I really hope no one got their hopes up about the recent North Korea nuclear agreement because it didn’t take a psychic to know that this was all so predictable:
The United States is strongly refuting North Korea’s claims that it suspended disablement efforts because the U.S. violated six-nation nuclear agreements.
State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood stressed to reporters Wednesday that the U.S. is living up to its obligations under the six-nation nuclear accords. He noted that Washington provided the North with 150-thousand tons of heavy fuel oil worth about 92-million dollars.
Wood said there was an agreement between all the parties of the six-way nuclear talks on the basic principles of guiding the North’s verification process. Wood added it was understood that the North would need to produce a verification package before efforts to remove Pyongyang from the U.S. terrorism blacklist could progress.
Wood said the next thing that Pyongyang needs to do as part of the “action for action” program is produce a verification package, and that once it does, delisting efforts can move forward.
[KBS Global]
Ah yes, that troublesome verification. The six party talks were supposed to be about the United States giving the North Koreans everything they wanted while the North Koreans pretended to give up their nuclear weapon program. Actual verification was something no one was counting on until members of the US Congress got involved and demanded it.
Head over to One Free Korea who has all the details on why this deal went bad.
So does anyone have a Plan B to disarm North Korea?
Popularity: 2%
9:01 pm on August 28th, 2008 1
Oh my god. Unbelievable. Who could have predicted this outcome?
SSDD
Same Shit Different Decade
1:50 am on August 29th, 2008 2
This would be a good time to elect someone who will talk to Kim Jong-il without pre-conditions. What we desperately need is some soaring rhetoric here.
2:14 am on August 29th, 2008 3
Are we back to the death watch for Chris Hill? Big promises followed by cautious optimism followed by caveats followed by skepticism followed by “it was all their fault.” Not only is the DPRK routine getting old, but Chris Hill routine is getting old too.
I know Bush wanted to give it one last shot before he left office just in case it succeeded, but he also set up the preconditions to ensure this whole thing would fail. The Hawks are sitting back grinning from ear-to-ear saying “I told you so.”
To hell with it — Just nuke ‘em till they glow!!! Whoops…what am I saying? I still live here in Korea. Maybe I’ll give Chris Hill another shot.
4:52 am on August 29th, 2008 4
The North seems to have perfected the art of leading diplomats around by the nose. It’s a fairly shrewd strategy — diplomats want to make agreements, and it’s easy to keep one going for a while with hopes of advancing his own career.
Everybody wants to be the Korea Whisperer.
Really though, we should go back to old-fashioned peacemaking methods. Kim Jong-Il should get married with Chris Hill.
8:13 am on September 27th, 2008 5
[...] further show how absurd this is, North Korea rengged on the Agreed Framework 2.0 because they would not allow the verification protocols necessary to confirm they were keeping their end of the bargain. The North Koreans simply took all [...]