Free Republic

US Wants to Block All of N. Korea's Financial Deals By Park Song-wu Staff Reporter A ranking U.S. official said in New York on Monday that the international community should ensure that all rogue states’ financial activities are stopped, whether they are ``seemingly legitimate or illicit.’’ Stuart Levey, the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that financial institutions must implement effective programs, including targeted financial sanctions, to combat threats from terrorist groups and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction such as North Korea. His remarks came as the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs set to...

N Korea 'refusing to restart' nuke talks From correspondents in Moscow December 06, 2006 SIX-way talks on North Korea cannot restart this year or in the foreseeable future because of "unacceptable" US conditions, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a North Korean diplomatic source as saying today. "The demands the United States put forward at consultations between the heads of delegations to the six-way talks ... which took place in Beijing on November 28 and 29, are unacceptable for North Korea," the agency quoted the source as saying. "As a result, the renewal of the negotiation process in December 2006 is...

N.Korea Six Party talks unlikely before '07: Russia 1 hour, 29 minutes ago Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said on Tuesday the next meeting of the Six Party talks on North Korea was unlikely to take place before 2007, Interfax news agency reported. Reclusive North Korea has agreed to return to the stalled talks -- also including South Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia -- which it had boycotted for a year. Some had expected the talks to resume in December. "Taking into consideration the coming Christmas holidays, every day the possibility that the talks will restart...

No date set for N Korea nuke talks From correspondents in Beijing November 29, 2006 09:15pm THE US, China, and North Korea agreed today to reconvene six-nation talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs "as soon as possible", China said, without giving a date. A statement released by China's Foreign Ministry said envoys from the three nations held "frank discussions" on the issue in Beijing today. "The three sides agreed to strive to convene the next round of six-party talks at an early date and to achieve positive progress," said the statement, which gave no other details. It was not...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Another Nuclear Test Likely in Late Dec. or Early Next Year (SK opposition lawmaker) Kim Jong-il's internal directive, "Act Confidently at 6-party talks as a nuclear power." [2006-11-29 11:34 ] There are reportedly indications that N. Korea would go for another nuclear test in late December or early next year. Chung Hyung-geun, an opposition lawmaker at Intelligence Committee of National Assembly, maintained on Nov. 29, "Various indications have been picked up which show that, if U.S. does not agree to lift economic sanctions, including unfreezing of (N. Korean) accounts at Banco Delta Asia, N. Korea...

Report: N. Korea won't abandon nukes 1 hour, 14 minutes ago A senior North Korean diplomat strongly indicated that his country has no plans to abandon nuclear weapons, despite its agreement to return to six-nation disarmament talks, according to news reports Wednesday. North Korea's deputy foreign minister, Kang Sok Ju, speaking to a group of reporters while passing through Beijing from Russia, instead demanded that the United States lift financial sanctions against the North, Japan's NHK television and Kyodo News agency said. Kang said North Korea had not tested nuclear weapons only to get rid of them, the reports said....

China Drowning In A 'Swamp Called N. Korea'/begin my translation China Drowning In A 'Swamp Called N. Korea'Huh Min "This is really depressing," deplores a reputable ethnic Korean professor teaching political science at a prestigious educational institution in Beijing, China, when he met the reporter on July 13. The comment reflects the sense of resignation that China has tried everything to defuse N. Korean missile crisis as if its life depended on it, but failed in the end, rendering all possible means useless. His comment was full of disappointment at N. Korea, his grandfather's country, and Kim Jong-il regime.Truly, the dismay and embarrassment Chinese authorities...

U.S. Stance Hardening Against North JULY 10, 2006 03:03 by Jung-Ahn Kim, Myoung-Gun Lee (credo@donga.com gun43@donga.com) On July 9, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator for the six-party talks, referred to a series of missiles launched by North Korea as “Intimidation targeting not only the U.S. but also all [neighboring countries].” Hill, who is on his visit to participating countries of the six-party talks after the North Korean missile launch, reiterated so in an interview on the day with the Dong-A Ilbo at the residence of the U.S. ambassador to Korea in Jeong-dong, Jung-gu, Seoul...

N.Korea’s Nuke Negotiator Digs In After Snub from U.S. North Korean chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan talks to reporters in Tokyo on Thursday. Hill Snubs N.Korea’s Chief Nuclear Negotiator In N.K. Diplomacy, Seoul Rushes in Where Others Fear to Tread Why N.Korea Insists on Getting Its US$24 Million Back North Korea's chief delegate in stalled six-party talks on the country's nuclear ambitions has hinted a continuing delay in the talks is no problem for Pyongyang since it can always make more nuclear weapons. Kim Kye-gwan said the North can “always take stronger measure” after being snubbed by his U.S. counterpart...

U.S. Nuke Negotiator Has Nothing to Say to N.Korea The U.S. representative in stalled six-way talks on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Christopher Hill, on Monday reiterated he has no plans for a meeting with his North Korean counterpart, who is attending the same forum in Tokyo. Arriving to take part in the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) meeting, Hill told reporters the aim was not to arrange a bilateral meeting but to persuade North Korea to come back to the six-party negotiations. The assistant secretary of state said discussions with North Korea had already been held in January in Beijing...

