Posted on 04/24/2003 9:10:58 AM PDT by John H K
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea and the United States ended talks in Beijing on issues including North Korea's nuclear programs on Thursday, one day earlier than originally planned, Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
``The North Koreans should not leave the meetings in Beijing, now that they have come to a conclusion ... with the slightest impression that the United States and its partners will be intimidated by bellicose statements or by threats,'' Powell told the Asia-Pacific Council.
Powell said that bilateral talks might take place on Friday, however, between China and the United States and China and North Korea. China was a party to the two days of talks.
``Strong views were presented. The North Koreans presented their point of view strongly, the Chinese did as well, as did the United States,'' Powell said.
``The sides will return to their capitals and assess what they heard, analyze proposals that were put down by the parties and determine where we will go next,'' he added.
Powell said the United States would continue to insist that talks take place in a multilateral setting and that the Korean peninsula be free of nuclear weapons.
Diplomatically, ending talks a day early is a BIG deal...
And the language of Powell's statement, by the norms of DIPLOMATIC word choice, is VERY ominous.
Apparently all the NKs did was make threats.
Powell will now tell Rumsfeld to make sure the war plans are up-to-date.
Meaning the table should have at least three sides.
N Kor should be ignored. If they attack, they should be destroyed. If they don't attack, then who cares?
You posted:The disaster ended up being the Pravda article being reposted on FR something like 15 times in one day :-)
Not inconceivable that in the constant vomitous stream of BS from the Russian media that actual useful bits of data makes it out from time to time, though.
U.S., North Korea talks may collapse
NBC reports Pyongyang admitted having nuclear weaponsNBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
BEIJING, April 24 — Roundtable talks between the United States, North Korea and China are on the verge of collapse after the Pyongyang government admitted possessing nuclear weapons and claimed it had reprocessed spent fuel rods, moving a step closer to building more such weapons, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday.
We're going to have to topple this regime for the good of the entire planet, I think. I don't think reasoning with them is accomplishing anything.
NBC reports Pyongyang admitted having nuclear weapons
NBC, MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
BEIJING, April 24 — Roundtable talks between the United States, North Korea and China are on the verge of collapse after the Pyongyang government admitted possessing nuclear weapons and claimed it had reprocessed spent fuel rods, moving a step closer to building more such weapons, senior U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday.
THE PYONGYANG delegation also threatened to export its nuclear raw material unless the United States agreed to direct talks, a demand that Washington has rejected in the past.
The meetings in Beijing that began Wednesday was organized as a three-nation gathering at the insistence of the United States, which asserts the issue of North Korea’s nuclear program is a regional issue.
The talks are being led by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and Ri Gun, deputy director of American affairs for North Korea’s Foreign Ministry. China’s delegation is led by Fu Ying, director general of the Asian Affairs Department of its Foreign Ministry.
However, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reported that it’s unclear whether the sides will meet Friday, given the hard-line stance adopted by the North Korean regime.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, characterized the talks as having at least temporarily broken down.
They said that National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice instructed Kelly to reject North Korea’s demands for direct talks.
Separately, U.S. intelligence officials cautioned that North Korea may have acknowledged reprocessing its spent fuel rods as a negotiating ploy. “We don’t even know that they have begun to reprocess,” one senior intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
However, the official said that North Korea did admit possessing nuclear weapons — confirming U.S. intelligence reports that the nation has one or two warheads — making it the ninth nation to official confirm being a nuclear power. A tenth, Israel, is believed to have 200-300 nuclear weapons but has never admitted it while South Africa only admitted it after the weapons had been destroyed.
Think they are doing this on their own?
Yep, actually.
Nobody can totally control them. They're not puppets of either the Russians or Chinese. The idea that all evil is in a neat centrally controlled conspiracy is dangerously attractive, but wrong.
No, we need to get rid of the regime in NK, regardless of what they say they will do. If they are belligerent, that will aid in the process, but even if they are outwardly compliant, they are too dangerous, and besides, their nation is a slave state. We need a strategy that plans for the removal of NKs regime, and it needs to take place within the next 2 years, before export of weapons grade plutonium occurs. Given the incompetence of NKs leadership, however, it may not require a war to cause a change in regime in NK, and if there is war, we may have allies within the military. There are a lot of things we can do to prepare the ground.
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