Free Republic

TOKYO, Dec 27 (Reuters) - North Korea may slow the pace of disablement of its nuclear facilities, blaming a delay in the delivery of energy aid promised under a disarmament deal, Kyodo news agency reported, quoting a Pyongyang official. "There is a delay in the implementation of economic compensation obligations to be undertaken by the other countries in the six-party talks," Hyun Hak Bong, deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's American affairs bureau, was quoted as saying late on Wednesday. "We have no choice but to take measures to adjust" he added, referring to the pace of disablement...

Give Japan Its Due Carl Delfeld, Chartwell Advisor 11.20.07, 6:20 PM ET As part of a deal with North Korea in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, President Bush has decided to take North Korea off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror.This decision was made over the strong protests of Japan, primarily because of North Korea’s stonewalling on providing Japan with any information on a score of its citizens kidnapped by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s. Some of the abductees were schoolchildren on their way home from school. Sure sounds like terror to me. Meanwhile, North Korea...

A series of diplomatic contacts are scheduled this week to help relieve the North Korean nuclear issue. Sources say South Korea plans to send its top nuclear negotiator, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, to Beijing this week to ask China to use more of its influence over North Korea in getting Pyongyang back to the negotiating table. China, in turn, is expected to dispatch a high-level communist party official, Wang Jiarui, to North Korea as early as this weekend. In the meantime, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are reportedly pushing to open a 6-way consultative meeting also comprising North...