Agreement of 13 February 2007
Initial Actions for the Implementation of the Joint Statement

• Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Korea Times, Seoul
• Washington Post

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• North Korea: Do Not Access All Areas
  By Gwynne Dyer 14 October 2008 Korea is not a tropical country. In the autumn, the leaves turn yellow and red, and by October the process is pretty far along, especially in North Korea. Which is why there are grave doubts that Kim Jong-Il is in good health, as Pyongyang pretends, and indeed some question whether he is alive at all. And despite Monday's agreement by Washington to take Kim's neo-Stalinist regime off its list of terrorism sponsors, which persuaded North Korea to let international inspectors back into its Yongbyon nuclear site, we still don't know where its nuclear weapons (if they exist) might be hidden.
  As part of the deal, Washington agreed to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism -- and a lot of the aid could not legally flow to Pyongyang until that was done. But the Bush administration, as so often before, overplayed a weak hand: it stalled on removing the terrorism label in the hope of forcing North Korea to allow American and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors freer access to suspected North Korean nuclear sites. So the North Koreans simply stopped dismantling the Yongbyon nuclear site (including the plutonium reprocessing plant) and announced that they were re-activating it. It took the Bush administration, in legacy mode and desperate for at least one apparent foreign policy success, only a couple of weeks to yield to Pyongyang's demand. Washington removed North Korea from the terrorism list on Saturday, and Pyongyang let the inspectors back in on Sunday. But they can't go wherever they please.
• Fixing the North Korea Nuclear Error
  By Sam Dealey, Thomas Jefferson Street blog. December 02, 2008 So just how bad was the Bush administration's hastily contrived deal with North Korea in October that led to the country's immediate removal from the U.S. terror list? As the AP now reports: The top U.S. negotiator in talks to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons said Tuesday that Pyongyang must agree to a verification of its disarmament activities and the deal must be put in writing. North Korea agreed last year to disable its nuclear reactor in exchange for aid. But negotiations have since stalled after the Stalinist state denied it agreed to allow inspectors to take samples from its nuclear complex to verify past nuclear activities. So it turns out the brilliant "pragmatists" at State failed to get the nuclear verification agreement with North Korea in writing. And now, in what is surprisingly a surprise to these pragmatists, the North Koreans have proved yet again they can't be trusted and are reneging on their alleged promise. Thankfully, there's a chance now to scrap the deal entirely. And would some responsible adult at the White House remember to please put North Korea back on the terror list, from which it never should have been removed? [Terrorism list] [Inversion]
• North Korea and the Farce of the State Department Terror List
  Sam Dealey October 20, 2008 What will be the fate of the Bush administration's deal with North Korea? One victim will be the false notion of paper containment when the hermit kingdom surely cheats on the arrangement. Another more satisfying victim will be the "pragmatists" who, despite common sense and history, championed the deal. More immediately, however, there is State's "terror list" itself, which by North Korea's removal is revealed as a joke. About the only thing the U.S. gained was North Korea's word to behave and a promise to permit snap inspections of a reactor site that holds few secrets. Meanwhile, the North's peddling of conventional weapons systems and nuclear know-how across South Asia and the Middle East and demands that international inspectors have unfettered access to suspected nuclear worksites were taken off the table. Indeed, the deal itself was born of terrorism: North Korea pledged to continue down the road of nuclear development unless the U.S. government removed it from the list. In an op-ed in today's L.A. Times, Lionel Beehner picks up on this with his aptly titled "America's Useless Terrorism List." Beehner gives several reasons for his distaste for the list, chief among them that it is a unilateral "with us or against us" designation that fails to tackle the "socioeconomic causes of why terrorism takes root in the first place." None of these particularly bother me. The "socioeconomic causes" for North Korea's terror peddling, for example, are that its Dear Leader is a wily nutcase who needs money (sic). And I've no problem, either, with a U.S. blacklist for terror-sponsoring countries—when it comes to serious issues like this, there's no room for terrorist-versus-freedom fighter vacillation. What bothers me is that, if we are to have a terrorism list, then let's at least give it some integrity. [Terrorism list] [Bizarre]
• America's useless terrorism list
  'State sponsors of terrorism' sounds good but accomplishes little.
  By Lionel Beehner
  October 20, 2008 Opinion The State Department's list of "state sponsors of terrorism" is one of the biggest farces of U.S. foreign policy. Started in 1979 for nations designated by the secretary of State "to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," the rationale behind the list is far from any high moral purpose to rid the world of terrorism. This blacklist exists solely to punish our enemies, not to cajole them to stop sponsoring terrorists. Landing on it places limits on the size and scope of arms, economic aid and other financial transactions a country can have with American citizens. By promising to remove a country from it, we dangle a carrot in front of the North Koreas and Libyas of the world to try to exact behavioral change and wrest concessions. Although that may be a useful tool in theory, it ignores the need to work with our international allies to apply pressure on these states and does not tackle the socioeconomic causes of why terrorism takes root in the first place. The terrorism blacklist only reduces our foreign policy to the petty thinking of a clipboard-toting nightclub bouncer, who gets to whimsically decide who is allowed in and who is not. It fits snugly into our with-us-or-against-us view of world affairs, not to mention our one-size-fits-all preference to lump all terrorist groups under one umbrella.
  And North Korea was removed from the list earlier this month, not because it stopped its support of terrorists -- allegedly supplying nuclear technologies to Middle East countries such as Syria -- but because it cooperated with U.S. officials to again allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. This was a major breakthrough, but one unrelated to its sponsorship of terrorism, past or present. After all, Pyongyang was slapped on the list in 1988 for its role in the 1987 bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed 115 people, and for its support of Japanese communists. [Terrorism List]
• America's valuable terrorism list
  The government's list of state sponsors of terrorism has been an important tool in making the world safer. By Michael B. Kraft October 27, 2008 The formal removal this month of North Korea from the State Department's list of terrorism-sponsoring nations has touched off some controversy. These criticisms reveal a basic misunderstanding of the concept of this formal designation. Contrary to comments made by Lionel Beehner in his Oct. 20 Times Op-Ed article, "America’s useless terrorism list,” the so-called terrorism list does not exist "solely to punish our enemies" or to strong-arm countries on other issues. Such assertions are nonsense and show no understanding of the history or purpose of the terrorism list.
  Iraq, which was designated in 1990 after its invasion of Kuwait, was removed in 2004 after a new Iraqi government was formed.
  North Korea's status on the terrorism list became wrapped up in international efforts to get the Kim Jong Il regime to stand down from its nuclear weapons program. The nuclear issue may be stretching the initial intent of the terrorism list when was drafted 30 years ago. Still, certainly the possibility of nuclear terrorism is one of the more horrifying scenarios facing the world. [Terrorism List]
• S. Korea to Build 12 More Nuclear Reactors by 2022
  South Korea plans to build a total of 31 new nuclear reactors and conventional thermal power plants to meet the steady rise in domestic energy consumption, Yonhap News reported Sunday quoting a government report. The long-term plan reflects a rise in electrical demand that is expected to reach more than 500 billion kilowatts per hour (kWh) in 2022, up from 368.6 billion kWh for 2007, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said.
  he 12 nuclear reactors, which include eight under construction, are expected to boost power output by 15.20 million kW by the target year and raise the percentage of atomic energy power production infrastructure to 48 percent of total capacity from 33 percent at present. The country currently has 20 nuclear reactors. [Nuclear energy] [Double standards]
• [Column] A world without nuclear weapons
  Kim Ji-seok, Editorial writer Nuclear policy is a major component of United States foreign relations and security policy, and the U.S. approach to the North Korean nuclear issue is also realized within this framework. The starting point for the nuclear policy of the Barack Obama administration, which is soon to take office, differs from that of the George W. Bush administration in two respects. First, it fully acknowledges the failure of U.S. nuclear policy since the end of the Cold War. The more than 30 kilograms of plutonium extracted by North Korea is a problem, but the amount of nuclear material possessed by a total of over 40 countries throughout the world amounts to no less than 3,000 tons, a quantity sufficient to make 250,000 nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the United States and Russia still hold tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and nation after nation is attempting to join the ranks of countries with nuclear capabilities, including North Korea and Iran. The world is now in its second period of nuclear proliferation. The threat that most concerns the United States is terrorist attacks using nuclear weapons, and that possibility is greater now than ever. Everyone has simply been fortunate thus far. The United States has thus far neglected to make efforts to observe this crisis in terms of a comprehensive nuclear policy. [Proliferation] [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards]
• U.S. General Eyes Nuclear Weapon Improvements
  Friday, Dec. 19, 2008 By Elaine M. Grossman Global Security Newswire WASHINGTON -- A key Air Force nuclear official said recently the United States might seek to improve its nuclear arsenal with such features as enhanced stealth or extended range -- ideas that could prove controversial on Capitol Hill (see GSN, Sept. 12). (Dec. 19) - An artist's conception of a U.S. Minuteman 3 re-entry vehicle. Some Air Force officials are considering ways to make such weapons more stealthy (U.S. Air Force image). Under a "heavy modernization" effort, the United States could extend the service lives of the aging nuclear stockpile as well as retrofit weapons with updated technologies, according to Brig. Gen. Everett Thomas, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. (see GSN, Nov. 11). "You could look at [a] low-observable aeroshell," he said in a telephone interview, referring to a re-entry vehicle that carries a nuclear warhead to its target. "You could look at extended range, because we now know how to do solid propellant much better than we did in the past. You could look at many things when you look at a modernization." Some lawmakers might not agree.
  Congress may be leery of making significant improvements to U.S. nuclear warheads or their delivery vehicles as the incoming Obama administration attempts to curb nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea. Many experts have argued that U.S. efforts to improve nuclear weapons at home make it more difficult for the nation to lead nonproliferation efforts abroad. [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards]
• 'Only an Idiot Would Trust N.Korea'
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Friday said only an "idiot" would trust North Korea. Rice's outburst came before the Council of Foreign Relations in Washington D.C. "I mean, who trusts the North Koreans? You'd have to be an idiot to trust the North Koreans," the Voice of America quoted her as saying. Rice said North Korea would get no energy aid until the dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and the verification process are completed. She added there was some ambiguity in the verification protocol agreed between the U.S. and North Korea, and North Korea's position was not to reject the protocol but to refuse to clarify these ambiguities in writing. Evaluating the six-party talks on the North's nuclear program, whose latest round collapsed over the verification issue, Rice pointed out North Korea has produced no plutonium since the talks started in 2005, and that they have made progress such as the closure of the main Yongbyon nuclear plant.
• Rice Defends 6-Way Talks as Only Way to Denuclearize N. Korea
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that six-party talks are the only way to achieve North Korea's denuclearization, citing Pyongyang's common strategy of exploiting division in the international community, according to Yonhap News Monday. "A lot has been achieved" in the multilateral talks over the past half year,'' the outgoing secretary said on NBC's "Meet the Press," including the shutdown of the North's main nuclear reactor, presentation of its nuclear list and blowing up of the cooling tower of the North's main nuclear reactor
• Two diplomatic courses on the North Korean nuclear issue
  Author: Chung-in Moon, Yonsei University
  On December 2, the United States Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, in a bipartisan report entitled ‘World at Risk’, listed the halting of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs as one of the biggest priorities in state affairs for the Obama administration when it takes office. The report also highlights the fact that although peaceful solutions to the issue may be sought through diplomatic efforts such as direct negotiation, if these fail, the use of threats such as military activity must be considered.dmz But what is important at the present time is not a hard-line policy on the presumption of diplomatic failure but the refinement of a diplomatic solution.
  Assistant Secretary of State Hill employed his outstanding imagination and diplomatic ability to seek breakthroughs in negotiations with the North in states of crisis. Under the Obama administration, it will not only be difficult to find someone to replace Hill, but even if they do, that person is liable to become a sacrifice to the hotbed of Washington bureaucratic politics if he or she produces a response at the level of the Assistant Secretary of State.
  While the card of diplomatic relations can function as the most attractive lure for North Korea, it should also be kept in mind that the threat of severed diplomatic relations can be a more powerful means of pressure in the event of non-cooperation than military action. Such a good card should not be left until the last stage of negotiations. An unconventional form of high-intensity, high-level diplomacy with Pyongyang that represents a departure from the current approach, including a North Korea visit by former President Clinton as a special envoy and the proposal of normalization of diplomatic relations, could put some new flexibility into the six-party talks and assist in the smooth execution of ‘verifiable nuclear dismantlement.’ One looks forward to President-elect Obama using broad-minded diplomacy to provide a turning point in the early resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. [US NK policy] [Bilateral]
• Lively Response to U.S. Recognition of DPRK as Nuclear Weapons State
  Pyongyang, December 17 (KCNA) -- Official documents recognizing the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state have recently been published in the United States one after another to evoke lively response in the international community. Shortly ago, the U.S. Defense Department issued a report in which it said the rim of the great Asian Continent is already home to five nuclear powers: China, India, Pakistan, the DPRK and Russia. The U.S. defense secretary in an article contributed to a publication recently also made it clear that the DPRK manufactured several nuclear bombs. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Intelligence Committee in a report called "2025 world trend" published recently designated the DPRK as a "nuclear weapons state".
• US wants written North Korea nuclear commitments
  The Associated Press U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at a press conference after a meeting of the Mideast Quartet at the United Nations in New York, Monday Dec. 15, 2008. The meeting comes one day before the UN Security Council meets Tuesday on a draft resolution on the Middle East. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks at a press conference after a meeting of the Mideast Quartet at the United Nations in New York, Monday Dec. 15, 2008. The meeting comes one day before the UN Security Council meets Tuesday on a draft resolution on the Middle East. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the current administration will keep trying to get North Korea to make written commitments on inspection of its nuclear programs until President George W. Bush leaves office on Jan. 20.
  Rice told reporters at U.N. headquarters that five of the six parties - the U.S., China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - "are completely agreed" on how North Korea's past nuclear activities should be verified. "What happened in Beijing was that the North Koreans at this last session wouldn't write them down," she said. "But there is, in fact, a verification protocol and a set of assurances that the five are agreed to and that the North Koreans, at least privately before we lifted the terrorist designation, had also agreed to," Rice said.
