Notice the lack of power lines coming out of the plant
Once more the lie of "we just want it for electricity" just like Iran.
Posted on 02/11/2005 5:49:27 AM PST by presidio9
North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse the tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state's U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper Friday.
Han Sung Ryol, a senior diplomat from the U.N. delegation in New York, was the first North Korean official to speak to outside news media since Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry defied the United States and its allies by declaring Thursday it has nuclear weapons.
In the announcement — its first public disclosure that it has the weapons — North Korea said its arsenal is a deterrent against a U.S. invasion, and it does not intend to join six-nation disarmament talks anytime soon. The weapons claim could not be independently verified.
"We will return to the six-nation talks when we see a reason to do so and the conditions are ripe," Han told Seoul's Hankyoreh newspaper in an interview published Friday. "If the United States moves to have direct dialogue with us, we can take that as a signal that the United States is changing its hostile policy toward us."
Han's suggestion came as the 2-year-old standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs plummeted to a new low.
North Korea sees its nuclear programs as a way of ensuring the survival of leader Kim Jong Il's regime. In return for giving up its nuclear ambitions, it seeks massive aid, diplomatic recognition, an end to economic sanctions, and a nonaggression treaty with the United States.
North Korea's long-running strategy has been to try to engage the United States in bilateral talks, believing such meetings would boost the isolated country's international status and help it win bigger concessions.
In the current six-nation talks, North Korea has increasingly found itself surrounded by countries, including allies China and Russia, who are critical of its nuclear ambitions. Since 2003, the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia have held three rounds of talks in Beijing, but no significant progress has been made.
The United States has refused to engage in bilateral talks.
Former President Clinton (news - web sites) forged a bilateral deal in 1994 obligating North Korea to freeze its nuclear activities in return for oil and other aid. But Bush administration officials say the old deal was a failure that should not be repeated because North Korea flouted it by running a secret uranium-enrichment program.
They champion a new six-nation multilateral deal that could bind the North with commitments to China and Russia. China's aid and trade keep North Korea's economy from collapsing.
When asked whether the North's announcement would cause friction with Beijing, Han said his country has "always made our decisions independently based on our own judgment and on our own national interest."
"We are not affected by outside countries' pressure, mediation and persuasion. In fact, we believe that China will help persuade the United States to abandon its hostile policy toward us," he said in the interview.
Governments around the world have expressed concern over North Korea's nuclear statement and urged it to return to talks. But North Korea says it will not do so as long as Washington maintains its "hostile" policy toward the North.
"The key is a change in the hostile U.S. policy toward the North," Han was quoted as saying. "We have no other option but to regard the United States' refusal to have direct dialogue with us as an intention not to recognize us and to eliminate our system."
Hopes for the resumption of talks rose after President Bush began his second term without using harsh words against the Stalinist regime. But Pyongyang said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's labeling of it last month as one of the "outposts of tyranny" was insult enough to scuttle the diplomatic process.
North Korea believed Bush's recent emphasis on spreading freedom and ending tyranny around the world "effectively targeted" the isolated state, Han said.
"Although Bush didn't mention our country by name, the context makes it clear that there is a strong connection with" the comments by Rice, he said.
South Korea (news - web sites) urged the United States and its allies to be calm following North Korea's sudden declaration, reminding them that blustering and brinksmanship are nothing new in Pyongyang's toolbox of diplomatic tactics.
It is important to remember that "North Korea has shown similar attitudes in times of crucial negotiations" in the past, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon as saying.
But South Korean officials also cautioned that North Korea could take further steps to raise tensions — such as shipping weapons materials to other countries with nuclear ambitions or even testing a bomb.
The North's announcement and decision to pull out of the talks was "a matter of grave concern," Ban told reporters in Washington, where he arrived on a previously scheduled trip to meet Rice.
In Seoul, Vice Foreign Minister Lee Tae-shik told members of the ruling Uri party that "the North's move appears to be aimed at improving its negotiating power."
But he warned "the problem could get very serious if North Korea takes additional actions," Uri Party spokesman Lim Jong-suk said.
South Korea's take on North Korea's announcement reflects its decades-long experience in dealing with North Korean officials, who pepper their negotiating rhetoric with shouts, threats and dire warnings of imminent clashes.
