Posted on 01/02/2004 1:11:59 AM PST by Conservative_Nationalist
N. Korea to Let U.S. Experts See Nuke Site 2 minutes ago
BY SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea (news - web sites) has agreed to allow a U.S. delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, a South Korean official said Friday.
The trip would mark the first time outsiders have been allowed to inspect North Korea's main nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, since the communist country expelled U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002.
USA Today first reported Friday that Washington approved the trip and it was scheduled for Jan. 6-10. The newspaper said the U.S. delegation would include Sig Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1985 to 1997. The laboratory produced the first U.S. nuclear bomb.
"The report is true," an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said. "The U.S. side has informed us of the trip."
USA Today said the delegation also included a China expert from Stanford University, two Senate foreign policy aides who have previously visited Pyongyang and a former State Department official who has negotiated with North Korea.
Jason Rebholz, a spokesman of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, said he had no information on the trip and could not comment on the news report.
North Korea is believed to be running a nuclear weapons program at Yongbyon. The United States is trying to persuade the North to give up its nuclear program in return for aid and better ties with the outside world.
You're countering your own point here. Kim is not in it for the money. He's also not going to give up power until dead or focibly removed. We won't be pulling Kim out of a dirty hole in someone's backyard.
The 1990s and even the last three years have been a very desperate time. If Kim were more concerned with survival than power, he'd be living in a Chinese dacha, enjoying a huge Swiss bank account. He's not.
He needs power above all else, and there is no greater manifestation of power than nuclear weapons. It is the only language he speaks, and the lens he views the world from. He would sooner abdicate and flee than give up his nuclear arsenel.
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