• China hints it will continue energy aid to N. Korea
  BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Yonhap) -- China said Tuesday that failure to reach an understanding on the verification protocol for North Korea's nuclear facilities is not sufficient cause to halt energy aid. "The Oct. 3 agreement outlines 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil in exchange for North Korea agreeing to disable its Yongbyon nuclear plant," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao. He added that people must carefully examine the wording of the existing deal. [Renege] [Agreement071003]
• China says six-party talk should focus on implementing action plan in comprehensive way
  www.chinaview.cn 2008-12-16 19:19:27 BEIJING, Dec. 16 (Xinhua) -- China said here Tuesday that the current main task for all parties to the Korean Peninsula nuclear talks is to implement the second phase action plan in a comprehensive and balanced way. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao made the remarks at a regular press conference when asked about China's stance on the provision of fuel oil to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea(DPRK) in return for the disabling of nuclear facilities. "The six-party talks is a long process, and all sides agreed to promote the process stage by stage," Liu said. Last week, China chaired a meeting of chief delegates from the DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Russia and Japan, which focused on the verification of the DPRK's nuclear program. After a four-day meeting, the six sides issued a chairman's statement, in which, all sides agreed, as described in the October3 Second Phase Agreement, to complete in parallel the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities and the provision of economic and energy assistance equivalent to one million tonnes of heavy fuel oil. However, the United States said it will halt fuel oil shipments to the DPRK, and the five countries negotiating with the DPRK had agreed that future fuel shipments would not go forward until there was progress on the verification protocol. "It is undeniable that the relevant parties have achieved some consensus on the verification. That is, the verification is necessary. Nevertheless, disputes still exist, among which the most important one is how to conduct verification. The parties have had serious, candid and helpful discussions on this issue." Liu said. He added that China will continue to strengthen communication and coordination with other parties so as to promote the six-party talks process, and play a constructive role in realizing the removal of nuclear facilities from the Korean Peninsula, the normalization of ties between countries involved and building a peace and security mechanism in northeast Asia.
• Talks with North Korea overlook one small problem: the country has no intention of giving up its nukes
  IMAGINE playing chess without kings on the board. One might perform stunning strategies and exquisite exchanges. Bishops sail to snatch a knight. Pawns advance until one pins a rook. But as the pieces dwindle, it becomes apparent that the very goal—to checkmate the king—is impossible. Is America’s strategy of dealing with North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme dissimilar? After years of negotiations, it appears that the entire process has been futile. This is not because of any wrong moves by the negotiators. But success will inevitably remain out of reach: the regime has no intention of ever halting its nuclear activities. C.Parodi A red herring? “From Kim Jong Il’s view, the moment that he gives up the nuclear weapons, he becomes the Congo without the diamonds. And nobody will ever talk with him again, and he knows that,” explains Art Brown, who was director of the East Asia desk at America’s Central Intelligence Agency until he retired in 2005. “You can’t threaten them, and you can’t entice them. You can’t offer them a bag of economic goodies, nor can you hold a gun to their head. We have tried both of that in the past and it has failed,” he says. “Under Kim Jong Il there is no chance in hell they are going to give up their nuclear weapons. Period.”
• Russia's Lavrov urges parties to fulfill N. Korea commitments
  12:46 | 17/ 12/ 2008 MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister has urged all parties involved in six-nation talks on North Korea's denuclearization to fulfill their commitments and called for transparency in bilateral contacts. (Photo tour with RIA Novosti: Pyongyang - streets and faces) Under a deal reached by Russia, China, North and South Koreas, the United States and Japan, fuel and economic incentives have been offered to North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang disabling its nuclear facilities, a process recently halted over diplomatic bargaining. "The agreement that was reached must be implemented, and this also concerns the North Korean side. Work should be done preferably in the six-party format, without looking for a by-pass," Sergei Lavrov said on his way back from a UN Security Council meeting. Speaking about consultations between parties to the talks, which have been ongoing since 2003, Lavrov said Moscow supported any bilateral contacts that were transparent for other parties. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Friday that Japan, Russia, China, the United States and South Korea had agreed that "future fuel shipments aren't going to move forward absent a verification regime." "The foreign ministries of both Russia and China have classified attempts to distort the content of the talks as unfair," Lavrov said commenting on McCormack's statement. Four days of international negotiations in Beijing on North Korea's denuclearization process ended last week in deadlock over Pyongyang's refusal to accept a Chinese-drafted verification protocol on North Korea's past nuclear activities. McCormack linked the signing of the protocol to fuel oil supplies, to Russia's surprise. Moscow's chief negotiator with the North Koreans, Alexei Borodavkin, said on Saturday that Russia would abide by its commitments on fuel shipments, adding that it would ship its third batch of 50,000 metric tons of fuel oil in December. Each of the five countries agreed in 2007 to give the North 200,000 metric tons of fuel oil as an incentive for nuclear decommissioning by North Korea and disclosure of all information on past nuclear activities. [Renege]
• Russia to complete fuel supplies to North Korea - envoy
  13:19 | 14/ 12/ 2008 MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) - Russia plans to complete fuel deliveries to North Korea as part of a denuclearization deal, the head of the Russian delegation at six-party talks on Korea's nuclear problem said on Sunday. "We expect that we'll be able to supply our entire quota of 200,000 metric tons in the near future," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and chief North Korea negotiator Alexei Borodavkin said. Four days of international negotiations in Beijing on North Korea's denuclearization process ended on Wednesday with no deal reached. The six countries - the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan - discussed a Chinese-drafted verification protocol on means of probing North Korea's past nuclear activities.
  After the meeting, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Japan, Russia, China, the United States and South Korea had allegedly agreed that fuel would not be shipped until progress was made on specific steps to verify Pyongyang's nuclear activities.
  However, Borodavkin said Russia was surprised by the U.S. statement on fuel aid to North Korea.
  "The statement by the U.S. State Department made following the six-party talks in Beijing surprised us," Borodavkin said, adding that no such moves had been agreed on with the Russian delegation. [Renege]
• Six-Party Nations Disagree Over Fuel Aid to N.Korea
  Since the latest round of six-party talks on producing a North Korean nuclear verification protocol ruptured in Beijing, confusion has arisen over whether to continue fuel aid to the North. U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack last Friday said there would be no more shipments unless a verification protocol had been made, and the other six-party nations agreed to it. But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin on Saturday issued a statement saying, "Russia has never given consent to the suspension of heavy oil shipments. We'll continue delivering fuel to North Korea." Meanwhile, upon leaving Beijing on Saturday, chief North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan warned, "If the heavy oil delivery is suspended, we'll moderate the pace of the nuclear disablement process."
  The disagreement between the six-party nations originates from their differing interpretations of the Oct. 3, 2007 denuclearization agreement -- whether oil should be delivered only in return for disablement or whether it should be delivered in return for completion of phase two of the denuclearization process, including a verification protocol. At the latest round of talks, the South Korean delegation took the initiative to link the "verification with the heavy oil delivery." But participating nations failed to reach a clear conclusion. South Korea's suggestion was also ignored in the chairman's statement. [Renege]
• New momentum for the six-party talks
  [Editorial] The six party head of delegation talks in Beijing came to an end after four days of meetings in which negotiators failed to adopt a verification protocol on North Korea’s nuclear programs. This is disappointing, even considering the situation created by the change of administrations in the United States. The talks are going to be at a stalemate for the time being.
• Six-Party Heads-of-Delegation Session Held
  Pyongyang, December 12 (KCNA) -- The six-party heads-of-delegation session was held in Beijing from Dec. 8 to 11. It discussed the issues of winding up as soon as possible the implementation of the October 3 agreement adopted in 2007 and closed with the adoption of its chairman's statement. The parties participating in the session recognized the fact that there has been positive progress in the implementation of the measures taken at the second phase specified in the September 19 joint statement. They agreed to round off the economic and energy compensation equivalent to the supply of a million tons of heavy oil to the DPRK in return for the disablement as stipulated in the October 3 agreement. They welcomed the international community's participation in making economic compensation in place of Japan which totally refused to fulfil its commitment under the agreement reached among the six parties. They also agreed to separately hold meetings of a working group for economic and energy aid, a working group for establishing a peace and security mechanism in Northeast Asia and the next six-party talks as early as possible.
• US Mulls Suspending Energy Aid to N. Korea
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The United States hinted at suspending promised energy aid to North Korea Thursday following the breakup of the latest six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambition, a report said Friday. ``Obviously, one of the things people think about is energy assistance,'' White House spokesperson Dana Perino was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying. ``I just saw the report and heard the news that Chris Hill was on his way back. So as soon as he's back, we'll try to see what the next steps are.'' [Renege]
• 'Action for Action'
  What Step Will US Take Against North Korea?
  12-12-2008 17:28 North Korea is again testing the patience of the United States by continuously refusing to agree on the verification protocol for its declared nuclear activities. Nuclear envoys of the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea were disappointed at the North's failure to allow inspectors to take samples from its nuclear facilities during a new round of six-party talks in Beijing this week. The North' refusal is seen as a move to play for time to start a new negotiation with incoming U.S. President Barack Obama who is to take office on Jan. 20.
• Stalemate in Six-Party Talks
  The six-party talks on the denuclearization of North Korea ended on Thursday in Beijing without bearing fruit. Member countries failed to reach agreement on any of the key issues, including allowing external inspectors to take samples from the main nuclear plant in Yongbyon, and even on the dates for the next round of the talks. The talks may possibly be stuck in a long-term stalemate. China made a Chairman's Statement announcing the result of negotiations in Beijing on Thursday. Without mentioning the verification of North Korea's nuclear program, China reiterated the basic principles the participating countries reconfirmed in a September 19th joint statement, which stipulated a verifiable dismantling of the nuclear program in the Korean peninsula, and that they welcome advice and support from the IAEA.
• Six party talks end without agreement on verification protocol
  U.S. and N. Korea navigate changing relations as they await Obama administration and S. Korea hints at cutting aid to North There were many turns in the plot along the way at the six-party head of delegation talks in Beijing, but discussions ended without any agreement about a verification protocol on North Korea’s nuclear program or the rescheduling of a timetable for that country’s nuclear disablement and its receipt of economic and energy aid. The biggest reason the talks broke down was the failure of North Korea, the United States and other nations party to the six-party process to agree on putting the verification protocol in writing. Specifically, the two sides failed to narrow the gap between the United States, which strongly demanded the verification process be outlined on paper, based on the agreement the two countries arrived at in Pyongyang in October, and also wanted to include a provision for the collection of samples, and a North Korea that did not want verification to go beyond the three verification methods agreed to on paper at the head of delegation talks held in July -- site visits by inspectors, document review and interviews with technicians. Kim Sook, the head of South Korea’s delegation to the talks, answering questions from reporters after the talks ended Thursday, said he thinks the North Koreans “tried to keep the ambiguity going as long as they could and the Americans didn’t distingush what is a verbal agreement from what could be put in writing.” In other words, the United States and North Korea had different interpretations of the points of understanding between the two countries, agreed to at bilateral talks in Pyongyang in October.
• [Analysis] S. Korean negotiator’s comments spell trouble for six-party talks
  Kim Sook’s irregular behavior differs greatly from that of his predecessors and reflects the hard-line policies of the Lee administration “This morning, I’ve come to say good-bye.” Kim Sook, South Korea’s chief negotiator to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, made the remark to journalists gathered at the China World Hotel in Beijing on Thursday morning before setting off for the fourth day of negotiations between the six nations. His comment established that the six-party talks would end in failure, even though they had not yet come to a close. When U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with the journalists a few minutes later he was told of Kim’s farewell. “Did he say ‘good-bye?’” Hill asked with a look of surprise. He then said he would do the same, only if it became appropriate at the conclusion of this round of talks. The difference in the behavior of the two envoys could be seen as akin to a diplomatic dispute. That afternoon, the South Korean delegation had delayed its return date to Friday afternoon.
• N. Korea Has Several Nuclear Bombs: Gates
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates has said he believes North Korea possess several nuclear bombs, a report said Thursday. ``North Korea has built several bombs, and Iran seeks to join the nuclear club,'' Gates, who had been selected to continue his job under the Barack Obama administration, said in an article to be published in the January edition of policy journal Foreign Affairs, according to Yonhap news agency. Defense officials and analysts here are paying keen attention to Gates' remarks because it was the first time that a defense leader either from the United States or South Korea had said North Korea succeeded in making nuclear bombs.
• In Setback for Bush, Korea Nuclear Talks Collapse
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: December 11, 2008 WASHINGTON — A final push by President Bush to complete an agreement to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons program collapsed Thursday, leaving the confrontation with one of the world’s most isolated and intractable nations to the administration of President-elect Barack Obama. Four days of negotiations in Beijing ended in an impasse after North Korea refused to agree to a system of verifying that it had ended all nuclear activity, which it had pledged to do. Among other things, the North Koreans have objected to allowing soil and air samples to be taken near nuclear facilities and sent overseas for testing.
• Six-Party Talks Tread Water Over Nuclear Sampling
  Six-party talks on denuclearization of North Korea on Wednesday failed to agree on a verification protocol for the North's declaration of its nuclear programs and stockpiles. Host country China will decide whether to extend the talks sometime on Thursday morning. But prospects are bleak since member countries have been bickering from the start about the key issue they came to discuss. North Korea is adamant it cannot allow external inspectors to take samples from the Yongbyon nuclear plant.
• Six-party talks could be extended another day
  Negotiators working to fine-tune details related to verification methods, agents, items and goals
  On Wednesday, the third day of the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program, the six parties made a major effort to reach a compromise on four major points: how the North’s nuclear declaration will be verified, who will lead the verification process, which items should be verified and the verification goals. The chief negotiators of the six participating nations, which include South and North Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia, gathered at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Wednesday morning, and they tried to narrow their differences through a series of bilateral meetings following a planned plenary session.
• U.S. Recognizes DPRK as Nuclear Weapons State
  Pyongyang, December 10 (KCNA) -- The U.S. government ranked the DPRK among nuclear weapons states. The recent annual report of the U.S. Defense Department said "The rim of the great Asian Continent is already home to five nuclear powers: China, India, Pakistan, the DPRK and Russia". It is the first time that the U.S. officially recognized the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state and announced it in its government report.
• North Korea nuclear talks limp on with no prize for Bush
  By Chris Buckley Reuters Thursday, December 11, 2008; 2:11 AM BEIJING (Reuters) - Talks pressing North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms ambitions limped through a fourth day on Thursday, with envoys pushing on despite slim hope of progress that would be a prize for the departing Bush administration.
