Tuesday, November 23, 2010

North Korea promises to dismantle one of its nuke programs?

Meanwhile, amidst North Korea showing off its latest nuke initiative and then shelling a South Korean island, DPRK officials supposedly said they'd scrap one of their nuclear programs in exchange for an American promise not to attack them.

From the Washington Post:
The North Korean government told a team of visiting American experts last week that it would effectively dismantle one of its nuclear weapons programs if the United States again pledged that it had "no hostile intent" toward the government of Kim Jong Il, a member of the delegation said.

Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, said North Korean officials told him and other visitors that the government in Pyongyang is willing to transfer all of its nuclear fuel rods, which can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, to a third country. In exchange, North Korea wants to have the United States reiterate its commitment to a joint communique issued by the two countries in October 2007, which included a statement that the United States bears no ill will toward North Korea.
Frankly, I don't know what to make of this, but then Washington couldn't help Seoul kick your asses over what you pulled on Yŏnpyŏng-do Island. More and more, maybe the revelations to Hecker were just a bargaining tool.

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