Since the nuclear crisis erupted in late 2002, North Korea has steadily increased the stakes. It first removed U.N. seals on its mothballed nuclear facilities, expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors and quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It later said it completed reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to extract weapons-grade plutonium.
Until they conduct a test, I don't think so. Countries don't scream "We have Nukes! Respect us!" If you can make one, you set one off. That's how you prove you actually have some cattle--until then, all I see is weird obnoxious hat.
Bilateral negotiations make it easier for the DPRK to make screwy demands and walk away. Despite the agendas of other nations in multilateral talks, there are witnesses, aside from US reps, who can vouch for the insufferable actions of the DPRK. In past talks, Russia and the PRC have made statements that the DPRK was "unreasonable" or "behaving erractically". The sad truth is that the "international community" (e.g. Media) will believe them more than they would statements from the US. Both Russia and the PRC are not interested in having a screwball with a Napoleonic complex wielding nuclear weapons. The multilateral talks are part of a game to maintain opinion against the DPRK and maintain pressure on them to not act upon their crackhead ideas/threats.
Allow me to translate:
"Now that we've shown our asses and crossed a dangerous line drawn by our little freak-of-nature, sub-Napoleanic dictator...we want to see if you'll give us stuff if we backpeddle a bit and feign cooperation."
If ever there was a justifiable case for a covert "regime change" - this is it, folks.
Maybe one of his scores of Comfort Women could be persuaded to serve as a carrier for a particularly nasty form of VD...
I say we just blockade their ports and call their bluff Let 'em rant and rave while they starve to death..
Either pick up a pitch fork and take your government out..
or die...
though S%*^
The more often they say they do, the less convinced I am that that is actually true. Why wouldn't NK test one if they had one? Unless they have ONLY one.
Kerry would have sent Jimmah Cahtah for some first class sniveling.
It depends on what you want to accomplish as well as what the five other parties want to accomplish. If you wish to empower North Korea, and piss off China that's one approach. If you wish to encourage China to act responsibly well there are other approaches. I think in this case, this is not the UN, act 2. However, we may be seeing that one in Iran.
Notice the lack of power lines coming out of the plant
Once more the lie of "we just want it for electricity" just like Iran.
"Bilateral negotiations make it easier for the DPRK to make screwy demands and walk away. "
Precisely...he has been making increasingly livid threats and confirming the worst - but he hasn't seen a bit of motion on our part to condescend, payoff, or even agree to come to the table and 'negotiate' with him.
His people must be getting awfully hungry since Mady left Washington...
Welcome to FR dilbert80. You're new to FR so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but bilateral talks are exactly the position that Kerry was arguing for during the election. And also, bilateral talks are what klintoon was doing when he and Halfbright gave in to NK demands and aid they were asking for. NK acts like a spoiled little child and they absolutely don't act with rational or logical thought.
As untrustworthy as Russia and China are, in these talks they represent someone closer to the NK (communists and dictator sympathizers) side of things than the US. And while doing that, no matter their underlying agenda, their position is the same as the US regarding NK and nukes. They also know that lil Kimmy is unstable and mentally deficient.
So when dealing with NK, its better to have their "big brothers" there to tell them they are being petulant and immature because it gives the US position more credibility in their eyes when they hear it from Russia and China. So far not enough credibility to do any good. But better than talking to them one and one like klintoon and giving them the farm so that beezlebubba and halfbright could show that "progress" was being made.
The logic of Jean Francois Kerry endorsing bilateral talks with them never made sense to me except when you consider that its exactly what NK and lil Kimmy wanted. In all other global diplomacy, Jean Francois wanted a global test and 156 nations to discuss and decide what should be the official ice cream of the 2012 Olympics. But here he wanted bilateral talks. I guess J eFfin K is just another communist at heart.
That would be just what we needed. Carter volunteering his services. We need another attack rabbit if he does.
Don't make us send Roger Clinton back over there and threaten to have him sing again for you guys.
I can see Japan just detonating a test nuke one day and not saying a word to anyone about it.
The question for Kerry, the liberal media, and the democrats is this:
If you REALLY believe in the purpose of the United Nations, how can you explain how they sat on their hands while a mad man starved his people and built nuclear weapons?
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