Kim Jong-il to Make Ground-Breaking Indonesia Trip North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will visit Indonesia in the near future after accepting an invitation from a special envoy for the Indonesian president, Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan reported Friday. Pyongyang has also asked Jakarta to act as a mediator in six-nation talks aimed at dismantling the North’s nuclear program. Presidential envoy Nana Sutresna, who visited both Pyongyang and Seoul recently, invited Kim to visit Indonesia “at an appropriate time,” and Indonesian officials said Kim was “willing to accept” the invitation, the weekly reported. Kim’s visit to Indonesia would be his first to...

March 10, 2006 U.S. Squeezes North Korea's Money Flow By JOEL BRINKLEY WASHINGTON, March 9 — Six months after the Bush administration blacklisted a bank in Macao accused of laundering money for the North Korean government, senior administration officials say the action has proved to be far more effective than anyone had dreamed. Banks around the world are limiting their dealings with North Korea, and the nation's leadership is complaining with a vigor unusual even for that government. "It really struck a nerve," a senior administration official said with a smile. It also has given new energy to those in...

N. Korea Sets Terms for Return to Nuclear Talks By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 9, 2006; Page A16 In a rare meeting between U.S. and North Korean officials this week, North Korea pressed the United States to end efforts to stem alleged money-laundering and counterfeiting activities, warning that otherwise it would not return to the six-nation talks on its nuclear programs. Li Gun, the senior North Korean official at the meeting, made four requests, according to a U.S. official familiar with the talks. They included demanding that the United States remove what he called "financial sanctions,"...

North Korea's Kim Jong-Il visits China: reports SEOUL (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has travelled to China by special train on a rare visit to the isolated country's key ally, according to media reports here. ADVERTISEMENT The train carrying the reclusive North Korean leader passed through the Chinese border town of Dandong amid tight security before dawn on Tuesday, reports quoted unidentified sources as saying. "The scene was quite similar to one in April 2004, when Kim Jong-il visited China by a special train," Yonhap news agency quoted a source as saying. South Korea's National Intelligence Agency told...

Saturday October 22, 5:34 PM Hill likely to give up visiting N. Korea, faces U.S. hard-liners (Kyodo) _ Christopher Hill, the top U.S. negotiator for the six-party nuclear talks, is likely to give up his plan to visit North Korea before the six meet for the fifth round in early November, U.S. and other six-party sources said Saturday. The sources attributed it to the tough conditions set by hard-liners in the U.S. administration who are insisting on the need for the visit to produce such concrete results as Pyongyang halting operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex. A U.S. congressional source...

Seoul Denies Hill Chafed at Energy Offer to N.Korea The Foreign Ministry on Friday denied reports that the U.S chief negotiator in six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program accused Seoul of undermining negotiations in the last round. A Japanese daily earlier reported Christopher Hill told a closed-door seminar that South Korea’s offer of massive energy aid to the North was making things too easy for Pyongyang. However, the ministry official on Friday conceded that “the negative view toward Seoul’s role in negotiations with Pyongyang is widespread in Washington.” Government officials involved in the six-party talks expect negotiators to make...

September 20, 2005 Yes, Parallel Tracks to North, but Parallel Tracks Don't Meet By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 - After four years of bitter arguments over whether to negotiate with North Korea or try to engineer its collapse, the accord President Bush grudgingly approved Sunday evening provided the bare minimum - an agreement in principle that the North would end a five-decade pursuit of nuclear weapons, the only card the erratic nation has to play to get the world to pay attention to its demands. But even to get that, Mr. Bush had to blink slightly, acknowledging that...

Will Agreement Shake Cooperation Between Seoul and WashingtonThe second part of the fourth round of the six-party talks, which reconvened on Sept. 13, went through considerable ups and downs prior to the announcement of a joint statement Monday. The South Korean government spent the last week engaging in last-moment negotiations to find an agreement over the light-water reactor issue, which North Korea would not abandon to the end, despite considerable tensions between Seoul and Washington. Some, however, are wondering whether Seoul’s assumption of a mediating role between the United States and North Korea might become a burden on South Korea-U.S....

Six-Party Talks Grind On Six-party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear dispute ground into their third day in Beijing on Thursday with few signs of any progress as North Korea reportedly continued to insist it should be given civilian-use light-water reactors. An official connected to the talks said things were unclear and there was little hope of a breakthrough. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill leaves his hotel in Beijing on Thursday to attend a conference of top negotiators of the six-party talks, which aim to resolve the North Korean...

/begin my translationSankei, "N. Korea to Provide Nuclear Warhead Info to a Mid-East Country" Tokyo, Yonhap News 2005/09/15N. Korean military is dead set against 6-party talks, and is still passing to a friendly Mid-East country (technical) information on (miniaturized) nuclear warhead for ballistic missiles, according to a report by Sankei Shimbun (of Japan,) dispatched from Beijing on Sept. 15 (2005.) Sankei quoted an intelligence source, which said that, for more than a year, a senior figure of N. Korean military has been passing data on their implosion device of nuclear warhead to a military attache at the embassy of the Mid-East country in Pyongyang.  The source claimed, "N. Korea would not (ordinarily) share...