Posted on 01/12/2003 8:42:38 PM PST by flamefront
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
The United States is willing to consider energy aid for North Korea if it ends nuclear weapons development, a U.S. envoy said Monday.
The comments by Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly raised the possibility that the United States was willing to make a deal with North Korea to resolve concerns over its nuclear activities.
"Once we get beyond nuclear weapons, there may be opportunities with the U.S., with private investors, with other countries to help North Korea in the energy area," Kelly said at a news conference in Seoul.
U.S. officials previously said they would not reward North Korea for abandoning its nuclear programs, saying discussions of aid and better ties must follow steps to dismantle those programs.
But Kelly appeared to be offering a "carrot" to North Korea, which insisted Sunday that it never admitted having a secret nuclear program, sending another conflicting signal in the escalating crisis over its alleged plans to build nuclear weapons.
"We are willing to talk to North Korea about their response to the international community," on the nuclear issue, Kelly said, echoing recent comments by other U.S. officials.
"I think we're just going to wait to see."
In October, the United States said North Korea admitted having a weapons program. That announcement touched off the latest standoff, which has led to North Korea's decision last week to withdraw from the landmark Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"The claim that we admitted developing nuclear weapons is an invention fabricated by the U.S. with sinister intentions," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper as saying.
It was not clear if the statement was aimed at influencing a new round of talks on resolving the crisis.
Kelly arrived in South Korea on Sunday and met President-elect Roh Moo-hyun, who believes diplomacy is the only solution to the current crisis. Kelly also planned to meet Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong and two presidential security advisers - Yim Sung-joon and Lim Dong-won.
Kelly will travel Tuesday to China, as well as Singapore, Indonesia and Japan.
The United States believes North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons and could make several more within six months if it extracts weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods at a reprocessing plant.
The North Korean newspaper blamed the United States for the current crisis and warned: "If the United States evades its responsibility and challenges us, we'll turn the citadel of imperialists into a sea of fire."
In the October announcement, the United States said the North admitted having an atomic weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord, under which Pyongyang pledged to freeze operations at its nuclear facilities in exchange for energy supplies.
In response to that admission, the United States suspended fuel shipments and the North said it would bring reactors at its Yongbyon nuclear facility back on line.
After announcing its withdrawal from the treaty Friday, North Korea ratcheted up tensions even further by suggesting it might resume missile testing.
On Saturday, North Korean leaders vowed at a rally attended by 1 million people to "smash U.S. nuclear maniacs" in a "holy war."
But North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Han Song Ryol told New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, that the country had no intention of building nuclear bombs.
"He told me that in a dialogue with the United States, North Korea would discuss America's concerns over verifying its nuclear program. I think that's positive," Richardson said Saturday at the end of three days of meetings with the North Koreans.
Kelly said the North Korean envoys did not cover any new ground.
"It was a little disappointing, because we really hadn't heard anything from the North Koreans speaking to him that we hadn't heard in their public pronouncements before that," he said.
Also Saturday, a North Korean official said its nuclear plant north of Pyongyang was ready for operation.
The threat of new missile tests came from the North's ambassador to China, Choe Jin Su, who said tests could resume if U.S. relations do not improve.
New tests would be the first since 1998, when North Korea shot a missile over Japan into the Pacific. Pyongyang later set a moratorium on tests which was to last into 2004.
Another official left open the possibility of the North reprocessing spent fuel rods from its nuclear reactor to make atomic bombs. Son Mun San, who oversees Pyongyang's relations with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Vienna, Austria, that the reprocessing plant now stands in a state of "readiness."
Since the nuclear standoff resumed, the North has removed seals placed on one of its nuclear facilities by IAEA monitors and expelled two U.N. inspectors.
During a visit to Russia that ended Sunday, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi urged North Korea to rescind its decision to pull out of the treaty.
"That is what's best for North Korea, for the international community," he said. "And this is true for the United States as well."
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Well, I'm not leaving Bush just yet. I want to know how much is North Korea asking to NOT build nuclear weapons. (Now that Bush has flip flopped)
You think it'll be $4 billion? $6 billion?
Of course, once Bush/Powell walk away smiling thinking its all done. NKorea will secretly continue to make nuclear weapons.
