Plan for N. Korea Will Mix Diplomacy and Pressure

The Bush administration plans to adjust its policy toward North Korea by adopting a two-track approach that would combine new talks with pressure on the communist state by targeting its illegal drug and counterfeiting trade and possibly its missile sales, U.S. and Asian officials said yesterday.

The emerging consensus, which will be refined today at a meeting of President Bush's top foreign policy advisers, would bridge a gap that has emerged within the administration since North Korea declared it possesses nuclear weapons at talks last month between U.S., North Korean and Chinese representatives in China. Administration officials have sought to resolve their policy differences, which pit those pushing for confrontation with the Pyongyang government against those advocating further talks, in advance of next week's visit to Washington by South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun.

Adding to the sense of urgency, U.S. sources said yesterday, intelligence analysts within the past 48 hours have seen increasing signs that North Korea has begun reprocessing 8,000 spent fuel rods to provide plutonium for weapons. North Korea said it had begun the processing at the three-way talks in Beijing last month, but it had not been detected by U.S. intelligence until now. The spent fuel would provide North Korea with enough nuclear material to build two to three additional nuclear bombs within a few months.

Too many different reports are flying these days on the N. Korean nuke crisis. It seems that this is one of the ideas being pushed by somebody. We will see what Bush administration will settle on.

If N. Korea indeed started processing spent fuel rods for extracting plutonium, this means that N. Korea is panicking now.

I read from local S. Korean newspapers today that German doctor Norbert Vollertsen disclosed that there was indeed the defection of 20 prominent N. Koreans, some of whom went through the diplomatic mission of Nauru. He also mentioned that the Hudson Institute and CIA in America were involved in this project. A part of details were tipped off to an Australian reporter by one of the people involved. That is how the story got out. He said that it is only a "small part" of larger defection project of N. Korean elites, which is still in progress. Its ultimate objective is "the collapse of N. Korea regime" from within. He claimed that there are many N. Korean elites who are eager to get out. He was said to be communicating with them, using the contact established by him during his stay in N. Korea where he worked as a member of a German relief agency. I think that, if this report of the massive defection project is true, it could be another reason why N. Korea is panicking in recent days.

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