ANALYSIS: Experts warn nuclear talks in limbo after Kim's death

By Albert Otti Dec 19, 2011, 16:10 GMT

Vienna - Diplomatic efforts to solve the North Korean nuclear stand-off will likely be delayed as the country mourns its deceased leader Kim Jong Il and as power is being handed over to his son Kim Jong Un, experts said Monday.

South Korea and the United States have recently made new efforts at restarting the stalled 6-party nuclear talks that also involve North Korea, Russia, China and Japan.

However, talks have so far not materialized as Pyongyang has refused to make concessions on its uranium enrichment programme and has not apologized for shelling the South.

'If Kim Jong Il couldn't take these steps, then certainly his son will not make any policy changes,' said Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear policy expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) think tank in London.

Anaylsts agreed that young and inexperienced Kim Jong Un would likely not rule alone, but that the military and members of the Kim clan would continue to run the country - and the nuclear weapons programme.

'The young guy is certainly not the one in power,' despite his nominal role as the successor, said Hazel Smith, a British North Korea expert at Cranfield University.

Several experts said the dictator's death would delay nuclear talks and that Pyongyang would also put efforts to seek better relations with Washington on hold for now.

'That is definitely not their top priority' at the moment, said Ruediger Frank, a North Korea scholar at Vienna University.

However, Smith pointed out that the 1994 Framework Agreement between North Korea and the United States to solve the nuclear dispute was signed only three months after Kim Jong Il's father Kim Il Sung had died.

'There was no discontinuity in nuclear talks,' she said, adding that she did also not expect any disruption or change this time.

The Framework Agreement, which foresaw a freeze of the North's nuclear activities in return for getting light-water reactors collapsed in 2003.

Since then, the isolated communist dictatorship conducted two nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009, and experts said further missile and nuclear experiments may be on the horizon, but not necessarily because there is a new leader.

'They want a warhead with a reliable lead that can be delivered with a missile,' Fitzpatrick said.

While some experts predicted continuity in Pyongyang's nuclear policy, Ruediger Frank said the group of officials running the country might start now to open up the system, following China's example.

Countries in such situations would seek international cooperation 'and no longer need nuclear weapons for extorting foreign aid or as a deterrent.'

In Vienna, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) keeps a team of nuclear inspectors on standby who can go to North Korea on short notice, should they be invited back after being kicked out in 2009.

The IAEA did not comment on the death of Kim Jong Il.