• Fmr. Weapons Inspector On Nuclear Iran, Syria, And Barack Obama
  Hans Blix Says Demanding Iran Suspend Enrichment Before Negotiations Is 'Silly' By LARA SETRAKIAN ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 10, 2008 It's been more than five years since Hans Blix left his post as U.N. chief weapons inspector. In the months before the U.S.-led invasion, Blix was on the search for weapons of mass destruction in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. They were never found. Blix famously opposed the war that followed, calling it "illegal." He maintains that, given a few more months to complete inspections, he could have convinced the intelligence community that there were no WMDs in Iraq. In one meeting with the Bush administration, Blix remembers Paul Wolfowitz, a Pentagon deputy under then-Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asking, "but don't you believe there are weapons of mass destruction?" "If I did, I would have put it in a report," Blix said he answered. Blix now lives in his home country of Sweden, where he chairs the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission. ABC News interviewed Blix in Abu Dhabi, where he was speaking in favor of nuclear energy adoption in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates and at least a half dozen other Arab states have stated intentions to pursue a nuclear energy program. ABC News: From the latest IAEA report on Iran, what did we learn about the state of their nuclear program? Hans Blix: Not very much new. It said that [the IAEA] cannot confirm that there is intent about nuclear weapons. But they've never been able to do that ... however much they search and don't find anything, that isn't going to change the attitude in Washington or London. They'll say, maybe they don't have intention now but they could change in two months' time. ABC: Are you concerned by Iran's intent? Blix: The commission that I headed took the view that it is desirable to persuade Iran to walk back from the enrichment program because it has already increased tensions very much. Western powers came out and said they could facilitate investments and economic relations, we can support them to get into the World Trade Organization, we believe in civilian nuclear power industry. But first they must suspend enrichment. I'm skeptical about this last point, the conditionality. For Iran, the building up of the program is the trump card. And who throws away the trump card before the game starts? So I think that conditionality is silly. [Negotiating style] [Sequencing] [Decline] [Syria] [Evidence]
• Six-Party Nations Look to Tempt North with Aid
  Participants of six-party talks in Beijing on Tuesday engaged in vigorous debate over a draft verification protocol prepared by China, the chair country, but no conclusion was reached. The draft contains specifics about the subject, method, objects and timeline of verification. Meanwhile, the Seoul delegation disclosed the plan at the plenary session on Monday, saying unless the North shows a "forward-looking" attitude toward stipulating the collection of nuclear samples, the supply of heavy oil to Pyongyang slated to be completed by March could be suspended. [Renege]
• U.S. Report Calls N.Korea a 'Nuclear Power'
  An annual U.S. Defense Department report describes North Korea for the first time as a "nuclear power." "Joint Operating Environment 2008: Challenges and Implications for the Future Joint Force," a report published on the U.S. Joint Forces Command's homepage, says there are already five nuclear powers on the Asian continent: China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia. The report outlining the strategic situation America will encounter and ways of coping with the threats reflects the general perception of the U.S. military. Last year's report did not mention the North as a nuclear power.
• Six-party talks produces draft verification protocol
  References to ‘sampling’ replaced by alternative terms as negotiators search for a compromise on the issue Host nation China circulated a document with the character of a preliminary draft for a verification protocol on Tuesday, the second day after the opening of six-nation talks among chief delegates on the North Korean nuclear issue. After the circulation of this document, the participant nations began working out compromises in earnest, including the pursuit of two-party discussions centering on China. China called a second plenary session at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse Tuesday morning and circulated a document related to verification drafted after gathering opinions from each participant nation. The meeting was adjourned 35 minutes after it started so that participant nations could conduct internal examinations and additional discussions, officials at the talks reported.
• President Obama's remedies for the past US governments' failures in NPT
  by Jubin Motamed (CASMII) Tuesday, December 9, 2008
  An investigation by the US Congress into weapons of mass destruction published on 3rd Dec 2008 expressed concern about the danger posed by proliferation of nuclear weapons in countries such as Iran, saying president Obama's administration must stop Tehran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. Other recommendations included strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other international safeguards. Since past US government have undermined articles 1, 4 and 6 of the NPT, the way forward for achieving the above congress objectives would be to urge president Obama to prioritise bringing Israel in to NPT, to work with Iran towards implementation of article 4 of NPT and to show good faith by working towards cessation of nuclear arms and resumption of Start II treaty. In 1968 the three nuclear weapon states - Soviet Union, US and UK - signed the NPT agreement. In Article 1 it stated that nuclear weapon states agree not to transfer 'nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosives devices' and 'not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) to acquire nuclear weapons'. Officially, the Israeli government maintains a position of "nuclear ambiguity": neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons. But everyone who has studied the issue knows that this is a formula with a simple purpose: to give the United States an excuse to keep breaking its own laws, which forbid it to grant aid to a country with unauthorised weapons of mass destruction. The fiction of ambiguity is fiercely guarded.
  Every six months, the intelligence agencies provide Congress with a report on technology acquired by foreign states that's "useful for the development or production of weapons of mass destruction". These reports discuss the programmes in India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran and other nations, but not in Israel. Whenever other states have tried to press Israel to join the NPT, the US and European governments have blocked them. Israel has also exempted itself from the biological and chemical weapons conventions. [Double standards] [NPT] [Israel]
• DPRK wishes to remove obstacles to progress in fresh six-party talks
  08:34, December 08, 2008 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Saturday said it welcomed the reopening of six-party talks in the coming days in Beijing, wishing to resolve issues that hinder the progress of the talks. The DPRK believes that the upcoming six-nation talks should have two tasks. One is to "ensure the speed of economic compensation" to the DPRK as promised by the other five parties, and the other is to "achieve common understanding of the issue of verification," said a spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry in a statement.
• [Analysis] China and Russia play prominent roles at six-party talks
  China central to verification protocol documentation, Russia’s experience with dismantling nukes is valuable for verification processes Delegations from all nations involved were busy on Monday, the opening day of the six-party talks among chief delegates. From the beginning, representatives met variously to gather information as the schedule for the opening ceremony, which was planned for 3:00 p.m. (local time) at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, was delayed for over an hour. It was followed in the morning by a series of two-party discussions, including those between North Korea and Russia, the United States and China, South and North Korea, and Korea and China. This was basically each party anticipating moves and “taking sides” to search for a compromise plan in connection with the major items on the agenda for the meeting, including the documentation of a verification protocol.
• China Issues Draft of Verification Protocol Over NK Nukes
  China issued a draft agreement Tuesday on ways to inspect North Korea's nuclear facilities as senior envoys began their second day of talks here, Yonhap News reported quoting South Korean delegates in Beijing. The related parties will review the draft and deliver their positions to China, which chairs the negotiations, for modification if needed. Its contents remain undisclosed. At the end of talks in July, North Korea agreed with its dialogue partners ? South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan ? to allow their inspectors to choose "visits to facilities, review of documents, interviews with technical personnel and other measures unanimously agreed upon among the six parties." The planned verification protocol will provide more detailed guidelines on what inspection measures will be used, and determine a time line and method. [China rising] [Verification] [Sequencing]
• Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb
  By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: December 8, 2008 In 1945, after the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, J. Robert Oppenheimer expressed foreboding about the spread of nuclear arms. “They are not too hard to make,” he told his colleagues on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M. “They will be universal if people wish to make them universal.” That sensibility, born where the atomic bomb itself was born, grew into a theory of technological inevitability. Because the laws of physics are universal, the theory went, it was just a matter of time before other bright minds and determined states joined the club. A corollary was that trying to stop proliferation was quite difficult if not futile. But nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth. In the six decades since Oppenheimer’s warning, the nuclear club has grown to only nine members. What accounts for the slow spread? Can anything be done to reduce it further? Is there a chance for an atomic future that is brighter than the one Oppenheimer foresaw? Two new books by three atomic insiders hold out hope. The authors shatter myths, throw light on the hidden dynamics of nuclear proliferation and suggest new ways to reduce the threat. Neither book endorses Oppenheimer’s view that bombs are relatively easy to make. Both document national paths to acquiring nuclear weapons that have been rocky and dependent on the willingness of spies and politicians to divulge state secrets.
• Six-Party Talks Start Amid Low Expectations
  A new round of six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program begins in Beijing on Monday, but few hold out much hope that it will result in the breakthrough the Bush administration needs to crown its lackluster diplomatic record. North Korea is going through one of the standoffish phases that usually seize it when a new U.S. government is about to take over, and has engineered a new ice age in inter-Korean ties. [Media] [Inversion]
• [Analysis] Six-party talks at a crossroads
  Nations likely to try keep things moving forward in preparation for the presidential transition in the U.S. “This round of talks will serve as an important connection.” This remark, made by Kim Sook, South Korea’s top negotiator to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue, at the Incheon International Airport yesterday as he left to attend the next round of six-party negotiations in China, defines the characteristic of this round of negotiations. Kim’s remark indicates that the new round of talks, scheduled to start today, could finalize the second stage of the September 19 Joint Declaration -- nuclear declaration, disablement and aids of economy and energy -- and persuade North Korea to move into the third stage -- nuclear dismantlement. However, the talks are also at an important crossroads because of the presidential transition taking place in the United States.
• [Column] Two diplomatic courses for N. Korean nuclear issue
  Moon Chung-in, Professor, Department of Political Science, Yonsei University On December 2, the United States Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, in a bipartisan report entitled “World at Risk,” listed the halting of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs as one of the biggest priorities in state affairs for the Obama administration when it takes office. This report also highlights the fact that although peaceful solutions to the issue may be sought through diplomatic efforts such as direct negotiation, if these fail, the use of threats such as military activity must be considered. But what is important at the present time is not a hard-line policy for the future presuming failure but the refinement of a diplomatic solution. There are two diplomatic courses available for future negotiations with North Korea. One of them is carrying out, within the framework of the six-party talks, the negotiations for “verifiable dismantlement,” the third stage of the February 13 agreement that is a political legacy left behind by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill. The other is the method of starting anew with the “broad-minded” negotiations with the North halted because of the Bush administration’s “ABC” (Anything But Clinton) policy. This would be an extension of the October 2000 North Korea visit of then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
• DPRK Will Not Regard Japan as Party to Six-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, December 6 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question raised by KCNA Saturday as regards the issue of Japan's participation in the six-party talks: The talks of heads of delegations to the six-party talks are slated to open soon to round off the implementation of the October 3 agreement. It is the main task of the talks to ensure the speed of economic compensation by the five parties to the talks as called for by the principle of "action for action" as it is delayed as compared with the DPRK's speed of disablement and achieve common understanding of the issue of verification. What matters is that Japan persistently and impertinently insists on its participation in the talks though it is refusing to fulfill its commitment despite the fact that the implementation of the October 3 agreement is at its final phase. The six-party talks are participated in by those countries directly interested in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the parties to them are, therefore, obliged to fulfill their responsibilities to attain that goal. It is only Japan out of those parties that has not done anything to fulfill its commitment but is still refusing to do so. It is the assertion of Japan that it will not fulfill any commitment related to its economic compensation under the agreement reached at the six-party talks unless there is progress in the solution of the "abduction issue" between the DPRK and Japan. It is the ulterior intention of Japan to bar the denuclearization of the peninsula from coming true and put spurs to its moves to turn itself into a military power under the pretext of the nuclear issue. Such country has neither justification nor qualification to participate in the talks. On the contrary, it only lays a hurdle in the way of achieving the common goal. The October 3 agreement can be implemented without Japan now that other countries beside the parties to the six-party talks are expressing their will to participate in the economic compensation in place of Japan. We will neither treat Japan as a party to the talks nor deal with it even if it impudently appears in the conference room, lost to shame. [Japanese remilitarisation]
• Rough Sailing Ahead As Nuke Talks Set to Resume
  Negotiators from six countries will resume talks on the North Korean nuclear crisis Monday amid widespread doubts over the possibility of a deal on the key agenda ? how to inspect Pyongyang's nuclear facilities, according to Yonhap News.
• Bush team makes final bid in North Korea nuclear talks
  By Jon Herskovitz Reuters Saturday, December 6, 2008; 9:56 PM SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. nuclear envoy was scheduled to go to Beijing on Sunday for international talks that will likely be the Bush administration's last chance to move forward a sputtering disarmament-for-aid deal with destitute North Korea. Five regional powers will begin deliberations with North Korea from Monday to try to have the isolated state accept a system to verify claims it made about its nuclear arms program in exchange for much needed aid and better diplomatic standing. "I am not very optimistic," South Korean nuclear envoy Kim Sook told local media before heading to Beijing. Analysts do not expect North Korea to make any serious moves until President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January [Inversion]
• World leaders gather in bid to impose a ban on nuclear weapons
  6 December WASHINGTON — A new international group committed to eliminating nuclear weapons over the next 25 years has enlisted scores of world leaders as its campaign gets under way at a conference in Paris on Tuesday. Richard Burt, chief strategic weapons negotiator for President George H.W. Bush, says the aim is to get to zero. He said even Iran is considered a potential supporter. [Media] [Bizarre]
• NK Sees Compensation as Key Agenda for Nuke Talks
  12-06-2008 21:47 The focus of the renewed round of the six-party talks, scheduled to begin Monday in Beijing, should be on the provision of economic aid to North Korea, Chosun Shinbo, a pro-North Korea newspaper published in Japan said Saturday. “The focus of the negotiation is to clearly establish the blueprint of how to provide the delayed economic compensation (to North Korea) by the five countries,” it said. The five countries refer to the other five participating countries of the multinational negotiation, including South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. A breakthrough was reached in early October when U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill visited Pyongyang. However, some people claim that a verification process should be made, including the sampling of the nuclear material in a written document, which was not part of the original agreement between North Korea and the U.S., the newspaper said, adding that it goes against the “action-for-action” principle. [Sequencing]
• U.S. Expects 'Difficult' Beijing Talks on North Korean Disarmament
  The U.S. State Department said it expects a meeting in Beijing next week on ending North Korea's nuclear program to be difficult, but that no consideration is being given to scrapping the six-party talks. The senior U.S. delegate to the talks Friday ended a two day set of preparatory meetings in Singapore with his North Korean counterpart. Officials at the U.S. State Department said the Chinese-sponsored meeting due to begin Monday will likely be no less difficult than previous meetings on the North Korean nuclear program. But they said even though China has yet to officially announce the meeting, they do expect the six-party session to go forward as planned. All six heads of delegations to the long-running talks are to
• U.S. nuclear envoy says substantive talks held with DPRK in Singapore
  SINGAPORE, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill met with his Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Singapore on Thursday, saying they had substantive talks focused on verification of the DPRK's nuclear activities. "We have reviewed the major issues that we have all been working on. It is disablement, the fuel oil and the issue of verification of their declaration," Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, told reporters after their meeting.
• Top Nuclear Envoys Discuss N.Korea Verification
  Codifying an agreement with North Korea to allow inspectors to take samples at its nuclear facilities is expected to be the key issue in the upcoming six-party talks. Samples could reveal the history of the North's nuclear program including the amount of plutonium produced so far. South Korea, the U.S. and Japan held a trilateral meeting Wednesday agreeing on the necessity of putting the right to take samples in writing.
