US warns NKorea to stop exporting dangerous weapons or face world action

AFP via Yahoo! ^ | Friday, March 12, 2004 | AFP

[Momaw Nadon]

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States warned North Korea that it would face action from the international community if it does not stop exporting dangerous weapons and other illegal activities.

"If North Korea will not act, it will find the United States, its allies and other partners equally prepared to respond with measures that ensure North Korea cannot threaten our countries or international stability," said Mitchell Reiss, the department's director of policy planning.

Speaking at the Heritage Foundation, one of Washington's leading repositories of expertise on East Asia, Reiss said the United States was taking steps to enforce its laws against alleged narcotics trafficking and counterfeiting of US currency by the rogue state.

He said these steps were ongoing and unrelated to the current six-party negotiations -- which include North and South Korea, Japan, the United States, China and Russia -- to ease the nuclear standoff in North Korea.

"We are entitled to expect legal behaviour from all countries.

"With or without a denuclearization agreement, North Korea must cease its exports of dangerous weapons and the wide scope of its illegal activities," Reiss said.

Washington would also pursue with its so called proliferation security initiative, a programme to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles, he said.

"We will insist on full accountability by the North Korean regime and its agents for their behaviour," Reiss said. "The choice, ultimately, is theirs."

If North Korea rises to the occasion and abandons its "self destructive and dangerous path, it can begin to work with the United States and the other nations in the nuclear talks to enable its diplomatic and economic integration into the global system.

The six party talks are due to resume in Beijing by the end of June after the last round in the Chinese capital in February fizzled out with only an agreement to establish working groups to study the problem.

The talks failed to resolve differences over the core US demand for the complete dismantling of the secretive Stalinist country's nuclear programmes.

North Korea called the US demand "criminal" and said progress was impossible because of "the fundamental difference between the DPRK and the US in their stands."

North Korea and the United States have been locked in the impasse since Washington accused the Stalinist state in October 2002 of having a program to enrich uranium in defiance of a 1994 anti-nuclear pact.

The United States considers the 1994 deal ruptured and suspended fuel oil shipments to North Korea.

North Korea has denied having an enriched uranium program but admits it has plutonium bombs.

Pyongyang has sought security guarantees and economic aid in return for denuclearization while Washington has insisted that a verifiable dismantling of the Stalinist state's nuclear program come first.

[Momaw Nadon]

FYI and discussion

[Reactionary]

Someone better call that idiot, Jimmy Carter.

He's the moron who set the communists with light water nuclear reactors, after all, so that Clinton could avoid dealing with the problem.

Let's send both of them to Pyongyang before we send the bombers in.

[evad]

Well, I guess it's time to show the 'despots with nukes' that we'll take em out when necessary...with or without nukes.

Maybe then the other despots won't be all hell bent to acquire nukes.

[evad]

Let's send both of them to Pyongyang before we send the bombers in.

Hell..drop him out of the plane at the same time..
a twofer.

[HankReardon]

Interesting. We have all now learned that the international community consisits merely of France, Germany and Russia. Are these the nations that will take action against North Korea if they do not comply? Or will 60+ nations take action against North Korea unilaterally while the "internationally community" protests? I know, this is a ridiculous post, you can't make this stuff up!

[Ranger]

The timing after the S.K. presidential impeachment is interesting. Do you think Bush is contemplating a naval search and seizure program around NK?

[Momaw Nadon]

Do you think Bush is contemplating a naval search and seizure program around NK?

I don't know, but "face world action" are serious words.

[SolutionsOnly]

"World Action"?!? What, the UN will pass 20 resolutions? Ha! The North Koreans are probably splitting a gut over that one.

[HankReardon]

This is another Bush "rush to war", this rush to war has taken over 50 years. The Iraq rush to war took only 12 years. It was just a blur! Tell me, who are the "misleaders"?

[hershey]

When push comes to shove, the US will have to do the heavy lifting when it comes to N. Korea. The plan to bomb them back to the stone age is probably already on the table.

[HankReardon]

There is no General Lemay like plan to bomb the North Koreans back to the stone age. This military action will be taken in a very targeted manner with extreme effort to minimize civillian casualties as was done in Iraq. Remember, we ARE the good guys.

[trek]

Somebody get the apple. Its time to roast the pot-bellied pig.

[olde north church]

Here's a little analysis of N Korea/Kim Jong Il: This man is crazy like a fox. If here were hellbent on destruction he would be aiming his nukes northward toward China, not eastward or southward.
If he's going out, he's going out in a blaze of glory.
How long do you think he and his father have been looking at an island 90 miles off the coast of Florida that has been doing juusssttt fine.

[hershey]

True, but it felt good to say it.

[olde north church]

Additional advice on negotiating w/N Korea: Send the Chinese a diplomatic envelope with a 9mm sidearm with the message: You can do it clean or we can do it dirty, how much control do you want over multiple million refugees?
Somewhat melodramatic but it puts a somewhat different new page in the playbook.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Sounds like a message from the Rooskis.

[olde north church]

I hate to put it this way but how much a problem were the Chechnyans when Stalin, Kruschev or Brezhnev were in charge?

[SolutionsOnly]

Just like Iraq, here's another example of what happens when you don't finish the job the first time.

[JasonC]

The article does read like a threat of a blockade. I don't see any clear connection to the impeachment, however.

One thing I did notice in the impeachment stories is a statement from the Korean side of "crisis conditions in the supreme command". Which I read, perhaps over-read, as rumblings of military dissatisfaction with Roh, to the point of threatening a coup, headed off by the impeachment. That is just guessing, though.

Korean has elections scheduled for April 15. And the removal of Roh is so far not popular, according to polls anyway. But if e.g. they caught him taking bribes from - or perhaps more likely, paying them to - the North, popularity would be less important than basic integrity of the state against hostile influence.

I expect things will stabilize in the month following the elections. NK is on a course to get blockaded, but not in that time frame.

[kabar]

I hate to put it this way but how much a problem were the Chechnyans when Stalin, Kruschev or Brezhnev were in charge?

Not exactly an analogous situation. NK is a state actor not a domestic terrorist group. The real danger that NK poses is the sale of WMD to non-state actors. It becomes difficult to retaliate when you don't know whom and how to attack. NK, Iran, and Syria (presuming some of Iraq's WMD are hidden there) pose a serious threat to the world along with an unstable Pakistan.