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| Southeast Asia |
| N.Korea, such a lonely guy these days |
| 2002-12-28 |
| A senior Bush administration official told CNN Saturday that the White House has a new policy to deal with the increasingly defiant North Korea. The policy is called "tailored containment" -- a plan to which President Bush has agreed -- and is intended to put maximum financial and political pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, the official said. Some components of the policy are already in place. No Soup For You Under tailored containment, the Bush administration plans to work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to bring North Korea's case before the U.N. Security Council, the official said. It has taken the U.N. 12 years to almost disarm Iraq The United Nations could declare North Korea in violation of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and perhaps impose economic sanctions, thereby increasing international pressure on North Korea to discontinue its nuclear programs, the official said. The plan also calls for the United States to encourage North Korea's neighbors to limit or even sever their economic ties with Pyongyang, according to the official. Japan and South Korea have already cut off oil shipments to the country. The policy has an active military component as well. U.S. vessels could intercept missile shipments from North Korea to cut into their profits from weapons sales, the official said. The White House insists it will not negotiate with North Korea until it abandons its nuclear weapons programs. A senior Bush administration official said the United States would be willing to hold low-level talks if North Korea had something constructive to say, but as one official put it, "there would be no deal-making." In other diplomatic moves Saturday, South Korea has sent high-level delegates to China and Russia in a bid to increase pressure on Pyongyang to pull back from its current nuclear stance. Government officials said Saturday South Korea would also arrange a meeting of tripartite talks with the United States and Japan early next month, the Yonhap news agency reported. Hopefully the South Koreans will have something constructive to say for once, other than the Kissing Ass eeerrrr I mean Sunshine Policy |
| Posted by:Anonymous |
| #2 A senior Bush administration official said the United States would be willing to hold low-level talks if North Korea had something constructive to say, but as one official put it, "there would be no deal-making." I love it! This is the kind of rhetorical and political hardball that was missing during the first 95% of the Cold War. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2002-12-31 06:54:10 |
| #1 "...if I were a world conquerer, and had any plans for taking over the world, the first thing I would do would to be to build a great power plant, plutonium power plant, and then I would secretly develop atomic energy for atomic bombs from that power plant." Senator Johnson (in) Atomic Energy Act of 1946: Hearings before the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, Use, and Control of Atomic Energy, Pt. 2, Dec. 5, 6, 10, 12, 1945 (1946), at 206 |
| Posted by: Richard 2002-12-29 01:26:24 |