• Hill foresees no big changes in 6-way denuke process under Obama
  Asia › 05 December, 2008 01:18 TOKYO - Top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill indicated Wednesday that he does not foresee ''big changes'' in the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea after U.S. President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January. Hill also told Kyodo News in Tokyo that he is not particularly worried about establishing a written six-way protocol for verifying North Korea's declaration of its nuclear programs as he is more concerned about ''getting to the actual verification process.'' Hill struck a negative note on the possibility of major progress on the issue of past abductions of Japanese citizens to North Korea in the near future, while declining to comment on the closely watched issue of the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. ''I can't speak for President Obama because I don't think he's addressed this issue yet, but I don't know of any reason to expect any big changes in it,'' Hill said, referring to the six-way negotiations in which the United States and North Korea are the key players. The U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs said he understands that considerable attention is now focused on what the specific contents of the verification protocol would be, including whether to put in writing North Korea's commitment to allow inspectors to take samples from its nuclear facilities. ''But my concern is not so much the protocol. My concern is getting to the actual verification process and not having...disagreements where the North Koreans tell us, 'No, we never agreed to that,''' Hill said. While he did not elaborate, the comments may be taken as a reflection of a resolve to secure in the upcoming six-nation session effective measures to advance the process of denuclearizing North Korea that Obama's administration can take up.
• U.S. sees way forward on N.Korea nuclear talks: Hill
  Reuters Tuesday, December 2, 2008; 11:51 AM TOKYO (Reuters) - The top U.S. negotiator for multilateral talks on ending Pyongyang's nuclear program said on Tuesday he saw a way forward at the next meeting, but details on verification must still be clarified. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill met with his Japanese counterpart in Tokyo ahead of the six-party talks, to be held in Beijing on Monday. Discussions in China are expected to focus on getting a written agreement on how to verify what North Korea has disclosed about its nuclear programs.
• Japanese Reactionaries' Stand on "Abduction Issue" Termed Illogical
  Pyongyang, November 11 (KCNA) -- It was completely illogical for the Japanese reactionaries for having put the "abduction issue" on the agenda of the six-party talks. For this they only earned the censure and cool reception by the countries participating in the talks. Minju Joson Tuesday observes this in a signed commentary. It goes on: Under such situation the Japanese reactionaries should have behaved themselves, immediately judging that it was a big error and mistake for them to have brought the irrelevant issue for discussion at the talks aimed to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Worse still, they also peddled the "abduction issue" at the recent ASEM Summit.
  The DPRK does not care whether Japan participates in "the energy aid to north Korea" or not. But it is compelled to call for excluding Japan from the process for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula as it is only laying hurdles in the way of the talks, without playing any role.
• KCNA Dismisses Misinformation about Verification Issue
  Pyongyang, November 24 (KCNA) -- Media of some countries including the U.S. are still floating misinformation to create impression that the DPRK is to blame for the delayed implementation of the October 3 agreement.
  They have gone the lengths of clamoring that the resumption of the talks of the heads of the delegations to the six-party talks is delayed and the tempo of the economic compensation by the five parties is reduced due to the DPRK's refusal to collect what they called "samples". This is a very ill-boding move to falsify truth in a bid to shift the blame onto the DPRK side and thus scuttle the six-party talks. As already known, an agreement was reached between the DPRK and the U.S. over the verification issue during the Pyongyang visit by the U.S. assistant secretary of State early in October. They agreed to have the nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon to be finally dismantled under the February 13 agreement and the October 3 agreement, both reached in 2007, as the target of the verification. They also agreed to conduct the verification through field visit, confirmation of documents and interviews with technicians and carry out the verification after the economic compensation was completely rounded off under the October 3 agreement. The agreement includes no paragraph referring to the collection of samples. [Verification] [US NK negotiations] [Inversion] [Renege]

• IAEA overrides U.S., clears Syria nuclear aid plan
  By Mark Heinrich Reuters Wednesday, November 26, 2008; 2:20 PM VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. atomic agency approved a contested Syrian bid for nuclear aid on Wednesday, overcoming U.S.-led resistance to the project while Damascus is under investigation for covert activity that could lead to atom bombs. The United States, Canada and Australia mounted last minute objections to a compromise deal on the project but finally joined a consensus in favor since they could not have won if they forced a rare vote by International Atomic Energy Agency governors, diplomats in the closed meeting said. [Decline] [Evidence]
• 'No Document on N. Korean Pledge to Nuclear Sampling'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter There is no written, audio or video evidence of North Korea's commitment to allow international inspectors to take samples or other scientific activities at nuclear sites in the communist state, a U.S. newspaper reported Monday. Whether North Korea will agree to sampling or not is key to establishing protocol to verify Pyongyang's declaration of its nuclear programs and materials, made in June. The United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia will hold a new round of denuclearization talks Dec. 8 to discuss the protocol and finalize the second-phase of a disarmament-for-aid deal reached in February last year. Chief U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill visited Pyongyang in October when the North stepped up efforts to reverse the denuclearization deal by reprocessing a main nuclear plant in Yongbyon, citing a delay in its removal from a U.S. terrorism blacklist. Hill said after the visit that the North had agreed to finalize a verification protocol with its removal from the blacklist. The protocol will allow outside experts to conduct scientific procedures, including sampling and forensic activities. But North Korea insists it never made a promise to allow sampling, saying it accepted a document with no specific enforcement measures. In a foreign ministry statement, the regime said it had only agreed with the United States to allow inspectors to access its nuclear facilities, discuss documents and interview people related to its atomic programs. A senior State Department official was quoted by the Washington Times as saying that there is ``no written, audio or video evidence exists of North Korea's commitment to allow sampling at its nuclear sites.'' Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, was quoted as saying that the Bush administration's failure to secure a verification protocol shows that it ``prematurely removed North Korea'' from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states. ``Who's telling the truth? There is no way to know, since Washington has relied on ambiguous text, oral agreements and side letters to keep the negotiations going, but allowing North Korea to avoid full compliance,'' he said. Under the so-called Feb. 13 deal, North Korea is supposed to receive one million tons of heavy fuel oil or its equivalent in aid and other political concessions from the five other countries, in return for disabling its nuclear facilities and programs. The four, except for Japan, have shipped nearly 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil or its equivalent in aid to the North. Seoul, which chairs a six-party working group for energy assistance, has provided about 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and 66,000 tons of energy-related materials or equipment to Pyongyang. Pyongyang has removed about 60 percent of spent fuel rods at the Yongbyon reactor, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr  [Renege] [US NK Negotiations] [Negotiating Style] [Spin]
• U.S. takes N. Korea's word on nukes pact
  Pyongyang denies vows cited only in U.S. emissary's memo
  Nicholas Kralev Monday, November 24, 2008
  Current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration has put unprecedented trust in North Korea's regime - a charter member of its "axis of evil" - and accepted verbal agreements that Pyongyang now disputes, with potentially unsettling implications for arms control. Most recently, the administration has taken as sufficient an oral commitment by North Korea to allow sampling and other scientific activities to verify its nuclear history - a pledge the North says it never made. The only written account of that promise - which the officials say was given privately to chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill by his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Pyongyang last month - is in a "memorandum of conversation" written by Mr. Hill to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. North Korea, however, insists that it never agreed to sampling and other measures to verify a nuclear declaration it submitted in June to six-nation disarmament talks. In a statement earlier this month, the North said it accepted a document with no specific enforcement measures.  [Renege] [US NK Negotiations] [Negotiating Style] [Spin] [Media]
• ElBaradei hits Western challenge to Syria nuclear aid
  Reuters Monday, November 24, 2008 By Mark Heinrich The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief objected to Western moves on Monday to block aid for a planned Syrian nuclear power plant, saying U.S. intelligence pointing to secret Syrian atomic weapons programme remained unproven. Diplomats at a 35-nation meeting of International Atomic Energy Agency governors said the United States, Canada and the European Union signalled it would be prudent to halt the project while Syria is under IAEA investigation over the U.S. reports. China, Russia and developing nations, which together comprise the majority on the governing body, rejected the Western challenge as "political interference" undercutting the IAEA's aid programme for civilian atomic energy development. Western nations were alarmed by an IAEA report last week saying a Syrian building demolished in an Israeli air raid last year bore similarities to a nuclear reactor and inspectors later found striking amounts of uranium particles in the area. The findings were not enough to prove a covert reactor of North Korean design meant to yield plutonium for atom bombs was there, as U.S. intelligence indicated, the report said. [Evidence]
• A new spin on Iran's nuclear fuel
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
  As United States president-elect Barack Obama prepares to take over the White House two months from now, the mainstream US media have been awash reports about Iran's nuclear "threat" that will likely influence the coming Obama administration away from introducing any major change in the US's hitherto coercive Iran policy. The latest anti-Iran spin is that Tehran has accumulated enough nuclear fuel for one nuclear bomb and that given Iran's rapid progress in installing more centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran's nuclear bomb-making capability will substantially increase in the near future. Leading the pack in this media endeavor for a Chomskyian "manufactured consensus" on Iran's nuclear threat is the nation's leading newspaper, the New York Times. Although known as the voice of the liberal "eastern establishment", the Times is perceived by many as a pillar of support for pro-Israel global public diplomacy and, therefore, it comes as little surprise that the respected newspaper may have been churning out alarmist and misleading articles about Iran's purported nuclear threat. Case in point, in a high-profile article by two veteran reporters, William Broad and David Sanger, the paper claimed as per the expert opinion of various nuclear scientists, that Iran had already amassed "nuclear fuel for one weapon", to paraphrase the article's catchy title, and that, naturally, would be a serious problem for the upcoming Obama administration. But does it? The article does not mention the following important, and highly relevant facts: 1. Iran's nuclear fuel is kept in containers sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 2. As stated by Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Natanz facility is under the surveillance of IAEA cameras 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 3. Contrary to misleading claims by various US nuclear experts such as David Kay, a former weapons of mass destruction inspector, there is no evidence that Iran has gone beyond low-grade enrichment of uranium to the point of "weapons-grade" enrichment. In fact, the various IAEA reports confirm the fallacy of such unsubstantiated claims, routinely featured in Israeli papers' biased reports on Iran. 4. Nor do the reporters give more than cursory attention to the content of recent IAEA reports on Iran, which confirm the agency "has been able to continue to confirm the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran". 5. Another major flaw in Broad and Sanger's piece is that they deliberately underestimate the technical challenge of leaping from low-level enrichment to weapons-grade to a simple matter of "further purification". 6. The fact that the IAEA is well-equipped to uncover any attempt by Iran to engage in weapons-grade enrichment activities is mentioned only in passing, without influencing the gist of the article and the planned paranoia lurking behind it. 7. Finally, the whole argument that Iran's ability to produce nuclear fuel represents a "threat" warranting sanctions and other coercive counter-measures by the world community falls by the wayside in light of the legal framework of Iran's nuclear activity under the articles of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and Iran's nuclear transparency mentioned above.
  Needless to say, hardly enough of this is encouraging and, indeed, is rather depressing and despairing of the hope that true change is coming to the practice and orientation of US foreign policy. The sheer speed of "over-Clintonization" of the Obama administration, reflected in the selection of so many officials linked to the Clinton "circle", none of whom can be regarded as agents of change, alone indicates that the hope for an Obama-led change in US foreign policy may be a hope against hope. [Media] [Disinformation] [US foreign policy]
• Is There Hope for the Six-Party Talks?
  It looks likely that six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program will be revived soon, now the U.S. has secured agreement from China, which chairs the discussions. The U.S. has also reportedly attained Russian agreement to the timetable. At the top of the agenda is verifying the declaration of nuclear programs and stockpiles the North has submitted. Bush is under pressure to produce some kind of result in the final days of his presidency. Already the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan look like a dubious legacy. The North Korean nuclear problem is his last chance of a lasting diplomatic achievement.
• Leaders agree to resume six-party talks
  Talks could resume early next month, before the end of the Bush presidency » From left to right, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan, U.S. President George W. Bush and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak shake hands after agreeing to resume the six-party talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, on November 22 (PET). South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, U.S. President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso have agreed to resume the next round of the six-party talks, which have suffered in recent months from disagreement on a verification protocol for North Korea’s nuclear declaration. The decision was made between the leaders of the three countries, in consultation with China and Russia, on the sidelines of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru. With less than two months left in his term, U.S. President George W. Bush seems to be pushing for the next round of six-party talks in an apparent effort to list progress on the North Korean nuclear issue as one of his diplomatic achievements, giving the entire matter a particular sense of urgency.
• Six-Party Talks Due in China Dec. 8
  A fresh round of six-party talks will be held in China Dec. 8 to discuss North Korea's nuclear disarmament, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday. "December 8th, they're scheduled for in China," Rice told reporters aboard an airplane on her way back home from an annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, Yonhap News reported quoting a transcript released by the State Department. "And we expect that there, there will be a push to finalize the verification protocol," she said.
• Sounding the Nuclear Alarm
  The U.S. will not have a credible arsenal unless Washington acts soon to replace aging warheads.
  By Melanie Kirkpatrick New York Gen. Kevin Chilton, a former command astronaut, is no stranger to cutting-edge technology. But these days the man responsible for the command and control of U.S. nuclear forces finds himself talking more often about '57 Chevys than the space shuttle. On a recent visit to The Wall Street Journal he wheeled out the Chevy analogy to describe the nation's aging arsenal of nuclear warheads. The message he's carrying to the Pentagon, Capitol Hill, the press and anyone else who will listen is: Modernize, modernize, modernize. [Nuclear weapons]
• 6-Party Talks to Resume in Early December
  South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, U.S. President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso Saturday agreed to resume the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program early next month to discuss the verification of the North's nuclear declaration and disabling of its nuclear facilities, Yonhap News reported. The agreement was reached at a tripartite summit of the three leaders held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima. "They have it worked out and China will announce (the date). There is a sense that this meeting will happen," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was quoted as saying after the three-way summit.
• Will N. Korea Give Up Nuclear Weapons?
  By Sunny Lee Korea Times Correspondent BEIJING ? "I believe Seoul will definitely give in and eventually compromise, faced with the firm North Korean stance," Shen Dingli, a security expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, said. That's his prediction on the current stalemate of the two Koreas amid the Lee Myung-bak administration's toughened policy to corner Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons, which was countered by North Korea's virtual ultimatum to sever practically all ties with the South on Dec. 1. Shen agrees with most other analysts' view on the situation that Pyongyang's primary purpose is to pressure Seoul so that it would soften its posture toward Pyongyang. However, he believes that Pyongyang's brinkmanship is actually a cry for help. "North Korea's purpose is not to sever its relationship with South Korea. Its use of the word 'severing ties' is a formality. But the motivation is to let South Korea compromise and act in a way that's beneficial to North Korea," adding "North Korea's real purpose is to deepen its relationship with South Korea."
