US, Korea May Break Nuclear Impasse

April 12, 2008
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The United States is backing off its earlier demand for a precise inventory of North Korea's nuclear programs and past activities that had hung up potentially historic disarmament negotiations with the Communist nation.

U.S. officials say they will still get the information they need, but it will be packaged and presented in a way more acceptable to the reclusive North. Any change in the terms, however, will open the White House to criticism from the political right that the administration has gone soft.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested Friday that a deal to resolve a four-month impasse may be close, including a U.S. promise of swift action to lift economic and political penalties on the North.

"There are obligations on both sides," Rice said. "The U.S. is absolutely prepared to undertake its obligations should the North Koreans fulfill their obligations."

Washington had refused to take the North off a U.S. terrorism blacklist, a coveted goal of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, until negotiators have a "complete and correct" inventory of the North's nuclear program and past activities to spread weapons know-how to other nations.

North Korea had agreed in six-nation talks in October to provide the list and disable its facilities and its main reactor by the end of 2007. The North made unprecedented progress last year, shutting down and starting to disable the reactor in exchange for aid and diplomatic concessions.

But the North missed the Dec. 31 deadline in a dispute over how specific, and how public, the North's accounting had to be.

Now the Bush administration has decided that the exact contents of the North Korean declaration are less important than an assurance that the U.S. and other nations can check up on the North to make sure it told the truth and isn't resuming any nuclear activities.

Asked Friday about a potential agreement to resolve the impasse, Rice did not repeat her usual demand that the North produce a full and complete declaration of its nuclear programs and past.

"We are trying to get people off of this sort of 17th Century notion of expiating sins and on to the notion that the verification is the key here," a senior U.S. official said later. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal is not final.

The North would finish work to take its plutonium nuclear reactor out of service and provide a full accounting of the program it ran there, including work to produce the nuclear device the North tested in 2006. That test confirmed Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons state and intensified world efforts to bargain the North out of the weapons business.

A second, vaguer agreement would have the North "acknowledge" world worries about an alleged separate nuclear development program using uranium, and about the North's activities to spread nuclear technology or material to other nations, officials said. The North would agree to new verification programs to make sure it does not resume those suspect activities.

Previously, U.S. officials had said the North would have to detail that alleged uranium program and explain its presumed role in assisting Syria with what may have been an incipient nuclear program. Israel last year destroyed a site widely believed to have housed that program.

Officials now say they are more concerned about the plutonium program, because of its demonstrated ability to yield a nuclear weapon, and did not want the dispute to threaten the entire disarmament deal.

"We are determined to have an outcome ... that would have the North Koreans account for all of their nuclear programs ... and their activities in nuclear proliferation," Rice said.

A meeting of nuclear envoys from the six nations involved in the talks - the Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia - could occur in Beijing in the next few weeks if all sides fulfill their obligations, the State department's lead negotiator with North Korea said Thursday.

The Bad News came in on this one today.

Would you happen to have a web link to that "Bad News"...?

N.Korea pledges fully disabled nuclear plant by Oct

LINK

BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea pledged on Saturday to complete steps to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of October, at six-country talks aimed at disarming the communist state in return for aid and better diplomatic relations.

International envoys did not reach final agreement on a detailed guideline of how to verify the North's account of its nuclear activities made last month. But they mandated a working group to draw up the details.

"The protocol gets very complex, but it's not just saying what verifiers will have a right to do -- that is, to visit sites -- but it also spells out what they can do when they visit the sites," chief U.S. envoy Christopher Hill told reporters.

Hill said he saw no big problems in reaching agreement.

But South Korean envoy Kim Sook echoed lingering skepticism in the long-running effort to disarm the isolated North that has been marred by delays and accusations of broken promises. He said it was just the easier part of the job that had been done.

"I am not optimistic at all about what's ahead, especially as implementing the verification guideline is a very difficult job where we need to coordinate the different positions and interests of the six parties," he told reporters after the talks.

The impoverished North will get all 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil by the same date as promised under the disarmament deal with South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China, a joint statement issued at the end of three days of talks said.

The talks aimed at coaxing North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program are the first in nine months and come after Pyongyang produced last month an inventory of nuclear activities, one of the steps pledged under the deal.

The United States was seeking a standard package of measures to verify North Korea's own account of its nuclear program, Hill said earlier on Saturday.

"We're not asking for anything unusual," he told reporters.

South Korean officials said while there was progress at talks on providing energy aid to the impoverished state in return for steps to eventually dismantle its nuclear program, differences remained between the North and the rest on how to verify the North's declaration.

