Posted on 07/09/2004 8:25:02 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
"So much is possible" for N. Korea in return for nuclear dismantlement: Rice (pushing for Libya-style settlement) foreign,frontpage,news Nkorea,kim jongil,nuke,kadhafi,skorea,rice,bush,libya AFP via Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040709/pl_afp/skorea_us_040709141650
"So much is possible" for NKorea in return for nuclear dismantlement: Rice
SEOUL (AFP) - US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said North Korea (news - web sites) would be surprised at "how much will be possible" if the Stalinist state abandons its nuclear ambitions, South Korean officials said.
The remarks came when Rice met with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon in Seoul on the final leg of her Asian tour which also brought her to Japan and China, they said.
"North Korea will be surprised to see how much will be possible (if it abandons its nuclear programs)," Rice told Ban, according to official Kim Eun-Seok, who attended the 30-minute meeting.
"So much is possible if North Korea just does that."
Rice expressed hope that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il will follow the footsteps of his counterpart of Libya, a former US enemy which has normalized ties with Washington after giving up its nuclear ambitions.
"I wish Kim Jong-Il would talk to (Libyan leader Moamar) Kadhafi," Rice was quoted by Kim Eun-Seok as saying.
A nuclear stand-off erupted in October 2002 when the United States said North Korea acknowledged it was developing nuclear weapons, violating a 1994 international agreement.
The third round of six-way nuclear crisis talks in Beijing last month ended without a breakthrough, although the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia agreed to meet again by the end of September.
Pyongyang has proposed freezing its nuclear program and pledged to stop building, testing and transferring nuclear weapons, but insisted Washington's rewards for concessions were the only way to resolve the impasse.
The United Sates offered at the latest negotiations economic and diplomatic rewards if North Korea shut down and sealed its nuclear weapons facilities in three months.
North Korea has demanded energy aid and a security guarantee from the United States. Pyongyang also wants Washington to lift sanctions on North Korea and remove the Stalinist regime from the US list of states sponsoring terrorism.
While meeting with Ban, Rice also thanked South Korea (news - web sites) for sending troops to Iraq (news - web sites) at the US' request, officials said.
Earlier in the day, Rice met with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun and conveyed US President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s letter to the South Korean leader.
"President Bush (news - web sites) wanted me to visit Seoul and reaffirm the importance the United States attaches to its relations with the Republic of Korea," Rice was quoted as saying in the pool report.
The letter is expected to contain Bush's thanks for Seoul's decision to deploy more than 3,000 troops to Iraq, an aide to Roh was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency.
A group of some 60 activists rallied on a road leading to the presidential Blue House, chanting slogans denouncing the US-led war on Iraq as Rice was meeting with Roh.
Rice also met with her South Korean counterpart, Kwon Jin-Ho, to discuss Washington's plan to realign its troops stationed overseas, officials said.
Washington has offered to reduce its 37,500 US troops in South Korea by one third under a global redeployment plan.
The US military presence has served as key deterrence against North Korea since the 1950-1953 Korean War, and the planned reduction has prompted security concerns among South Koreans.
Rice headed back home after a meeting with Ban late Friday, said US embassy spokesman Jason Rebholz in Seoul.
This appears to be the last chance for Kim Jong-il to come forward. If he does not, after Bush gets re-elected, which is quite likely, Kim Jong-il is a toast.
Kim Jong-il pleaded through Koizumi to arrange a meeting with Bush. He could do the same to Putin, whom he could meet later this summer. Kim Jong-il believes that Koizumi and Putin have enough personal connection with Bush.
It is also reported that Kadhafi was persuading Kim Jong-il to follow Libyan example. Here is a translation of Korean article on this subject.
Ping!
The News Media has been strangely silent on Libya's conversion. That is a GIANT diplomatic victory against terrorism!
Condi needs to remember this guy is forcing his own people to eat the bark from trees. He is a sick scumbag for who normal rewards and consequences probably won't work.
Perhaps this is an indication that Bush is going to replace Powell as Secretary of State with Condi in the next Administration.
I think she would be a great improvement.
I agree that that is the meaning of Condi's message:live like Kadhafi, or die like Ceaucescu (of Romania.)
Fear, desperation, and ignorance are what holds that country together at the lower levels, but at the higher, it's something else. The elite cadres that manage the country must believe that Kim can hold the whole country together, against problems both internal and external.
If they think Kim is capitulating, they will conclude that all is lost. If he's making nice with the world, at the expense of the hard line that has kept the DPRK together, he's probably planning on retiring to China in the near future. Either mob justice, or at best, total anarchy, is right around the corner for those that remain. That would motivate many of them to seek a seperate peace with the outside world in return for protection and amnesty of some kind.
Put another way: Kim is a brutal tyrant, but he's the only thing keeping that country together. If he can't, then no one in that country is safe. The elites back Kim out of fear, not only of him, but of what will happen if he fails. If failure looks imminent or inevitible (and we have no idea where the North Korean elites think that threshold would be) they will have no choice but to turn on him and try to sell him out.
Maybe we should promote a commission under control of the UN - a nukes for food scam?
It is true that Kim has to watch his back as well as to take on Bush. As you said, not all elites can survive if N. Korea changes its course. A sizable number of elites are bound to take the fall for all problems of N. Korea. It will be bloody.
It will be all-out power struggle of life and death among the elites, including Kim Jong-il.
If Bush gets reelected look for a "Tear down this Wall" type speech and NK communism will be history.
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