• N. Korea to allow sampling only in next denuclearization phase: news report
  KOREASCOPE | Date 2008-11-20 17:45:06 North Korea has agreed to allow international inspectors to take samples from its main nuclear complex, but only after it enters the next phase of the often-troubled denuclearization process, a news report said Wednesday. North Korea and the United States reached the verbal deal early last month when Washington's chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill visited Pyongyang to discuss ways of verifying the reclusive nation's June declaration of its nuclear stockpile, according to the Kyunghyang Shinmun. Many expected sampling to be allowed during the current stage. "The two sides agreed verbally to verification measures including sample-taking but actual sampling won't be conducted in the (ongoing) second stage," the newspaper citied an anonymous diplomatic source as saying. "Because verification takes a lot of time, both North Korea and the U.S. share understanding that a full-scale verification process such as sample-taking will be possible in the third phase to dismantle (North Korea's) nuclear program." The report partly backs a U.S. claim but also deepens concerns that the incoming U.S. administration will face a daunting task of handling the thorny issue. Sampling is considered crucial to the assessment of the North's nuclear program and the planning for dismantling it. Upon removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism last month, the U.S. State Department said that Pyongyang approved the use of "scientific procedures, including sampling and forensic activities." The department did not give a timetable. North Korea has denied the U.S. claim. The North's Foreign Ministry said last Wednesday in a statement that verification procedures it reached with Washington in October were confined to a "field visit, confirmation of documents and interview with technicians." The Chosun Sinbo, a newspaper published by a pro-Pyongyang Korean group in Japan, also said that the U.S. demand for collecting nuclear samples can be discussed after the delivery of energy aid promised under last year's six-party agreement is delivered. [Sequencing]
• North Korea Limits Tests of Nuclear Site
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: November 12, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — In its first major act of defiance since Senator Barack Obama’s election, North Korea said Wednesday that it would bar international nuclear inspectors from taking soil and nuclear waste samples, which are considered crucial to determining the extent of its weapons program. The Foreign Ministry said that American experts would be allowed to visit the main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, north of the capital, Pyongyang, to review documents and interview engineers, according to the North’s state-run Korea Central News Agency. But no samples can be taken, it said. The North also said any inspections by American and United Nations experts must be confined to Yongbyon, where a plutonium-based nuclear plant is being dismantled. That limitation complicates Washington’s attempts to determine whether the North has been pursuing a separate uranium-enrichment program and exporting nuclear technology to countries like Syria.
• Neo-Cons in Pyongyang
  By Leonid Petrov
  November 18th, 2008 Leonid Petrov, Research Associate at the Australian National University, writes, “As for North Korea's erratic behaviour in rejecting the nuclear sampling and verification process, again it is the conservative mood that dominates today's Pyongyang… Every time when Washington reneged on its promises given at the Six Party Talks it would undermine the power of the liberal group in Pyongyang.” [Renege] [NK US policy]
• Strategic Collapse: The Failure of the Bush Nuclear Doctrine
  Joseph Cirincione
  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in September that the Bush administration will leave the proliferation “situation…in far better shape than we found it.”[1] If only this were true. Instead, Bush officials leave office like financiers fleeing busted Wall Street banks, with precious assets squandered on risky ventures, once-solid institutions crumbling, surpluses turned into gaping deficits, and a string of problems mismanaged into crises that threaten to bring down a decades-old global regime.
• U.S., NK Agree on Draft Verification Plan
  Peter Crail After nearly two months of deadlock and North Korean threats to undo denuclearization progress made over the last year, the United States announced Oct. 11 an agreement with North Korea on measures to verify Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programs. U.S. officials emphasized, however, that the agreement must still be finalized and adopted by the other four parties (China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea) involved in six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization. The six countries are scheduled to meet in early November to discuss the agreement.
• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Holds Some Forces Accountable for Delayed Implementation of Agreement
  Pyongyang, November 12 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued the following statement on Wednesday accusing some forces of recently working hard to create impression that the DPRK is to blame for the delayed implementation of the October 3 agreement adopted at the six-party talks in a bid to mislead the public opinion: The implementation of the October 3 agreement adopted at the six-party talks is now being delayed and there are forces floating misinformation that the DPRK is to blame for this. They assert the need for the talks to adopt a verification document to which the collection of samples, etc. is added, claiming that the DPRK-U.S. Pyongyang agreement on the verification issue is insufficient.
• The Leaks by El-Baradei's Agency
  Regardless of the identity of the IAEA diplomats who leaked the information about uranium traces found at the Syrian al-Kibar site, it is evident that those leaks were intended to cast doubts on the Syrian story which has from the very beginning denied the construction of a nuclear reactor in that location bombed by Israeli planes last September. The leaks are also likely to prevent any possible future cooperation between Syria and the Vienna-based IAEA. Such cooperation is necessary for two reasons: first because it helps the IAEA reach conclusive results with its experts active on the ground - instead of reaching conclusions from a distance - and secondly because it would assert the impression the Syrians are trying to create about the site as an incomplete facility that was still under construction. If the facility was indeed under construction as Minister Walid Moallem reiterated in his press conference with the Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, then where did the traces of uranium in question come from?
• De-Terrorized? U.S. Delists North Korea as a State Sponsor of Terrorism... and the Reactions
  by Nicole Finnemann (nmf@keia.org) Maybe it was the fact that it was October 11 instead of August 11, or perhaps it was because some did not actually think it would happen, but the U.S. administration’s announcement of the removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism came as a surprise to many—an unwelcome surprise to some.
• Statement to the Sixty-Third Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly
  by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei
  We meet at a time of heightened anxiety and insecurity in the world. The global financial crisis is hitting rich and poor countries alike, but the poorest of the poor - the so-called "bottom billion" - are particularly vulnerable. Concern about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the possibility of extremist groups getting hold of nuclear or radioactive material has not diminished in the 12 months since I last spoke to the General Assembly. The work of the IAEA is at the nexus of development and security. In this context, I will give you an update on the work of the Agency in the last year and highlight some of the challenges which need to be addressed.
  Implementation of Safeguards in the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea Earlier this month, the authorities of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK) briefly withheld access to the Yongbyon nuclear facilities from our inspectors, who had been monitoring and verifying the shutdown of the facilities. Access was subsequently restored following an agreement between the U.S. and the DPRK on a Verification Protocol. I naturally still hope that conditions can be created for the DPRK to return to the NPT soon and for the resumption by the Agency of comprehensive safeguards.

• In Asia, doubts grow about a nuclear-free North Korea
  By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers BEIJING — As talks over North Korea's nuclear program stumble along, some scholars and policymakers around Asia now believe that the negotiations may never lead Pyongyang to cede all its nuclear weapons. Instead, they say the best that can be hoped for is to halt North Korea from producing nuclear fuel to make any more weapons. The view is far from universal, and the governments at multilateral talks over the North Korea nuclear program publicly stick to the objective of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. Privately, however, some experts on North Korea note a changing mood, saying the talks have become unpredictable even by the usual standards applied to the reclusive nation. "When you talk to the specialists, even government people, off the record, you hear, 'We don't have a better solution and if we can keep this thing frozen, that's the best we'll have,'" said Ralph A. Cossa, the president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu arm of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. [Inversion]
• Inaction for Inaction, with Unhelpful Reactions
  Ralph A. Cossa, Pacific Forum CSIS Brad Glosserman, Pacific Forum CSIS Hopes of progress in Six-Party Talks negotiations evident in the closing days of the previous quarter were quickly dashed as anticipated disagreements over verification of North Korea’s nuclear declaration created a stalemate still in evidence at quarter’s end. The only movement was backward, as “action for action” was replaced by inaction and worse. Last year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made news by not showing up at the annual ASEAN Regional Forum ministerial. This year she went and hardly anyone noticed. The democratic process made for interesting watching this quarter, not only in Thailand and Malaysia, but in East Asia’s most established democracy, as Japan saw its third leader in the 24 months since Prime Minister Koizumi departed the scene. The once presumably left for dead U.S.-India nuclear deal was reincarnated by the Indian Parliament this quarter with the U.S. Congress following suit at
• The Curse of American Reasonableness
  by Victor Cha
  The hardest thing to accept about President Bush’s October 11 decision to take North Korea off of the terrorism blacklist is not that he was rewarding bad behavior after Pyongyang fired missiles and kicked out IAEA inspectors. Nor was it that Bush as a beleaguered lame duck president might have made bad decisions not unlike Bill Clinton at the end of his term of office. Instead it is that Pyongyang appears capable of forever exploiting the curse of American reasonableness. As a former negotiator, I find this to be the most maddening aspect of Six Party talks.
  The curse of American reasonableness means that every agreement in the Six Party process is negotiated with painstaking care in which parties hammer out specific quid pro quos, the synchronization of steps, timelines, with concomitant rewards and penalties. Yet sooner or later, Pyongyang plays brinksmanship and demands more than it was promised or does less than it should. While everyone accepts that the DPRK is being completely unreasonable, they also realize that a failure of the agreement could mean the failure of the Six Party talks and the precipitation of another crisis. To avoid this, the parties end up pressing the U.S., knowing full well that the DPRK is at fault and traversing the bounds of fairness and good faith, but at the same time, certain that the only chance of progress can be had from American reasonableness rather than DPRK unreasonableness. The result is that any additional American flexibility is widely perceived in the region as evidence of American leadership, but is viewed in Washington as some combination of desperation and weakness. [Dissension] [Inversion]
• U.S. eyes oil aid sources for N. Korea / Replacements sought for Japan assistance
  Satoshi Ogawa / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent WASHINGTON--The United States is discussing the option of asking several countries, including Australia, to provide engergy assistance to North Korea equivalent to the level of aid Japan has postponed the provison of citing the abduction issue as a reason, in return for the reclusive state's disablement of its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. [Tribute] [US Japan relations]
• Australia works to cover Japan's fuel to NKorea
  Updated October 24, 2008 13:10:28 The US and other six party members, sans Japan, are in discussions on how to pay for a million tonnes of oil for North Korea. [Reuters] The US and other six party members, sans Japan, are in discussions on how to pay for a million tonnes of oil for North Korea. [Reuters] Australia is working with the United States and Japan on how to pay for a bulk fuel purchase for North Korea, one of the inducements to Pyongyang in a nuclear disarmament deal. Australian foreign affairs officials appearing before a parliamentary committee in Canberra have confirmed Australia's involvement in discussions on how to pay for a million tonnes of oil for North Korea. Our Canberra correspondent, Linda Mottram, reports that Australia is among several countries considering how to fund the purchase. There is a funding shortfall, with Japan refusing to pay for its component of the purchase.
  The Australian government has been asked to help buy 200,000 tonnes of oil for North Korea to help move the six party nuclear disarmament agreement forward.
  New Zealand, where the government is in caretaker mode ahead of an election, is also involved in the talks.
• The Question President Bush Needs to Answer: Do You Really Believe Kim Jong-Il Will Give up His Nuclear Weapons?
  By Cheon Seongwhun October 23rd, 2008 Cheon Seongwhun, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), writes, “A laudable legacy that President Bush could leave for us may be to clarify all the confusion and suspicion about the Kim Jong-il regime’s nuclear intentions and by doing so, remove a root cause of policy struggle in the United States, South Korea, China, and others.”
  The U.S. State Department on Oct. 11 removed North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, meeting Pyongyang’s major demand in anticipation of reciprocal good behavior in verifying North Korea denuclearization. Contrary to common expectations, this decision would not give the Kim Jong-il regime any substantial benefits in the near future. For the delisting to bear any meaningful fruit, reform and openness of North Korean society must be present. It also should be noted that about 20 other sanctions will remain without changes.
• Updates on North Korea
  by Nicole Finneman (nmf@keia.org)
  Pyongyang Declares it Wants Back in the Nuke Business August 11 came and went without the progress that either of the two Koreas may have hoped for. The day was both the first opportunity for the White House to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism List and the one-month anniversary of the fatal shooting of a South Korean housewife by a North Korea soldier at the Mount Kumgang resort. However, the day passed without action from the White House or resolution on the Mt. Kumgang shooting.
• Back on Track
  Editorial Commentary What we witnessed during the past weekend was a groundbreaking moment for all of us doing business, or interested in doing business, in the DPRK. Saturday 11th October’s announcement from the United States on the removal of the DPRK from the list of states sponsoring terrorism has a major impact on all aspects of dealing with the DPRK. It will enable loans for the DPRK government to rebuild infrastructure, it will enable easier access to development aid, and very importantly, it will enable the successful pursuit of a wide range of business opportunities. This is a significant time for action by those who can see the opportunity which lies directly ahead, the opportunity to help the DPRK rebuild its economy and its country and help its people rejoin the community of peoples of North East Asia. The process has already begun. Strategic investors have recognized the DPRK as the resource-rich geographic pivot of Northeast Asia. The DRPK sits in the centre of an economic bloc which stretches from Sakhalin in the Russian Far East, through Japan, through Northeast China into Central Asia and encompasses over 600 million people. This emerging economic bloc will be one of the powerhouses of the 21st century. Those with vision and a desire to build the new world for the people of the 21st century will be setting sail for the DPRK now.
• The Latest North Korea Deal
  Published: October 13, 2008 We’re glad to see that the nuclear deal with North Korea is back on track. Presuming the latest agreement holds (always a big if with North Korea), President Bush can at least say that when he left office Pyongyang was no longer producing plutonium for nuclear bombs.
  The deal is far from perfect. It includes vague and confidential terms that could cause problems. But it is not the surrender that hard-line critics are charging. In recent weeks, both sides have been playing a dangerous game of chicken. After North Korea shuttered its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, (sic) the White House balked at taking it off the terrorism list and insisted that Pyongyang also accept a go-anywhere-see-anything verification plan. [US NK policy] [Inversion] [Media]
• Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Secrecy And Confusion
  Oct 21 The size of the nuclear weapons stockpile is secret, but not hard to figure out.
  . By Hans M. Kristensen
  In a letter to the editor in Boston Globe, Thomas D’Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), writes that the United States is reducing its nuclear weapons and that, “Currently, the stockpile is the smallest it has been since the Eisenhower administration.” That statement leaves considerable confusion about the size of the stockpile. If “since the Eisenhower administration” means counting from 1961 when the Kennedy administration took over, that would mean the stockpile today contains nearly 20,000 warheads. If it means counting from the day the Eisenhower administration took office in 1953, it would mean fewer than 1,500 warheads. Why leave an order of magnitude of confusion about the size of the nuclear weapons stockpile? Stockpile History Neither number is correct. The actual stockpile size today, based on what I and my colleagues at NRDC can piece together, is approximately 5,300 warheads, or roughly the size of the stockpile in 1957
• IAEA chief: Iran not close to developing nuclear weapons
  By Haaretz Service and The Associated Press Last update - 04:59 21/10/2008 Tags: Israel News, nuclear weapons The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency said on Monday that Iran remains far from acquiring capabilities to develop nuclear weapons. In an interview broadcast on Channel 10, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, said the Islamic Republic is still lacking the key components to produce an atomic weapon. "They do not have even the nuclear material, the raw unenriched uranium to develop one nuclear weapon if they decide to do so," ElBaradei said. "Even if you decide to walk out tomorrow from the non-proliferation treaty and you go into a lot of scenarios, we're still not going to see Iran tomorrow having nuclear weapons."
