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Washington puts 'pressure' on Norks over provocations
Washington yesterday added pressure on nuclear-armed North Korea by warning of “consequences” for its recent rocket launch and the latest decision to kick out nuclear inspectors.
Pressure. Sure. The Norks have never been scolded before.
The U.S. State Department’s acting spokesman Robert Wood said a committee under the United Nations Security Council held a meeting on Wednesday to expand sanctions against North Korea for its long-range rocket launch. The committee will agree on a list of goods and entities seen as assisting the North’s arms programs, Wood said.

“And that will be made public, as you know, and then member states will be required to prevent the North from getting access to these goods and entities from supplying the types of material that we don’t want to see get to the North,” he said.

Wood also went further to condemn the North’s decision to walk away from the six-nation nuclear disbarment talks and restart its nuclear arms programs. The North has expelled international inspectors from its main nuclear facilities.

“IAEA inspectors departed [North Korea] on April 16,” International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire said in a statement. According to the watchdog, containment and surveillance equipment installed at the weapons-grade plutonium processing facility in Yongbyon by the inspectors were removed before their departure.

“The international community has required that the North take certain actions and not take certain actions,” Wood said. “The North has not listened to the will of the international community, and therefore it’s going to have to face the consequences from its unwillingness to meet the international community’s requirements.”

While coercing Pyongyang with additional sanctions for “a pattern of bad behavior,” Wood also said the United States has had “conversations” with the North. “We have relayed our views to the North,” he said, without elaborating about the talks. How the North reacted to the U.S. message is unknown.

An unnamed senior U.S. official was quoted as saying by AFP that the communication was through North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York.

The current situation resembles what happened in 2002 when the North declared the end of its nuclear freeze, kicked out international inspectors and resumed its arms programs. It is, however, unlikely that Pyongyang can immediately restart its plutonium-based nuclear program by using the main facility in Yongbyon. Key components of the reactor have been removed, and the North blew up the facility’s cooling tower as a gesture of its commitment to denuclearization. The advanced disablement will likely give the international community more time to work with the North diplomatically.
No, it means they have another facility that we don't know about.

Posted by: Steve White 2009-04-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=268111