Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso (L) welcomes Christopher Hill (R), US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, 06 February 2007. Christopher Hill has denied a Japanese press report that said he had secured a deal with North Korea in which Pyongyang had agreed to shut down a nuclear reactor in exchange for energy aid.(AFP/File/Kazuhiro Nogi)
You mean the way the Clinton administration had a nice, friendly attitude towards N Korea, and they broke the agreement and continued building their nuclear capabilities?
How stupid do they think we are?
Where is the infamous Madelaine Albright and Kim Jung Il picture?
A North Korean soldier guards tanks of flammable liquid at the bank of the Yalu River in the North Korean town of Sinuiju February 8, 2007. Six-party talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear programme resume in Beijing on Thursday with the top U.S. envoy denying a Japanese media report that the isolated state had signed a deal with Washington. The Korean characters on the tank read 'No Naked Fire'. REUTERS/Adam Dean (NORTH KOREA)
Translation: How much of the US taxpayers money are you going to give us.
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Bush's fault. Oh, this is a good thing?
Then you won't hear a thing from the MSM about it. Or only in a passing, matter of fact tone, at the end of the news cast and after they have "thoroughly" counted the deaths in Iraq ("one of Bush's other failures").
OK, I'm not hostile. And wasn't this problem solved by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Madeline Albright? Gee, I guess my memory is faulty.
Didn't they already try this line before
I think it is time to stand up to them with a very hard line - tell them put up or shut up. My position would be no-notice open inspections of their nuclear and missile installations anytime we want. The bank stays black-listed. Trade, we'll talk after we actually see you dismantling your nuclear program.
I'm sure they wouldn't take that seriously, and would storm out of the talks claiming we were being unreasonable, were not ready to seriously negotiate, etc. They'd probably threaten to continue their nuclear and missile programs. I'd call their bluff. I'd tell them look, your long-range Taepodong-2s are junk, you only started them to have something to trade away, we're calling your bluff. Go ahead, try to make them work. Your nuclear program isn't much better - one fizzle. Our missiles and warheads work just fine. You want to rattle sabers, go ahead, we've heard it all before from nations far more capable than you.
I've had enough of these {expletives} playing big fish in a little pond. I say we pay them the worst insult of all - ignore them as if they don't matter. Because compared to our other problems that we need to address, they don't.
what a bunch of horse manure...
this whole problem could be solved by Bush telling the Chicoms to get their dog, NK, back on the porch or not one container of their junk will be unloaded in San Pedro or anywhere else.
NK depends on the Chicoms and the Chicoms depend on exports.
How do you say "embargo" in Chinese & "blockade" in Korean?
Cheney/Steele 2008
The financial handcuffs the US had placed on the Loon Kim regime hit them right where it needed.
Keep them in place until a comprehensive agreement is reached and PUT into place.
Oooooh! The dems are not going to be happy about that!!
Fool me once shame on me, fool me twice....yata yata yata
Keep the pressure on and don't cave in. Let Kimmy dance for us the way he forces his people to dance for him.
Tell NK, "I've got your hostile attitude, RIGHT HERE!"
SEE
Report: U.S., NKorea signed nuclear memo
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070208/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear_us
DISGUSTING APPEASEMENT...Far more dangerous and foul than the complicit sham signed off on by Condy Rice's long-time pal and ideological co-conspirator Madeline Albright.
Oh sure...they shut it down until Bush is out of office...they are already busy enough manufacturing warheads using the enriched material generated...oh...and we get to supply them with the fuel oil necessary to gas up their tanks, trucks, and rockets? What the hell...
Update
NKorea ready to discuss nuke disarmament
BURT HERMAN, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070208/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear
BEIJING - North Korea expressed its readiness Thursday to discuss initial steps of its nuclear disarmament, raising hopes for the first tangible progress at international talks on Pyongyang's atomic weapons program since they began more than three years ago.
"We are prepared to discuss first-stage measures," the North's nuclear envoy Kim Kye Gwan said on arriving in Beijing for the six-nation negotiations set to start later Thursday.
Media reports have suggested the North may agree to freeze its main nuclear reactor and allow international inspectors in exchange for energy aid as a starting step to disarm.
But Kim said any moves by North Korea would be determined by the United States' attitude.
"We are going to make a judgment based on whether the United States will give up its hostile policy and come out toward peaceful coexistence," he said, adding that Washington was "well-aware" of what it had to do.
The North has twice boycotted the talks for more than a year, claiming various U.S. policies show Washington's thinly veiled desire to topple the Pyongyang regime.
"I'm not either optimistic or pessimistic because there are still many points of confrontation to resolve," Kim said.
Earlier Thursday, the main U.S. envoy said he sensed "there is a real desire to have progress" by the North Koreans at the talks.
The lack of any on-the-ground results on disarming the North at the negotiations has raised the issue of the credibility of the talks. Since 2003, they have produced only a single agreement in September 2005 on principles for the North to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for aid and pledges that Washington won't seek the regime's ouster.
South Korea's envoy said Thursday the negotiations were at an "important crossroads" and needed to move beyond words to actions.
"Joint efforts, wisdom and flexibility from all six countries are badly needed now more than any other time," Chun Yung-woo told reporters.
Ahead of this week's round, the North had signaled it was satisfied with changes in the United States' attitude amid an apparent greater willingness on all sides to compromise on issues that deadlocked previous talks.
However, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill denied a report in a Japanese newspaper Thursday that the United States and North Korea had signed a memorandum during bilateral talks last month agreeing that Pyongyang's first steps toward denuclearization and U.S. energy support would begin simultaneously.
"We did not sign anything," Hill told reporters, but added he was hopeful the Beijing talks would lead to progress such as working groups to discuss technical issues.
Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae said the main goal of the current round of talks was to make concrete progress toward disarmament.
"We are prepared to do our utmost toward this goal, and we strongly hope and are certain that North Korea has come prepared to do that," Sasae said in Beijing.
The latest nuclear standoff with the North was sparked in late 2002 after Washington accused Pyongyang of a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of a 1994 deal between the two countries. North Korea kicked out nuclear inspectors and restarted its main reactor, moves that culminated in the country's first-ever test atomic detonation in October.
Although the U.S. and other key North Korean allies China and Russia backed U.N. sanctions in the wake of the nuclear test, Washington has since engaged in a series of diplomatic overtures that have drawn praise from Pyongyang.
That includes Hill's trip to Germany last month to meet Kim. The North said after the sides had reached an unspecified agreement, but the specifics of what they discussed have not been made public.
Washington also has held separate talks on financial restrictions it placed on a Macau bank where the North held accounts, accusing it of complicity in the regime's alleged counterfeiting and money laundering. Blacklisting that bank has scared off other financial institutions from dealings with the North for fears of losing access to the U.S. market.
The North had earlier demanded the financial restrictions be lifted for it to disarm, and refused to talk about anything besides that issue at the last nuclear talks in December.
No end date has been set for this round of talks, but Hill has said the Chinese hosts expected the talks to last a few days and the sides would start reviewing a draft agreement Friday.
___
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang and Hiroko Tabuchi contributed to this report.
how many more years of talks or waiting to have next round of talks?!
I nominate Jack Bauer for Chief Negotiator.
How much money are they asking for?