• Major new report on how effectively NWS have been securing plutonium, uranium etc
  Interested in learning how effective the U.S. and other nations with nuclear weapons (e.g., Russia, France, India, and Israel) have been in securing their nuclear bomb-making fissile materials--plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)? Or how well current international controls are making transparent what the nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states (e.g., Japan, Iran, and Brazil) are doing with their civilian nuclear power stocks of fissile materials? We recommend checking out the Global Fissile Material Report 2008, which was released this past weekend by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, a group of scientists from 16 nations (including our buddy Frank von Hippel) convened by Princeton University. Comprehensive and updated with the latest data available, the report focuses on the key issues surrounding the proposed Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty. For example, what is the significance of the Bush Administration breaking with past U.S. policy by resisting international verification of compliance with the treaty? The report also provides a number of creative solutions to pressing problems, such as making sure that nations using HEU to power naval submarines are not also diverting HEU for weapons-making. [Proliferation]
• Looking forward, looking back at the N. Korean nuclear issue
  Kang Tae-ho, Senior reporter for inter-Korean affairs [Column] The resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue has arrived at the completion of its second stage by passing through a long and perilous road. There have been many critical moments just in the period of one year from the time of the agreement on the second stage of disablement made on October 3 of last year to this agreement on reporting and verification protocol and the lifting of North Korea’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism. Pyongyang was preparing to proceed with reprocessing nuclear material, and smoke was known to be rising from Punggyeri, where the nuclear test was held two years ago. It was a situation of going back to the road that came before, or even the possibility of a more serious crisis. Yet reactions were muted. The impression was, as Gary Samore, vice president of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, said in a recent interview in Seoul, that it looked like they were watching the old movies again.
• US: N Korea steps up disabling of nuclear reactor
  By FOSTER KLUG The Associated Press Friday, October 17, 2008; 2:32 PM WASHINGTON -- The United States said Friday that North Korea has stepped up its disabling of a nuclear reactor it had been threatening to reactivate, a sign of progress in six-nation nuclear disarmament talks that had been on the verge of collapse.
• U.S. says North Korea stuck to nuclear promises
  By Sue Pleming Reuters Friday, October 17, 2008; 4:34 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has kept its promise and reversed steps to restart its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon after an agreement last weekend between Washington and Pyongyang, the State Department said on Friday.
• Pyongyang's call for 'fair's fair' ignored
  By Sunny Lee BEIJING - North Korea officially no longer sponsors terrorism, according to the United States government. Pyongyang is elated, and the US is in self-help psychology sessions, trying to believe it was the best possible deal to get the North to fully disarm its nuclear weapons program. There is in this development an important detail that deserves attention. During the three days of negotiations in North Korea's capital between the chief US nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, and Pyongyang's masters of high-stakes brinkmanship, Washington tried to include a couple of additional sites for nuclear inspection besides Yongbyon, where the North on Tuesday insisted it would allow UN monitors to assure that the plant that produced plutonium for its test bomb remained disabled. The US demand over inspection of additional sites was not part of the previous agreement and Pyongyang made a counter-proposal.
  A well-placed source told this writer that South Korea indeed has nuclear weapons in the US military base nearby Seoul. "They bring the nuclear arsenals in and out of the country on a regular basis," he said, adding, "By doing so, South Korea technically doesn't have nuclear weapons." [Denuclearisation]
• North Korea to Resume Disabling Nuclear Plant
  By CHOE SANG-HUN and HELENE COOPER Published: October 12, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea welcomed its removal from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors and confirmed on Sunday that it would resume disabling its main nuclear weapons complex and allow international monitors back to the site. Washington’s decision to take North Korea off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, announced Saturday, is an important symbolic gesture for the North, an isolated and poverty-stricken country, removing one of hurdles to gaining a measure of international acceptance. But there is much in Washington’s tortuous relationship with North Korea that stays the same, including economic sanctions against the North [Sanctions] Terrorism list]
• Stealth Crisis
  by John Feffer | Tuesday, September 9, 2008 Vol. 3, No. 36 When pundits talk about the U.S. elections and foreign policy, they focus on Iraq and Iran. But the third member of the infamous "axis of evil" may prove to be just as influential. In the last several weeks, North Korea has stopped dismantling its nuclear facilities and has even threatened to rebuild what it has already destroyed. In exchange for providing an account of its nuclear programs – and 18,000 pages of documentation — Pyongyang expected to be removed from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The Bush administration announced back in June that it would do so. But the actual removal has not taken place, pending Pyongyang's acceptance of an intrusive inspections regime. The only palpable foreign policy success of the Bush administration thus hangs in the balance. Success, of course, is a relative term. In 2000, North Korea and the United States were on the verge of a historic détente. After the Florida election debacle, Bill Clinton didn't have the political capital to seal the deal with a visit to Pyongyang in the waning days of his presidency. The new Bush team couldn't wait to reverse the Clinton policy. North Korea responded by unfreezing its plutonium program, reprocessing more nuclear material, and ultimately testing a nuclear weapon in 2006.
• N Korea to dismantle reactor again
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: October 12 2008 17:44 | Last updated: October 12 2008 17:44 North Korea will resume dismantling its nuclear reactor following a US decision to remove it from its list of sponsors of terrorism, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said on Sunday. President George W. Bush struck North Korea from the terrorism list this weekend after Pyongyang agreed to allow inspections to verify a nuclear declaration that the Stalinist state made earlier this year. [Terrorism list]
• North Korea in nuclear U-turn after terror list reprieve
  Justin McCurry in Tokyo The Guardian, Monday October 13 2008 Article historyNorth Korea said yesterday it would resume dismantling its nuclear weapons programme, hours after the US removed it from the list of states that sponsor terrorism. In a sudden change of course that has raised hopes that it will abandon its nuclear ambitions, North Korea has agreed to allow officials from the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency to resume inspections of its Yongbyon nuclear facilities. [Inversion]
• U.S. removes N. Korea from terrorism list
  Six-party talks expected to resume in late October with formal signing of verification protocol
  WASHINGTON -- The United States State Department formally announced at midnight October 11 (EDT) that it was removing North Korea’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, enabling the second stage of denuclearization to enter its completion phase through six-way talks predicted to resume in late October. A spokesperson for the North Korean Foreign Ministry told a reporter at North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on October 12 that Pyongyang welcomed the United States’ fulfillment of its responsibility to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism following its lifting of restrictions on North Korea through the Trading with the Enemy Act as pledged in the October 3 agreement. The spokesperson also said that the complete implementation of the October 3 agreement in the future depends upon the actual validity of the United States’ measure of deleting North Korea from its list of terrorism sponsors and the five parties’ completion of economic compensation
• U.S. Move on N. Korea Assailed in Japan
  Nuclear Plant's Dismantling To Resume, Pyongyang Says By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, October 13, 2008; Page A18 TOKYO, Oct. 12 -- A day after the Bush administration removed North Korea from its terrorism blacklist, the country announced that it would resume tearing down its main nuclear plant, and South Korea welcomed the move as a step toward ending its next-door neighbor's nuclear program. But in nearby Japan -- where North Korea's kidnapping of Japanese citizens is a festering national sore that politicians dare not neglect -- the decision to take the country off the list of state sponsors of terrorism was condemned by family members of the abductees. These relatives are well-known and much-honored in Japan, and their opinions have been a powerful force in crafting Japan's hard-nosed policy toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. [Abductees]
• Delisting North Korea
  By Victor Cha
  Monday, October 13, 2008; Page A21 Many will criticize the Bush administration's decision to remove North Korea from the terrorism blacklist last weekend, over the objections of close U.S. ally Japan, as a Hail Mary pass by an administration desperate for good news. Did President Bush, reeling from the U.S. financial meltdown and still struggling to achieve success in Iraq, finally relent to North Korean saber rattling and prematurely "delist" a country he once deemed part of the "axis of evil"? Perhaps so. But other factors may have been at play in this controversial decision. In any case, a McCain or Obama administration is likely to reap the benefits of this move.
  The optics are terrible: The delisting comes after two weeks of North Korean missile tests and good doses of fiery rhetoric. Pyongyang has ejected international inspectors from previously locked-down nuclear facilities. Agreeing to anything right now with North Korea's almost certainly stroke-stricken leader looks like surrender. In this regard, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill's last-ditch attempt to break the logjam reflects a fundamental dilemma the United States faces in implementing agreements reached during talks with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia. [Dissension] [US NK policy]
• North Korea Is Off Terror List After a Deal With the U.S.
  By HELENE COOPER Published: October 11, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration announced on Saturday that it was removing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, in a bid to salvage a fragile nuclear deal that seemed on the verge of collapse. Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that the United States made the decision after North Korea agreed to resume disabling a plutonium plant and to allow some inspections to verify that it had halted its nuclear program as promised months earlier. The deal, which the Bush administration had portrayed as a major foreign policy achievement, was slipping away in recent weeks in a dispute over the verification program.
• U.S. Removes North Korea From Terrorism Blacklist
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 11, 2008; 5:32 PM The Bush administration removed North Korea from its terrorism blacklist yesterday in an effort to salvage a sputtering disarmament agreement with a charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil." The move came just two days after the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il barred international inspectors from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, threatened to resume production of weapons-grade
• N. Korea Delivers Ultimatum to U.S., Reports Chosun Shinbo
  North Korea has described a formula for the peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue to American envoy Christopher Hill, and delivered "an ultimatum in this regard. It seems the North presented a bold, epoch-making solution," the Chosun Shinbo, a mouthpiece for Pyongyang published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan or Chongryon, asserted on Monday. "The negotiations in Pyongyang did not focus on simple technical matters," the daily added. The daily didn't disclose the content of what it called "a bold epoch-making solution." But it called attention to the fact that Hill, during his recent visit to Pyongyang, met with Ri Chan-bok, chief of the North Korean People's Army Mission in Panmunjom, surmising that the nuclear issue involves guaranteeing security on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia. "North Korea and the U.S. need to establish a milestone for downgrading their hostilities," the paper added. This view supports speculation that Pyongyang may have proposed a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula and a high-level military meeting.
• US, N Korea seek compromise in nuclear deadlock
  The Associated Press Tuesday, October 7, 2008; 2:01 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- The United States and North Korea are being flexible in their effort to reach a compromise to resolve the dispute in the North's nuclear disarmament process, South Korea's foreign minister said Tuesday. The North stopped disabling its main nuclear facilities in mid-August, rejecting a U.S. insistence that the regime should undergo a thorough inspection of its declaration of nuclear programs. Washington's top nuclear envoy visited Pyongyang last week to resolve the impasse, but it was unclear whether it produced any breakthrough. But on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told a South Korean parliamentary committee that Washington and Pyongyang were trying to strike a compromise by exerting "flexibility" and "considerably reflecting each other's position." However, Yu said he believes the U.S. would not make any substantial change in its demand for a rigorous nuclear verification. He did not elaborate. Yu also said the U.S., South Korea and other countries involved in the disarmament talks were expected to announce their positions on the latest dispute in a few days, after reviewing details of U.S. envoy Christopher Hill's trip to the North. North Korea began disabling its main nuclear complex north of Pyongyang last November as part of an aid-for-disarmament pact with the U.S., South Korea, China, Russia and Japan. The North, however, stopped the disablement work and began reassembling the facilities in protest at Washington's refusal to remove it from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism. The U.S. pledged to remove the North from the blacklist after the regime submitted a long-delayed account of its nuclear programs in June. The U.S. later insisted the North would only be taken off the list after it agreed to an international inspection of its nuclear declaration. [Renege] [Verification] {Agreement071003]
• Some Signs of Progress in Hill’s N.Korea Talks
  There are signs that chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill’s talks with North Korean officials from last Wednesday to Friday produced some results, observers say. The inference is based on three facts. First, U.S. Special Envoy on North Korean Affairs Sung Kim, who accompanied Hill to Pyongyang, is staying in Seoul rather than returning to Washington. That could suggest he is keeping himself ready for follow-up talks. Second, Hill, right after concluding his visit, had a series of meetings with officials from South Korea, Japan, China and Russia in Seoul and Beijing to brief them on his visit. A diplomatic source said this implies he discussed something important with the North Koreans. Third, the North has not taken any further action to its threat to reintroduce nuclear materials to a disabled nuclear reprocessing plant, despite warning it would do so, suggesting the North is watching developments. But no details of the talks were disclosed. A speculation that some kind of meeting between senior U.S. and North Korean military officers might discuss simultaneous inspections of nuclear facilities in both North and South Korea is making the rounds after North Korea arranged a meeting between Ri Chan-bok, chief of the North Korean People’s Army Mission in the border truce village of Panmunjom, the North's channel for military talks, and Hill.
• 'NK Wants Nuclear Inspection of S. Korea'
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter With his administration's time fast running out, U.S. President George W. Bush may be ready to negotiate with North Korea and agree on a restricted nuclear verification program in the Stalinist state, according to a news report.
• Israel: North Korea adds to Mideast proliferation
  By GEORGE JAHN – 9 hours ago VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Israel accused North Korea on Saturday of supplying at least half a dozen rogue Mideast regimes with nuclear technology or conventional arms. World powers, meanwhile, urged Pyongyang to stop reactivating its weapons-producing atomic program. The comments, at a 145-nation Vienna meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, focused on the North's black market role and its reversal of a commitment to mothball its nuclear activities in exchange for trade and security guarantees.
  Israeli delegate David Danieli accused Pyongyang of being a black market supplier of conventional arms or nuclear technology to Middle East nations covertly trying to break out of the nonproliferation fold. While he did not name suspected culprit nations among the "at least half dozen" countries availing themselves of the North's help, he appeared to be referring in part to Iran and Syria, which are both under IAEA investigation. [Chutzpah] [Double standards] [Media]
• Top U.S. nuclear negotiator reports ‘significant discussions’ with N. Korea
  Hill’s remarks seem to indicate progress was made on verification protocol and terror blacklist removal   U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill returned to Seoul the afternoon of October 3 after three days of talks with North Korean government officials in Pyongyang.   Diplomatic sources said that before leaving Pyongyang, Hill said he had "significant discussions," making it likely the six-party talks will go forward.  
