Subject: N. Korea Nuclear Scientists Defect

Newspaper says North Korean nuclear scientists, others escaped

By Doug Struck
The Washington Post


TOKYO — The United States and at least 10 other countries helped arrange the defections of up to 20 top North Korean officials, including key nuclear scientists, in an operation that began in October, according to an Australian newspaper.
The Weekend Australian reported that a man it identified as the "father" of the North Korean nuclear program, Kyong Won Ha, was among the defectors and is providing intelligence information to Western officials.

The report could not be independently verified by The Washington Post.

Kyong and the other officials had escaped to China and went on to other countries with the help of consulates and embassies, the newspaper reported.

The United States helped set up — and pay for — an embassy in Beijing for the tiny Pacific Island of Nauru specifically to help move the defectors, though none eventually went to the embassy, the Australian said.

Nauru, an 8-square-mile island in Melanesia northeast of Australia, was persuaded to cooperate in part because of a promise that the U.S. would help it avoid financial sanctions being considered for the nation as a "non-cooperative country."

The Chinese route for defections from North Korea has become an increasingly sensitive issue.

China, an ally of North Korea, does not accept Koreans who cross the shallow river border as refugees and has forcibly returned many people.

But other Koreans have been helped out of China by church groups, aid organizations and some diplomatic offices in China. According to the newspaper, the diplomatic route was galvanized by the United States under the code name "Operation Weasel" to get the top North Koreans out of the country.

China, in the past, has chosen not to challenge the underground route operated by diplomats, who in return have tried to be discreet about it.

Defectors who ended up in South Korea, for example, were instructed by that government not to disclose that they had gone through China, to avoid embarrassing Beijing.  
 
Some defectors in this latest group, which the newspaper described as members of the "military and scientific elite," have ended up in the United States or other Western countries.

Kyong, the nuclear scientist, is "believed to be in a safe house in the West," according to the Australian.

The newspaper said Kyong had provided "unprecedented insight" into North Korea's nuclear program, but no specifics were reported. The United States is scheduled to meet North Korea and China in Beijing on Wednesday in their first negotiations over North Korea's nuclear-weapons programs.

The newspaper said one organizer of the defection network was a Washington lawyer named Philip Gagner, who, they said, had contacted the president of Nauru in October and asked the country to agree to open embassies in Washington and Beijing, free of charge.

Among the other countries involved in the operation, according to the paper, are New Zealand, Vanuatu, Thailand, the Philippines and Spain.

The newspaper said it had uncovered the network "through confidential documents and interviews with key players in Washington, the Pacific and North Asia." The newspaper said Australia was not involved and that the operation "has now been wound up."