cream finance lower to be transformed. i don't see that happening anytime soon. you know, there are also other geopolitical dynamics underway, including the u. s. generally increasing is military president in the end of the civic region to compete with china. while i think having effects on the us, china relationship will also enhance created securities simply because us will love additional military assets and attention in this part of the world. so unfortunately, i think we are in for the long haul. i don't want to say never, you know, i don't want to say that north korea will never give up with nuclear weapons. the nuclear age itself is quite young. we have lost 100 years of experience as a species with their weapons. but certainly, i think over the next few decades, kim jong on, at least as long as he's alive. and as long as he's leading or 3, i found it very difficult to imagine the kind of internal and external developments that would have to take place for north korea fundamentally revisit the use of

nuclear weapons. right. right, thank you. on karen. thank eugene and jenny. unfortunately, were to leave the conversation there a big thanks to all of our guests and to your community for joining the discussion . until next time. we'll see you online. ah . september unnoticed, the russian supposed in parliamentary election imitates the president putin 21 year grip on power. the listening post dissects the media how they operate, the stories they cover, and the reasons why the $911.00 attacked all the world. 20 years on the war that followed. that's finally ended and i've gone to sun. but that's what caught, this didn't real, obviously, unique, attractive on happy in history, through the eyes of the fearless and vision we to make it. germany goes to the

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