• Trust is still key to success of nuclear negotiations
  [Editorial] U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian affairs Christopher Hill returned to Seoul October 3 after traveling to North Korea on October 1 at the invitation of Pyongyang. The fact that he extended his original schedule by one day indicates that there has been some degree of progress in negotiations with North Korea over nuclear verification. The crisis of the six-party talks running aground appears to have been overcome.   At the core of the nuclear verification controversy is what will be done about other nuclear facilities besides Yongbyon. In connection with this, U.S. sources say that the United States has taken a step back, concentrating primarily on the Yongbyon complex. If Pyongyang submits its verification plan regarding the facilities and activities at Yongbyon that it announced last June to China, the host country of the six-party talks, the United States will provisionally rescind its designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. Verification of unreported facilities and activities such as nuclear weaponry, plans for uranium enrichment and nuclear proliferation activities, which the United States initially also demanded, will be negotiated again later based on Pyongyang’s underlying consent.
• U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and His Party Leave
  Pyongyang, October 3 (KCNA) -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and his party left here today.
• Envoy Leaves North Korea With Issues Unresolved
  By HELENE COOPER Published: October 3, 2008 WASHINGTON — An American envoy returned to the South Korean capital on Friday after three days of inconclusive talks with North Korea, while Bush administration officials said the North’s government was continuing to take steps toward restarting its nuclear weapons program. The envoy, Christopher R. Hill, told reporters that he had held "detailed and very substantive" talks in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, but he would not say whether he was satisfied with the outcome. He said he still had to brief Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was traveling to Kazakhstan on Friday.  
• State Department Daily Press Briefing: Sean McCormack, Spokesman
  Washington, DC October 2, 2008
  QUESTION: Just one more thing on the choreography. To extend your metaphor, I mean, this was supposed to be a two-step dance. MR. MCCORMACK: Mm-hmm. QUESTION: And the first step in this particular phase was for them to produce the declaration and the second step was for you to lift them – remove them from the state sponsors list. Is there any flexibility on the choreography of that? In other words, might you take that step first? MR. MCCORMACK: Well, I would insert a step to the original dance that -- QUESTION: (Inaudible). MR. MCCORMACK: That’s right, yeah. Is the – part of the – part of the declaration, in the view of the five parties, included a verification protocol. You know, given the nature of the North Korean regime, it stood to reason that you needed to have a verification protocol to ensure everybody that the declaration was full and complete. So that step has not been completed, and we have reiterated to North Korea numerous times – and we can do so again and I’m sure Chris is doing so in Pyongyang – that we intend to fulfill our obligations as North Korea fulfills all of its obligations. There’s still an outstanding component in the verification protocol. [Renege] [Verification]
• North Korean denuclearization pact is collapsing
  Mike Chinoy
  Tuesday, September 30, 2008 North Korea's move to restart its Yongbyon reactor means that one of the Bush administration's few foreign policy achievements - a deal to roll back Kim Jong Il's nuclear program - is on the brink of collapse.
  The conventional narrative, put forward by administration officials and unquestioningly accepted by most of the media, is that it is North Korea's fault - an unpredictable rogue state, perhaps thrown into turmoil by Kim's ill health, abruptly breaking a painstakingly negotiated denuclearization deal.
  There's only one problem with this account. It's wrong - and failure to understand what's really happening, and the reasons for North Korea's behavior, guarantees that the crisis will escalate. [Renege] [Agreement071003] [Declaration] [HEU]
• North Korea: Nuclear Talks Extended
  By HELENE COOPER Published: October 2, 2008 The chief American negotiator for North Korea extended his talks in Pyongyang, the capital, on Thursday in an effort to salvage a crumbling nuclear disarmament deal, while the South Korean media reported that the North had been upgrading its ballistic missile test site. The unconfirmed reports on the missile base, Musudan, which is on North Korea’s northeast coast, came as the American negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, an assistant secretary of state, met North Korean officials in Pyongyang to try to persuade them not to restart their nuclear weapons program in Yongbyon. Mr. Hill had been expected to return to Seoul, South Korea, on Thursday, and officials in Seoul declined to speculate on whether the extension of his stay was a sign of progress.
• Activity spotted near N. Korean nuclear test site: source
  Date 2008-10-01 17:48:47 Increased activity has been spotted near the site where North Korea set off a nuclear device two years ago, prompting suspicions Pyongyang could be repairing the facility for a second test blast, an informed source here said Wednesday. "We recently witnessed smoke near the nuclear test site in Poongkye-ri, North Hamkyong Province," the source said, asking not to be identified. The North is believed to have been incinerating clothes or equipment, but it is still not clear whether the communist nation has begun repairing the nuclear test site, the source said. "The government is still working to analyze recent intelligence to determine whether the activities near the nuclear test site are linked to the repairing of the facility," he said.
• Last Chance for Hill?
  After meeting with Christopher Hill before he flew to Pyongyang on Wednesday, a senior South Korean government official said it was hard to predict whether the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator would produce tangible results or come back empty-handed. Hill was quoted as saying that North Korea had given no hint of its intentions. Hill is understood to be seeking a deal on a verification protocol for North Korea’s declaration of nuclear facilities and stockpiles after the North said it would resume operations at a processing plant. This is the third time Hill is visiting the North. During previous visits in June and December last year, he laid the groundwork for solutions to issues that were stalling the denuclearization process such as frozen North Korean funds abroad and the nuclear declaration.
• U.S. Assistant Secretary and His Party Here
  Pyongyang, October 1 (KCNA) -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and his party arrived here today.
• U.S. in Nuclear Talks With N. Korea
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: October 1, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — The chief American negotiator for North Korea arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday to try to keep the North from reactivating its nuclear weapons program, while a news report said the government may have been restoring a test site. The negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, the United States assistant secretary of state, arrived in the North Korean capital after traveling from Seoul and passing through the heavily fortified border between South and North. His trip is seen as the Bush administration’s last attempt to salvage a nuclear disarmament deal it had struck with the North after years of difficult negotiations.
• Mistrust and Hostility Between Two Koreas Shapes Life on an Island
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Mistrust and Hostility Between Two Koreas Shapes Life on an Island By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: September 30, 2008 BAENGNYEONG ISLAND, South Korea — Less than 10 miles from here, North Korea has amassed two army divisions, artillery and rockets — pointed directly at South Korea.
  Mr. Hill’s trip to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, at the invitation of the North Koreans is widely seen as a last-ditch effort of the administration of President Bush in its waning months to salvage an agreement on nuclear disarmament. That deal began crumbling in recent weeks as the United States demanded inspections to check whether North Korea was hiding any nuclear activities other than those at the declared complex in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang. Without a North Korean agreement to allow such inspections, Washington refused to give the North the reward it had sought: removing the country from America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. [Renege] [Verification] [HEU]
• Introductory Statement to the Board of Governors by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei
  Our agenda for this meeting covers a broad range of Agency activities. I will limit my remarks to a few key areas.
  Implementation of Safeguards in the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea As explained in the report before you, the Agency has so far continued to verify the shutdown of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and to implement the ad hoc monitoring and verification arrangement, with the cooperation of the Democratic People´s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The Agency has not been asked to take part in the disablement activities, but has been able to observe and document them. In that context, Agency inspectors have observed, after our report was distributed to you, that some equipment previously removed by the DPRK during the disablement process has been brought back. This has not changed the shutdown status of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. This morning, the DPRK authorities asked the Agency´s inspectors to remove seals and surveillance equipment to enable them to carry out tests at the reprocessing plant, which they say will not involve nuclear material. I still hope that conditions can be created for the DPRK to return to the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the earliest possible date and for the resumption by the Agency of comprehensive safeguards. [Renege] [IAEA]

• U.S. Nuke Envoy to Visit Pyongyang This Week
  Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill will visit North Korea this week, the U.S. State Department announced last Saturday. The visit comes after North Korea publicly pledged to reintroduce nuclear materials to its disabled reprocessing facility at Yongbyon, from which it could extract plutonium for nuclear weapons, in protest against the U.S. decision to postpone striking the country from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. According to a South Korean government source, Hill will arrive in Seoul on Tuesday afternoon. He will travel to the North on Wednesday after meeting with South Korea's chief negotiator Kim Sook. During his visit to the North, Hill will reportedly hold last-moment negotiations with the North over a verification protocol for the nuclear facilities and stockpiles the North has declared, the main stumbling block in the talks on denuclearization. [Agreement071003] [Renege] [Terrorism List]
• Can Hill’s N.Korea Visit Turn the Tide?
  North Korea said last Wednesday that it would introduce nuclear materials into its reprocessing facilities before Oct. 1. With only two days are left to the deadline, the U.S. chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill heads for Pyongyang. North Korea will hold final talks with Hill over its nuclear verification procedure and appears ready to choose the drastic option of restarting its nuclear plant if those talks are fruitless.
• Hill en route to N. Korea with hope for compromise
  With time running out on current U.S. administration, is N. Korea looking for dialogue or a deal? Christopher Hill, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is believed to be planning a trip to North Korea this week to find a way to resume the stalled six-party negotiations on the North’s nuclear weapons program, amid an increase in tension after Pyongyang said it would re-start a reprocessing plant at its key nuclear facility in Yongbyon.
• The Troubled North Korea Deal
  Published: September 28, 2008 The hard-won nuclear deal with North Korea seems to be unraveling after a hopeful period in which the North shuttered its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and dramatically blew up the cooling tower. Workers stopped dismantling the complex last month, after the United States failed to take North Korea off the terrorism list — a step toward diplomatic rehabilitation. Now technicians at Yongbyon are preparing to restart a plant that makes weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, is notoriously erratic, and there are reports that he may be seriously ill, raising doubts about who is calling the shots. It has never been clear whether Pyongyang really meant to give up all of its weapons.
  In this case, the Bush administration bears much of the blame.
  Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration hard-liners have never wanted to negotiate with North Korea. For six years they managed to block any serious talks. During that time North Korea produced enough plutonium for at least four additional weapons and tested a nuclear weapon. [Dissension] [Agreement071003] [Renege]
• Bush Sends His Negotiator for Talks in North Korea
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: September 29, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is dispatching its chief North Korea negotiator, Christopher Hill, to Pyongyang this week in a last-ditch effort to rescue what the White House had hoped would be a singular foreign policy achievement: an accord leading to the country’s nuclear disarmament. The rapid decision to send Mr. Hill to the North Korean capital, days after North Korea broke the seals that United Nations inspectors placed on its equipment and said it was restarting a facility to manufacture bomb-grade plutonium, seemed to underscore the administration’s desperation to restore an accord that took most of President Bush’s second term to negotiate and implement. Mr. Hill, one administration official said, is "flying blind," hoping to get a previous agreement back on track. The fact that Mr. Hill is going to Pyongyang at all shows how much has changed in the administration. In his first term. Mr. Bush refused to talk to the country, and American strategy was to hasten North Korea’s economic collapse. But the country refused to buckle, and sped ahead with its nuclear enrichment facility. In more recent years, the administration argued for months about whether to allow Mr. Hill to participate in direct talks with the North Koreans, particularly in Pyongyang. His efforts to go there were repeatedly blocked by hard-liners who argued that to show up in North Korea would be to reward the government there. [Agreement071003] [Renege]
• Administration Pushing to Salvage Accord With N. Korea
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 28, 2008; Page A07 A top U.S. envoy is planning to travel to North Korea this week in a last-ditch effort to salvage a faltering accord to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs, sources said yesterday. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill is seeking to arrange the rare visit in the wake of North Korea's statement last week that it plans to begin reprocessing spent fuel rods into the raw material needed for nuclear weapons. The announcement was a setback for the Bush administration's efforts to claim progress in restraining North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
  Under one idea being considered by Hill and his aides -- though not yet approved by more senior officials -- North Korea would give China, the host of the talks, a plan that includes sampling, access to key sites and other provisions sought by the United States. Bush would then provisionally remove North Korea from the terrorism list, and after that China would announce North Korean acceptance of the verification plan. This would allow North Korea to save face and assert that the delisting occurred before the verification plan was in place. "We have to have a verification protocol that is going to give us confidence that we are able to verify the declaration and that we're able to answer certain unresolved questions," Rice told Reuters. [Agreement071003] [Verification] [Terrorism list] [Renege] [China rise] [Decline]
• Broken US promises undermine North Korean nuclear agreement
  By Peter Symonds 26 September 2008 The six-party agreement on the denuclearisation of North Korea is threatened with breakdown after Pyongyang took a series of steps this week to restart the plutonium reprocessing plant adjoining its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. While the US and international media have focussed attention on North Korea, its actions clearly have been taken in response to the US administration’s refusal to meet Washington’s commitments under the deal. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), North Korea is planning to introduce nuclear material into the plant next week. IAEA inspectors completed the removal of seals and surveillance cameras from the facility on Wednesday, as instructed by North Korean authorities, and will be barred from the plant, but not at this stage from the reactor and other facilities at the site. US officials immediately criticised North Korea’s decision. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned on Wednesday that the step would only heighten Pyongyang’s international isolation. At the same time, she dismissed the suggestion that six-party talks, involving China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, as well as the US and North Korea, were dead, declaring: "By no means. We’ve been through ups and downs in this process before."
• North Korea's nuclear demand is setback for Bush
  By Elaine Sciolino Published: September 23, 2008 PARIS: North Korea's demand to remove seals and surveillance cameras at its nuclear reprocessing facility is a setback for both the Bush administration and an international nuclear disarmament agreement.
• The Future of Political Leadership in North Korea
  By Rudiger Frank September 23rd 2008 Rudiger Frank, Professor of East Asian Political Economy at the University of Vienna, writes, “There is always the possibility that a power-hungry family clan of one of Kim Jong-il’s wives, or of another line in the family, or an ambitious leader from the military will try to grab power without considering the long-term consequences for political stability in North Korea… However, collective leadership is the most likely, the most logical option for North Korea’s political future, simply because dynastic succession will not work.”
• N. Korea increases pressure in nuclear standoff
  Seals removed from Yongbyon reprocessing facility after official request from North to IAEA inspectors working there With North Korea and the United States engaged in a war of wills over a verification agreement and the delisting of North Korea from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, North Korea has raised its pressure on the United States. North Korea requested yesterday that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency working at the Yongbyon nuclear facility remove the seals and observation equipment from its reprocessing facility. This is the strongest measure North Korea has taken since it suspended work on disabling the plant on August 14.
• N. Korea Is Closer to Restart of Nuclear Program
  By ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: September 22, 2008 PARIS — North Korea asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove seals and surveillance cameras at the North’s nuclear reprocessing facility, the agency’s director said Monday, in a setback for both the Bush administration and an international nuclear disarmament agreement.