I'm too lazy to read the entire article, but the first occurrence of "Bush" on this page is in post #11 by PolishProud. The word "president" is only used in the article to refer to the Korean president. The word "administration" first occurs in post #16. "White House" occurs nowhere.
Why do you guys think this is Bush's baby?
In fact, the rationale for attacking Iraq becomes very hazy indeed when you consider the fact that North Korea is a much bigger threat to the world, both with regards to nuclear weapons and its ties to terrorism and Al 'Qaeda.
The fact of the matter is, the Bush Administration has VIOLATED the key tenants of it's so-called "War on Terrorism".
The key tenant, expressed by the President himself, is that "we don't deal with terrorists."
Kim Jong il is personally responsible for directing the training of Ms. Kim Hyeong Hee and her male N.K. spy colleague, to travel to the middle east and plant a bomb on a Korean Airlines jet, which then burst into flames over the Andaman Sea, killing over 150 S. Korean passengers. He directed an elaborate network of kidnapping of innocent Japanese civilians on seashores in Western Japan, some of whom he personally sentenced to death for lack of cooperation once kipnapped to North Korea. He designed and ordered a bombing at a trash container at Kimpo Airport in Seoul in 1987 which killed a person, in advance of the Olympic Games. He ordered and directed through his Intelligence Directorate the assassination of a large portion of President Chun Do Hwan's cabinet visiting the Aung Saun Masoleaum in Rangoon, Burma, by recruiting 4-6 agents and dispatching them on the mission on a cargo ship under cover of "commerce".
Kim Jong il is a terrorist who has directed terrorist actions. President Bush, through his administration, (and intially through discredited Clinton Administration intermediaries with Bill Clinton participating in the background) has shown they will talk and offer incentives to a known terrorist, Kim Jong il. "WTF", is right!
I would like to see a conservative member of Congress (maybe even McCain would do it along wit Kyl) to ask in a letter to The White House that in view of these terrorist plots and crimes in the 1980s and 1990s by INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST Kim Jong-il, would they please add his name to the list of known terrorists operating worldwide?
The answer would be a throat clearing, restrained and nervous 'no'. Why?
I think this Administration may well be proving itself to be a sham in violating its own principles it has stated time and again.
From the White House website itself, under terrorism, the Administration says that 'the stronger the ( adversarial) nation gets in developing WMD, the less chance for confronting them'. This was the whole doctrine of "preemptive" protection! Even they admit to nuclear blackmail possibilities in their War on Terrorism treatise.
And that is what Kim Jong il has JUST done to the United States. Wake up and smell the coffee, Republican.
Bush won't settle for promises. He wants to bring down the regime, and he's being advised by people who know how to do it.
Once the terms of the 'deal' become known, you'll see this for what it is. A publicity stunt to look reasonable to the leftists, South Koreans, and other Asian countries, to facilitate an iron clad multilateral case at the U.N. for sanctions later. Sanctions that will bring them down hard.
"We tried everything we could, but some people, you just can't reason with."
If you look back on how Bush handles things, you'll see that he has been doing this for years now. He keeps people off balance, uses simple misdirection, and somehow keeps winding up at the finish line first. It apparently works as well on FReepers as it does Democrats.
We will bookmark it, though, and see how it comes out. Perhaps it will be an outcome based on the combine predictions and insights of the both of us..... :-)
Bad, Bad policy! The child will continue to thwart the parent as he knows that every time he throws a tantrum he will come out it with a piece of candy or some other reward – for being a brat.
Rush was asking this morning why are all of the other counties, Japan, Russia, Europe etc. looking to the United States to fix the spoiled child problem rather than take it to the United Nations. The absence of Kofi, Jimmy Carter and the other liberal vocalists, is alarmingly silent. Somehow the old and ineffective Clinton team of the 90’s has been thrown in as the sage advisors. How did that happen? By design, since they created the problem maybe they can fix it this time around? I don’t think so! The brat NK is throwing a tantrum just because he can and has gotten away with it in the past with the Clintons and Albright.
President Bush must stand strong on his decision not to bail the rotten spoiled child out this time. The Clinton gang will only mess up things one more time just possibly sending the SK’s in to action sooner than anyone thought possible. North Korea is Part Of The Axis of Evil make no mistake about it.
Will we ever be rid of the duplicitous Clintons and their messes...???
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