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It took over a month, but the NYT has finally published a backhanded admission that it was the Bush administration--not North Korea-- that violated the Korean peninsula denuclearization agreement and seems to have scuttled the entire negotiation. As North Korea declared last month, the US was obliged under the "action for action" agreement to remove it from its "terror list" in return for NK's nuclear declaration and substantial
dismantling of its Yongbyon nuclear facility by August 11. When it refused to meet that obligation and instead demanded NK meet wholly new conditions on verification not part of the agreement before it would take NK off that list.The Koreans cried "foul" and after several warnings to the US to meet its obligation, finally decided to restart its facility and tell the US it no longer wants off the list. The US has consistently maintained NK is bluffing.
A long article "Korea Bars Monitors" (Sept 25) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/wo...html?ref=asia, reported:
"North Korea’s negotiators have strenuously complained that the Bush administration has yet to fulfill its promise to remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, as President Bush announced in June that he was prepared to do, and instead has made new demands.
Those include requiring North Korea to accept the verification system before the United States would carry out reciprocal steps, a condition that a senior administration official acknowledged was not put in writing." The anonymous official was probably Chris Hill, who negotiated the agreement and knew that agreement did not condition the US "terror" delisting on a NK agreement on verification.
The article goes on to quote former officials in a more nuanced--but not altogether clear-way than previous reporting.
“It is, I think, more serious than just brinkmanship on the part of the North Koreans,” said Charles L. Pritchard, a former ambassador and special envoy for talks with North Korea who is now president of the Korean Economic Institute in Washington. “They’re trying to recoup what they’ve given away for nothing, from their point of view.”
Derek J. Mitchell, a former Defense Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the American insistence on extracting a verification system was justified and probably difficult for Mr. Bush and his most hawkish aides to accept otherwise.
“I’m not sure any action can be taken, or is politically viable, without a demonstration of North Korean good faith,” he said.
At the same time, though, Mr. Mitchell noted that the United States had so far not conceded much, undercutting the process.
While Mr. Bush gave Congress 45 days notice that he intended to remove North Korea from a list of terrorist sponsors, he did not take that step before that window closed on Aug. 11. Also, he lifted sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act but imposed new ones under a little publicized emergency declaration he issued the same day in June.
“We haven’t given up much yet,” Mr. Mitchell said, adding that he, like others, assumed that there was little chance for an agreement during the final months of this administration. “Meanwhile, they have frozen their program. It is step by step, action for action. We can’t cut corners.”
visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
dismantling of its Yongbyon nuclear facility by August 11. When it refused to meet that obligation and instead demanded NK meet wholly new conditions on verification not part of the agreement before it would take NK off that list.The Koreans cried "foul" and after several warnings to the US to meet its obligation, finally decided to restart its facility and tell the US it no longer wants off the list. The US has consistently maintained NK is bluffing.
A long article "Korea Bars Monitors" (Sept 25) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/wo...html?ref=asia, reported:
"North Korea’s negotiators have strenuously complained that the Bush administration has yet to fulfill its promise to remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, as President Bush announced in June that he was prepared to do, and instead has made new demands.
Those include requiring North Korea to accept the verification system before the United States would carry out reciprocal steps, a condition that a senior administration official acknowledged was not put in writing." The anonymous official was probably Chris Hill, who negotiated the agreement and knew that agreement did not condition the US "terror" delisting on a NK agreement on verification.
The article goes on to quote former officials in a more nuanced--but not altogether clear-way than previous reporting.
“It is, I think, more serious than just brinkmanship on the part of the North Koreans,” said Charles L. Pritchard, a former ambassador and special envoy for talks with North Korea who is now president of the Korean Economic Institute in Washington. “They’re trying to recoup what they’ve given away for nothing, from their point of view.”
Derek J. Mitchell, a former Defense Department official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the American insistence on extracting a verification system was justified and probably difficult for Mr. Bush and his most hawkish aides to accept otherwise.
“I’m not sure any action can be taken, or is politically viable, without a demonstration of North Korean good faith,” he said.
At the same time, though, Mr. Mitchell noted that the United States had so far not conceded much, undercutting the process.
While Mr. Bush gave Congress 45 days notice that he intended to remove North Korea from a list of terrorist sponsors, he did not take that step before that window closed on Aug. 11. Also, he lifted sanctions under the Trading With the Enemy Act but imposed new ones under a little publicized emergency declaration he issued the same day in June.
“We haven’t given up much yet,” Mr. Mitchell said, adding that he, like others, assumed that there was little chance for an agreement during the final months of this administration. “Meanwhile, they have frozen their program. It is step by step, action for action. We can’t cut corners.”
visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
Just the other day, NK asked the IAEA to remove seals on their nuclear weapons program. Yet again, the U.S. has destabilized the world.
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