North Korea To Disarm?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The WorldI’m not going to put a ton of stock in this until we see some serious movement. Anybody who’s seen documentaries, like “Welcome To North Korea”, know that the leadership in the country is seriously insane. And I don’t use the term “insane” lightly.
Still, this news is certainly positive.
BEIJING – North Korea pledged to drop its nuclear weapons development and rejoin international arms treaties in a unanimous agreement Monday at six-party arms talks, the first ever after more than two years of negotiations.The North “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early dateâ€Â? to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, according to the agreement by the six countries at the talks.
Negotiators agreed to hold more talks in November, where they were expected to move on to concrete discussions about implementing the broad principles outlined in Monday’s agreement. The main U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has warned that could still be a long process.
A long process indeed.
However, they also want a light-water nuclear reactor, which this administration doesn’t want them to have. The light-water process basically makes the harvesting of nuclear material necessary for the building of a bomb much, much harder.
In short, the need for power is at issue. If you look at world map at night, North Korea has pretty much NO power at night. In order to join the world community, they need power 24/7.
North Korea has also refused to totally disarm without getting concessions along the way, while Washington has said it wants to see the weapons programs totally dismantled before granting rewards. The statement, however, says the sides agreed to take steps to implement the agreement “in a phased manner in line with the principle of ‘commitment for commitment, action for action.�’The other countries at the talks said they were willing give energy assistance to the North, including a South Korean plan to deliver electricity across the heavily armed border dividing the peninsula.
And by the way, North Korea does have a just argument regarding the light-water reactors.
North Korea was promised two light-water reactors under a 1994 deal with Washington to abandon its nuclear weapons. That agreement fell apart in late 2002 with the outbreak of the latest nuclear crisis, when U.S. officials say North Korea admitted having a secret uranium enrichment program.
But lest we forget…
The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged plutonium program, but hasn’t performed any known nuclear tests to prove its capability. In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons.
Let’s hope North Korea’s saber rattling doesn’t get in the way of progress. Because if this works, we can check one regime off the Axis of Evil list.
And I think we can all agree, that’s a positive step.
The BBC also has the story.
Blog Roundup:
The Washington Monthly
Joe’s Dartblog
Conservative Thinking
The Reaction
In The Bullpen
(HT: Memeorandum)
UPDATE
Project Nothing has a reaction to this news that made me laugh.
I’ll believe it when I see it. You can trust North Korea’s word about as much as you can trust a stripper with four kids.
This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2005 and is filed under Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 19th, 2005 at 7:32 am
[...] “Donklephant” is understandably cautious: “I’m not going to put a ton of stock in this until we see some serious movement. Anybody who’s seen documentaries, like “Welcome To North Koreaâ€Â?, now that the leadership in the country is seriously insane. And I don’t use the term “insaneâ€Â? lightly. [...]
September 19th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
I appreciate the link. :)