The six parties did agree to ask the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for verification help when needed, the joint press statement said.

Hill said he hoped the envoys will continue informal discussions during a regional forum later this month in Singapore.

In exchange for disablement steps and for handing over last month the declaration originally due at the end of 2007, North Korea has been receiving much-needed energy aid and was also promised improved diplomatic ties with Washington and Tokyo.

Additional report: North Korean Talks Lead to Agreement

I ain't holdin my breath

quote:

I ain't holdin my breath

I don't blame ya...especially if the Dems gain control of the White House in January.

On a daily basis trains chug north through Munsan Ni and across the DMZ to Kaesong where the Hyundai assembly plant is. Raw metal is exchanged for assembled Hyundais, Kias and Fords which chug back across the DMZ to South Korea and the world. North Korea is cheap labor for the south. By the time Kim dies Hyundai will control the economy of the north. North Korea will go the way of East Germany

Report: NKorea may fire missile toward Hawaii

June 18, 2009

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea may fire a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese newspaper said Thursday, amid escalating tensions between the communist country and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.

The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The Yomiuri said the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, but that it would not be able to hit the main islands of Hawaii, which lie about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said. It noted that North Korea had fired its first Taepodong-2 missile on July 4, 2006. Also, July 8 is the anniversary of the 1994 death of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

The Yomiuri report was the latest in mounting media speculation that the communist country could launch a long-range missile soon following its underground nuclear test on May 25.

A spokesman for the Japanese Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report. Officials from South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service — the country's main spy agency — said they could not confirm it.

In Washington on Tuesday, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the West Coast of the United States.

North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. The regime revealed last week that it is also producing enriched uranium. The two materials are key ingredients for making atomic bombs.

North Korea conducted its second nuclear test on May 25 following its first underground atomic blast in October 2006.

The United Nations last week punished North Korea over the May nuclear test by expanding an arms embargo and authorizing ship searches on the high seas in a bid to derail its nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea has claimed its nuclear bombs are a deterrent against the United States and accuses Washington of plotting with Seoul to topple its secretive regime — led by the unpredictable dictator Kim Jong Il who is reportedly preparing to hand over power to his 26-year-old youngest son, Jong Un.

this has gone on as longas most can remember the the poor illinformed folks of the north have suffered under the hands of the Kim family. and will cointinue to do so so long as there is an unstable /unpredictable dictatorship in power. But there are un careing skitzophrenic governments all over this planet. many ide it very well Kim JongIl does not try to hide his insanity he flaunts it. I only hope the new administration has theguts to stand up to him or at least not back down at the first sightof blood.

North Korea accuses U.S. of plotting nuclear war

Associated Press - June 21, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has accused the United States of plotting atomic war against the communist regime, saying President Barack Obama's recent reaffirmation of nuclear protection of South Korea only exposed his government's intention to attack.

In what would be the first test for the new U.N. sanctions against the North, South Korean media also reported Sunday that a North Korean ship sailing toward Myanmar via Singapore was being shadowed by the U.S. military over suspicion that it may be carrying illicit weapons.

U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, Kang Nam, which left a North Korean port Wednesday.

South Korean television network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, reported that the U.S. suspected the 2,000-ton-class ship was carrying missiles and other related weapons toward Myanmar — which has faced an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union and has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.

The report said the U.S. has also deployed a navy destroyer and has been using satellites to track the ship.

South Korea's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and the National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has spiked since the North defiantly conducted its second nuclear test on May 25. North Korea later declared it would bolster its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war in protest of U.N. sanctions for its test.

Obama reaffirmed Washington's security commitment to South Korea, including through U.S. nuclear protection, after a meeting Tuesday in Washington with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Obama also said the U.N. sanctions will be aggressively enforced.

In its first response to the summit, North Korea's government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said that Obama's comments only revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.

"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," said the commentary published Saturday.

The weekly also said the North will also "surely judge" the Lee government for participating in a U.S.-led international campaign to "stifle" the North.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons deployed there.

On Saturday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said Seoul has proposed five-way talks with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan to find a new way to deal with the North's threats.

The U.S. and Japan have agreed to participate, while China and Russia have yet to respond, the official told The Associated Press, requesting anonymity because he was discussing a plan still in the works.

North Korea and the five countries began negotiating under the so-called "six-party talks" in 2003 with the aim of giving the communist regime economic aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. In April, however, the North said it was pulling out of the talks in response to international criticism of its controversial April 5 long-range rocket launch.


news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090621/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear