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Report: N. Korean leader regrets test
15 minutes ago
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il expressed regret about his country's nuclear test to a Chinese delegation and said Pyongyang would return to international nuclear talks if Washington backs off a campaign to financially isolate the country, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.
"If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks," Kim was quoted as telling a Chinese envoy, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported, citing a diplomatic source in China.
Kim told the Chinese delegation that "he is sorry about the nuclear test," the newspaper reported.
The delegation led by State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan met Kim on Thursday and returned to Beijing later that day ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's arrival in the Chinese capital Friday. China is viewed as a key nation in efforts to persuade the North to disarm, as it is the isolated communist nation's main trading partner.
North Korea has long insisted that the U.S. desist from a campaign to sever its ties to the international financial system. Washington accuses Pyongyang of complicity in counterfeiting and money laundering to sell weapons of mass destruction.
The North has refused since last November to return to the nuclear talks, which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. Pyongyang has sought bolster its negotiating position by a series of provocative actions, test-firing a barrage of missiles in July and performing its first-ever nuclear test Oct. 9.
A SK paper citing an unnamed Chinese diplomatic source? Are we buying this? It's always all about the US whenever NK speaks. This time NK speaks through a Chinese guy to an SK paper. Hmmm. And the message is: NK wants America to reduce financial pressure before it returns to talks. What a sweet deal.Chosun Ilbo reported, citing a diplomatic source in China.
And the message is: NK wants America to reduce financial pressure before it returns to talks. What a sweet deal.
What are you referring to? I was being sarcastic about a "sweet deal."And the other option is?
October 20, 2006
China May Press North Koreans
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING, Oct. 19 China is prepared to step up pressure on North Korea in coming weeks by reducing oil shipments, among other measures, if the country refuses to return to negotiations or conducts more nuclear tests, Chinese government advisers and scholars who have discussed the matter with the leadership say.
If Beijing does take a tougher line on its neighbor and longtime ally, the action is likely to bolster its relationship with the United States. Washington has urged Chinese leaders to use all the tools at their disposal to put additional pressure on Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader.
Among the most potent of those tools is oil. China provides an estimated 80 to 90 percent of North Koreas oil imports, shipped by pipeline at undisclosed prices that Chinese officials say represent a steep discount from the world market price. Any reduction in that aid could severely hamper North Koreas already faltering economy.
Several leading Chinese experts said senior officials had indicated in the past week that they planned to slap new penalties on North Korea going beyond the ban on sales of military equipment imposed by the United Nations. But they would be likely to hold off if Mr. Kim agreed to return soon to multilateral talks North Korea has boycotted since September 2005. Years of talks have produced meager results.
Discussions about how to respond to the nuclear test, which was described by one expert as a political earthquake for Chinese leaders, come amid a flurry of diplomacy aimed at ironing out enforcement of United Nations sanctions and luring Mr. Kim back to negotiations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is to arrive here Friday to meet with Chinese officials. On Thursday in Pyongyang, Mr. Kim met a delegation sent by President Hu Jintao of China, the first diplomatic contact with the North Korean leader since the nuclear test on Oct. 9.
There was no immediate word on what Mr. Kim told the Chinese, but Beijing experts said he would most likely have declined to meet with the delegation, headed by a cabinet-level official, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, unless he hoped to head off additional penalties by promising to resume negotiations.
China is going to have to make some crucial choices in the coming days, said one senior international relations specialist who has participated in top-level discussions of the matter but asked to remain anonymous. I think Chinese leaders are prepared to take a hard line, but Kim may be smart enough to try to divide China and the U.S.
China and the United States already have some differences over how to enforce the United Nations sanctions that they and the rest of the Security Council voted for last Saturday. Beijing says it will not interdict North Korean cargo ships at sea, as the United States and Japan have recommended, and has warned against seeking to use the sanctions to provoke a confrontation.
All sides need to consider how to implement Resolution 1718 in a balanced way and not devise ways to willfully expand the sanctions, Liu Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Thursday, referring to the Security Council resolution banning the sale or transfer of missile- or nuclear-weapons-related goods to North Korea. Sanctions are the signal, not the goal.
But Chinese experts who have taken part in discussions about how to manage the situation said that after North Koreas missile tests in July, Chinese leaders concluded that Mr. Kim might not negotiate a way out of the impasse unless he had no other choice. Officials felt badly stung by the nuclear test and have dug in their heels on ending the nuclear program there, the experts said.
China has opposed military action or an embargo to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to its Korean War ally and has subsidized Mr. Kims its government despite gross human rights violations. But it is also wary that Mr. Kim may set off an arms race in Northeast Asia and prompt Japan and South Korea, and even Taiwan, to seek nuclear weapons.
Beijings relations with North Korea have been strained for many years, and some Chinese officials argue that Mr. Kim wants a nuclear trump card to intimidate China as much as the United States.
In the wake of the test, President Hu renewed his governments commitment to a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, and ruled out recognizing North Korea, as a fellow nuclear power, they said.
I believe that Chinese leaders are firmly resolved to roll back the nuclear program and not accept it as an accomplished fact, said Zhang Liangui, a Korea expert at the Communist Partys Central Party School in Beijing who has favored taking a tougher line.
I do not think that the resolve of the Chinese leadership is going to be less than the resolve of the American leadership, he said.
Others agreed, arguing that as long as the Bush administration kept its focus on a diplomatic solution, China would work to maintain solidarity with the United States.
The only issue that they do not agree on is interdiction at sea, said Xu Guangyu, a retired general who is now a member of the Chinese Arms Control and Disarmament Association, a government-sponsored institute. For the most part the United States has responded to this with the right tone, so I dont see a major obstacle to cooperation.
Mr. Xu said the question now was not whether China and the United States could maintain common ground, but rather how Mr. Kim would respond to the universal condemnation of his test. The matter is in his hands, Mr. Xu said. If he returns to negotiating, the pressure will ease. If he conducts another test, that would be very reckless.
Chinese officials have already begun carrying out measures intended to increase the pressure.
Customs officers have begun inspecting cargo passing through Dandong, a major trading post with North Korea. China Southern Airlines, the only Chinese carrier that flies to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, announced that it had suspended service to the city.
Chinese banks, fearing possible freezes on assets, have restricted some forms of transactions involving North Korean interests while expanding a crackdown on suspected laundering of drug money and counterfeiting by individuals and front companies associated with North Korea, according to Chinese officials and local news reports.
More important, Chinese officials have discussed staged reductions in oil shipments if North Korea ignores international pressure, scholars who have been told about the leaderships planning said.
Beijing is also North Koreas leading provider of grain, but is not likely to suspend food shipments. North Korea suffers severe food shortages, with about a third of the population depending on imported grain.
China has not threatened publicly to cut off oil supplies, and it has resisted imposing economic sanctions. Instead, it has emphasized reviving the six-nation nuclear talks that collapsed a year ago. At least superficially, that puts China on the same page as the United States, which has called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
China has put much more emphasis on the process of negotiating than has the United States, which has expressed interest only in the results. Beijing argues that resuming talks would de-escalate the crisis, giving Mr. Kim an incentive to freeze his nuclear activities and making it possible to find a peaceful way out.
Some Chinese experts speculate that Mr. Kim, having proved that he has mastered at least the basics of manufacturing atomic bombs, may now be willing to return to the table, feeling he can demand a higher price for agreeing to discontinue the program.
Kim has done nothing but anger China for the last few months, said Shi Yinhong, a foreign policy expert at Peoples University in Beijing. But he could be smart enough to make a concession now, just before Rice visits, to create some trouble for the United States.
After Mr. Kim twice ignored Chinas stern warnings first when he tested ballistic missiles in July, and then when he exploded a nuclear device close to the Chinese border many officials here felt chagrined about having sheltered him, people who discussed the situation with the leadership said.
The people who were the most critical of Kim in the past were a minority, said one scholar. But they have a bigger voice now. The people who had the most favorable interpretations of Kims actions are for now keeping quiet.
There has been a large amount of MSM disinformation and whistling-by-the-graveyard analysis regarding the NK nuke situation. Much of it suiting the needs of Chinese propagandists. The news report about NK being sorry is an example of this. The story, reported from China, by a left wing newspaper in SK, cites unattributed sources from China (so it cannot be checked), and attempts to shift pressure to resolve the situation to Washington. I remain convinced that NK had at least tacit agreement from China to perform the nuke test. This stems from the Chinese-NK failure to extract DPRK diplomatic recognition and security guarantees from the Americans in the six-party talks. I will not repeat here the Chinese rationale for maintaining and guaranteeing a divided Korean Peninsula (posted in other threads on this topic). We need to very carefully inspect all news reports and media analysis on the NK nuke problem to see if they make sense in the real world context of the struggle between Beijing and Washington for power on the Korean Peninsula.Cracks Appear in US-Korea Front
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20061020&ID=6119591
The US and South Korea tried to present a united front on the North Korean nuclear crisis on Thursday, again warning of "grave consequences" if there were a second test. But they remained at odds over how to punish Kim Jong-il's regime.
As China sent a special envoy to Pyongyang to speak directly to Mr Kim about last week's nuclear test, Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, arrived in Seoul amid stern domestic criticism of Washington's apparent attempts to pressure the South Korean government to stop economic engagement with the North.
The South Korean government says it may "improve", rather than suspend its joint tourism and commercial projects with North Korea but US officials have made clear they view the Mount Kumgang tourist resort as a cash cow for the North. South Korea has sent about $950m (758m, £508m) to North Korea since tours began in 1998.
Ms Rice told a news conference on Thursday, after meeting Roh Moo-hyun, South Korea's president, and Ban Ki-moon, foreign minister: "I did not come to South Korea, nor will I go anywhere else, to try to dictate to governments what they ought to do in response to [United Nations] resolution 1718.
"What I do think is very important is that everyone takes stock of the leverage we have to get North Korea to return to the six-party talks and to negotiate the serious dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programme."
The day before the talks, Song Min-soon, the president's chief security adviser, suggested at a conference that the US needed to pay more attention to South Korea's unique security situation, adding that the US "has fought more wars than any other nation in the history of its establishment and survival." Does this sound like the attitude of an ally? Does it sound like someone who has any appreciation of how many South Koreans, Americans, Australians, and others, died to save SK from NK and the Chinese?
In addition to the inter-Korean co-operation projects, the two parties are at odds over South Korea's involvement in the proliferation security initiative aimed at interdicting ships carrying weapons of mass destruction technology. But Seoul is reluctant to join, again for fear of upsetting the fragile security balance. What security balance? The one where NK sets off nukes in an attempt to extort what it and the Chinese want from the Americans: namely DPRK diplomatic recognition and security guarantees.
However, Ms Rice and Mr Ban insisted the US-South Korean alliance "could not be stronger", with Ms Rice saying they were now discussing how inspections and interdiction at sea might work. She said: "The US has no desire to do anything to escalate this. The key is to live up to the obligations that all of us undertook that North Korea should not be able to traffic in weapons or weapons technology, nor should they be able to receive help, assistance, financing for their nuclear weapons programmes."
Meanwhile, Mr Ban warned North Korea that a second test would "aggravate" the situation. "We agreed that, in case it happens, there should be more grave consequences." No doubt that statement scared the shit out of Pyongyang.
In Beijing, the Chinese foreign ministry said Tang Jianxuan, the state councillor, had been sent to Pyong-yang as a special envoy for President Hu Jiantao and had met Kim Jong-il on Thursday. The foreign ministry said the visit was "very meaningful to the relations between the two countries".
Ms Rice said she had not yet received a "read out" on the meeting.
Oh well! They said they are sorry...that changes everything!
What are you referring to? I was being sarcastic about a "sweet deal."
NK wants America to reduce financial pressure before it returns to talks.
Ovviously, we are trying to isolate and contain NK while squeezing then economically. But we are not getting cooperation from SK and China. What are your suggestions? Maybe you should give Dr. Rice a call, if you can think of better responses than we are currently using.So right now what are the other options to basicly giving in to some of their demands and ending up on the short end of the stick?
Ovviously, we are trying to isolate and contain NK while squeezing then economically. But we are not getting cooperation from SK and China. What are your suggestions? Maybe you should give Dr. Rice a call, if you can think of better responses than we are currently using.
Why not just sit down for direct talks? Seems to me that's all he really wants. He's stamping his feet and asking for attention, I know. But seems it would be more fruitful than what's going on now.
And I would tell Condi, but I doubt she'd listen.
jillian, what he wants is something we cannot give: official US diplomatic recognition of the murder regime running the DPRK, and he wants a security guarantee that he and his thugs will never be attacked. No administration, Democrat or Republican, has ever given, or will ever give, those things to a pack of killers with nukes. Further, he wants to extort food, fuel, cash, etc. Should we give those things to the hermit kingdom while it has a nuclear gun to the head of our allies? We all know the answer.Why not just sit down for direct talks? Seems to me that's all he really wants. He's stamping his feet and asking for attention, I know. But seems it would be more fruitful than what's going on now. And I would tell Condi, but I doubt she'd listen.
