|
Oil runs dry in NKor...
An oil tanker arrived in North Korea Tuesday carrying the last shipment of U.S.-funded fuel oil to the communist state unless it halts a banned nuclear weapons programme. Washington and its allies decided last week to stop vital fuel oil aid to penalise Pyongyang for breaking a series of non-proliferation pledges. The cuts will hit North Korea just ahead of winter, which brings sub-freezing temperatures. Yes, we've heard of the Brutal Korean Winter. Tusk-tusk. Terrible, y'know? The United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union agreed to suspend the fuel oil shipments to North Korea from December. But they allowed delivery of the 42,500-tonne November batch, which was already on the high seas. It's because of that warm milk they drink... North Korea has not yet responded to the decision to cut the fuel shipments â a move Pyongyang envoys have said would be viewed as a hostile act. And developing nuclear weapons isn't? Under a 1994 agreement, the North promised to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for fuel oil, paid for by Washington, and two light water reactors that cannot easily be converted to produce atomic weapons material. And they didn't, so we won't. That sounds fair. They seem to need nukes more than they need fuel oil... Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-11-19 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=7931 |