• New crisis over North Korea's nuclear plans·
  Plutonium reprocessing to restart, country says · Deal on ending weapons programme under threat
  Ian Black The Guardian, Thursday September 25 2008 North Korea has triggered a new crisis over its nuclear ambitions by expelling UN inspectors and pledging to resume plutonium reprocessing - a precursor to producing atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, confirmed yesterday that it had, at Pyongyang's request, removed seals and surveillance equipment from the Yongbyon plant, delivering a blow to the 2007 deal scrapping its atomic weapons programmes. In a closed session of the IAEA's board in Vienna, the deputy director-general, Olli Heinonen, said North Korea had informed the inspectors that it planned to "introduce nuclear material to the reprocessing plant in one week's time". The move cast new doubt on years of attempts to denuclearise the isolated state at a time of deepening uncertainty abut the health of its reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il. Six-party disarmament talks stalled last month when North Korea stopped disabling Yongbyon in protest at delays in being removed from a US blacklist of states supporting terrorism.
• N. Korea moves closer to restarting nuclear facility
  North could restart its reprocessing facility and be able to extract plutonium within a week, but has left room for negotiation North Korea has taken another step closer to a danger line that could bring about a response including the suspension of economic and energy aid from the United States and the other six-party states. The possibility of a clash between North Korea and the United States has grown that much closer.   North Korea demanded on Monday that the International Atomic Energy Agency remove the seals on the Yongbyon reprocessing facility, but drew the line at saying it would conduct experiments, though not those related to nuclear materials. Yesterday, however, it informed the IAEA that it would introduce nuclear material to the facility.   The nuclear material North Korea will insert into the facility is believed to be used fuel rods removed from Yongbyon’s five-megawatt reactor in accordance with the disablement agreement. It also said it would do this in about one week. If North Korea does what it says, North Korea will restart its reprocessing facility and be able to extract plutonium within the week.
• North Koreans Bar Inspectors at Nuclear Site
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ELAINE SCIOLINO Published: September 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — North Korea’s move to resume the reprocessing of plutonium, perhaps as soon as next week, left the country on the verge of restarting a nuclear weapons program whose shutdown had been portrayed by the White House as a significant diplomatic achievement.
• N. Korea Plans to Resume Processing of Nuclear Fuel
  By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, September 25, 2008; Page A13 TOKYO, Sept. 25 -- North Korea plans to restart nuclear fuel processing next week and has banned international inspectors from its nuclear reprocessing plant in Yongbyon, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced Wednesday.
• Seoul to Suspend Aid If N.Korea Restores Nuke Reactor
  South Korea and the U.S. are expected to temporarily suspend economic and energy aid to the North which they promised if the North disables its nuclear facilities, it emerged Sunday. The South Korean government has decided to postpone sending 1,500 tons of welded steel pipes to the North, which was scheduled for Thursday, and wait to see what the North will do next. [Aid weapon]
• Nuclear verification process calls for productive compromise
  [Editorial]   North Korea finally went into detail about its position regarding nuclear verification on September 19. Other six-party nations such as South Korea, the United States and China have begun talking about how to respond. The discord could become drawn-out if, this time around as well, everyone fails to produce a turn in the atmosphere. The moment calls for a productive compromise, one that harmonizes principles and reality
• North Korea Says It Seeks to Remain on Terror List
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: September 19, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that it no longer wished to be removed from the United States’ terrorism blacklist, signaling that it is hardening its stance amid reports that its leader, Kim Jong-il, may be seriously ill. The North Korean Foreign Ministry also confirmed what the United States and South Korea have said already: it has begun to reassemble a nuclear complex that can produce weapons-grade plutonium. [Agreement071003] [Terrorism list]
• Rodong Sinmun on DPRK's Bolstered War Deterrent Force
  Pyongyang, September 16 (KCNA) -- Sovereignty is the life and soul of the Korean people and it is an exercise of the right to self-defence and a measure for legitimate defence for the DPRK to reinforce the war deterrent to cope with the U.S. moves for a new war. Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in its by-lined commentary. The commentary goes on: The United States and the south Korean puppets staged the large-scale Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises in south Korea under the pretext of what they called "security" and "keeping the posture for joint defence" in August. This was a test offensive operation for mounting a preemptive attack on the DPRK, to all intents and purposes. [Joint US military] [Sovereignty]
• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Blasts U.S. for Putting on Hold Effectuation of Its Measure
  Pyongyang, September 19 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA Friday as regards the U.S. act of misleading the public opinion while persistently evading the implementation of the October 3 agreement: As already clarified by the DPRK, it suspended the disablement of its nuclear facilities and a work has been under way to restore its nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon to their original state since some time ago as a counter-measure against the action taken by the U.S. to indefinitely put on hold the effectuation of the measure for delisting the DPRK as a "state sponsor of terrorism." This was a logical product of the U.S. non-abidance by the principle of "action for action" stipulated in the September 19 joint statement, the February 13 agreement and the October 3 agreement.
• N. Korea Restoring Yongbyon Nuclear Reactor
    By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter A North Korean official Friday dismissed media reports on the alleged health problems of the North's leader Kim Jong-il, calling them ``nonsense.'' Hyon Hak-bong, deputy chief of the U.S. affairs bureau at the North's Foreign Ministry, also said Pyongyang is making ``thorough preparations'' to rebuild the Yongbyon nuclear facility. He added that work to restore the plutonium-producing plant had already begun. At the outset of inter-Korean talks on promised energy aid to Pyongyang under the six-party disarmament process, Hyon said that such reports have been spread by ``those who wish the worst for the North Korean regime.'' ``Those reports are the mere trickery of bad people who do not want our country to fare well,'' Hyon was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying at the truce village of Panmunjeom dividing the two Koreas.
• Analysis: North Korea nuclear deal falling apart
  By MATTHEW LEE The Associated Press Saturday, September 20, 2008; 2:50 AM WASHINGTON -- A rare foreign policy success for the Bush administration is imploding as North Korea backs away from pledges to abandon nuclear weapons, pretty much as the president's critics on the right had warned. Distracted by an economic crisis at home and a series of diplomatic setbacks abroad, President Bush and his top aides are watching the collapse of a painstakingly negotiated process that just months ago seemed on track to produce a major international success and perhaps bring a final end to the Korean War before they leave office.   [Inversion] [Media]
• 'NK Light-Water Reactor Project Was Failure'
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said Thursday that providing North Korea with a light-water reactor was a project that ended in failure. He made the remarks in response to a lawmaker's question in a National Assembly committee meeting. Rep. Chung Jin-suk of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) blamed the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration for the failure, pointing out that the project which ended in May 2006 cost Seoul nearly 1.1 billion won.
• The Way We Should Deal with North Korea
  By Haksoon Paik September 17th 2008 Haksoon Paik, North Korea specialist at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, an independent think tank devoted to the study of national strategy of Korea, writes, "Complete denuclearization of North Korea will come only with full-fledged trust. North Koreans regard the U.S. demand for a "complete" verification mechanism as a trap set up by the hardliners in Washington D.C. to undermine not only the hitherto gained achievements in the nuclear negotiations, but also the North Korean regime itself."
• ''The shah's plan was to build bombs''
  Maziar Bahari Published 11 September 2008 Akbar Etemad, the shah's chief atomic energy adviser, tells Maziar Bahari about the unlikely birth of Iran's nuclear programme Dr Akbar Etemad is the father of Iran's nuclear programme. After graduating from Lausanne University in 1963, Etemad returned to Iran and became a nuclear adviser to the Iranian government. He was the president of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) between 1974 and 1978.
• N.Korea Tests Missile Ignition
  North Korea has reportedly conducted an engine ignition test for a long-range missile, presumably the Taepodong-2 missile with a range of 6,700 km, at a new long-range missile test site under construction in Dongchang-li, North Pyongan Province. For the test, the rocket engine of a missile is laid out horizontally at the test site and ignited to test its performance.
• Kim Jong-il's Health Problem Deals Blow to Denuclearization
  Visitors and people with relatives in the North take a look at North Korea through binoculars at the Imjingak Observation Deck in Paju, north of Seoul, Monday, the last day of the Chuseok holiday, amid a flurry of reports on North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s health problems. / Korea Times By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Even after North Korea announced a plan to rebuild its Yongbyon nuclear facility to protest a delay in its removal from a U.S. terrorism blacklist, the international community saw little chance of a backtrack of the six-party process aimed at denuclearizing the North.
• Koreas to Resume Talks on Energy Aid for Denuclearization
    By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South and North Korean officials will meet at the truce village of Panmunjeom, Friday, to discuss economic and energy aid to the North in accordance with the agreement made at the six-party talks last year in return for the communist state's disablement of its nuclear programs, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Wednesday.  
• Nuclear Ring Was More Advanced Than Thought, U.N. Says
  By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 13, 2008; A11 The nuclear smuggling ring headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan possessed a broader range of secret nuclear designs than was previously known and shared them electronically among members of the network, a U.N. watchdog group said yesterday. A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency also acknowledged large gaps in investigators' understanding of the smuggling ring, raising concerns that Khan's nuclear black market may have had additional customers whose identities remain unknown.
• N.Korea Building New Missile Base
  North Korea has been building a new long-range missile base, which is larger and more efficient than its existing intercontinental ballistic missile base, in Pongdong-ni, North Pyongan Province over the last eight years, AP quoted a military expert as reporting Thursday. At the moment, North Korea maintains a long-range missile base in Musudan-ni, North Hamgyeong Province. Joseph Bermudez, senior analyst with Jane's Information Group, and Tim Brown of Talent-keyhole.com, a private satellite imagery analysis company, have tracked the construction using commercial and unclassified satellite imagery. They unveiled the images on defense web site Janes.com. The two were responsible 18 years ago for discovering the launch pad in Musudan-ni.
• U.S., N. Korea remain optimistic about future of six-party talks
  Both sides have expressed willingness to be flexible in negotiations amid NIS reports that Kim Kim Jong-il is ‘recovering quickly’ » In an interview with Japan’s Kyodo News agency in Pyongyang on September 10, Kim Young-Nam, North Korea’s second in command and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, was somewhat optimistic when he said the impasse in the six-party talks could be resolved if the parties "continue to make efforts to find a way." Amid reports that Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s National Defense Commission chairman, may be seriously ill, North Korea and the United States have voiced a guarded optimism about the future of the stalled six-party negotiations on the North’s nuclear weapons program.
• N.Korea Is Making a Big Mistake
  North Korea gave the U.S. government prior notice of its decision this Tuesday to reassemble its Yongbyon nuclear facility. It has taken out of storage some mothballed equipment at the Yongbyon complex and had begun to move it to its nuclear facilities there. Workers are also cleaning up the remnants of the cooling tower that was blown up earlier this year as a sign of Pyongyang’s will to dismantle its nuclear program. There are differences in how South Korean and U.S. officials are assessing this development, but there is said to be no disagreement that the situation is serious. [US dominance]
• U.S. continues to negotiate verification agreement with N. Korea
  Washington still hopes its top negotiator with meet with N. Korean counterpart A high-ranking U.S. government official said September 4 (EDT) that North Korea and the United States are negotiating every day on a nuclear declaration verification agreement through diplomatic channels in New York.
• N. Korea suspends nuclear disablement, raising new questions about its intentions
  [Analysis] Move could be aimed at increasing North’s bargaining power or stalling until the next U.S. president takes office The core issue in an August 26 statement by the North Korean foreign ministry, which said it has suspended nuclear disablement efforts at its Yongbyon reactor, is that the United States should remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism “as promised” because it had fulfilled its end of the bargain and submitted a declaration of its nuclear activities. The North’s argument is that the United States “clearly violated the agreement” with North Korea because Washington was trying to link North Korea’s removal from the terrorism list to verification of the declaration, even though the verification process is part of the next phase of the denuclearization process. If the North’s argument is taken as is, it would indicate that the North is not intending to go through the verification process at this stage, in which the U.S. has failed to remove Pyongyang from the terrorism list. This is in stark contrast to the view held by South Korea and the United States, both of which have characterized the declaration and its verification as “two sides of same coin.”
• Foreign Ministry's Spokesman on DPRK's Decision to Suspend Activities to Disable Nuclear Facilities
  Pyongyang, August 26 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday in connection with the stumbling block laid by the United States in the way of settling the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula by refusing to implement the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks.
  The statement said:
  Under the October 3 agreement stipulating the practical measures to be taken at the second phase for the implementation of the September 19 joint statement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula the DPRK was committed to presenting a nuclear declaration and the U.S. was also committed to writing the DPRK off the list of the "state sponsors of terrorism."
  The DPRK has honored its commitment by presenting the nuclear declaration on June 26. But the U.S. failed to delist the DPRK as a "state sponsor of terrorism" within the fixed date for the mere "reason" that a protocol on the verification of the nuclear declaration has not yet been agreed upon. This was an outright violation of the agreement.
  No agreements reached among the six parties or between the DPRK and the U.S. contain an article which stipulates the verification of the nuclear declaration of the DPRK as conditionality for delisting it as a "state sponsor of terrorism."
  As far as the verification is concerned, it is a commitment to be fulfilled by the six parties at the final phase of the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula according to the September 19 joint statement.
  It should be verified that there are no U.S. nuclear weapons in and around south Korea and that there has been neither new shipment nor passage of those weapons. This verification and the verification of the DPRK's fulfillment of its commitments should be done at the same time. This is the principle of "action for action".
  All that was agreed upon at the present phase was to set up verification and monitoring mechanisms within the framework of the six parties.
  The U.S., however, raised all of a sudden an issue of applying an "international standard" to the verification of the nuclear declaration, abusing this agreed point. It pressurized the DPRK to accept such inspection as scouring any place of the DPRK as it pleases to collect samples and measure them.
  The "international standard" touted by the U.S. is nothing but "special inspection" which the IAEA called for in the 1990s to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and caused it to pull out of the NPT in the end.
  The U.S. is gravely mistaken if it thinks it can make a house search in the DPRK as it pleases just as it did in Iraq.
  The U.S. insistence on the unilateral inspection of the DPRK is a brigandish demand for unilaterally disarming the DPRK, the other belligerent party, by discarding its commitment to the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula the core of which is to remove the U.S. nuclear threat according to the September 19 joint statement.
  The DPRK's intention to denuclearize the peninsula is to remove the nuclear threat from the Korean nation, not to have a bargaining over the DPRK's nuclear deterrent.
  For whom is the six-way structure necessary if the six-party talks are reduced to a platform for a big country to trifle with a small country as it does at present?
  This time the U.S. postponed the process of delisting the DPRK as a "state sponsor of terrorism" under the pretext of verification even after officially declaring internally and externally that the DPRK is not a "state sponsor of terrorism". This is little short of admitting that the list is not related to terrorism in actuality.
  The DPRK does not care whether it continues remaining on the list of "those countries which are disobedient to the U.S."
  The U.S. is now keen to gravely encroach upon the sovereignty of the DPRK.
  Now that the U.S. breached the agreed points, the DPRK is compelled to take the following countermeasures on the principle of "action for action":
  First, the DPRK decided to immediately suspend the disablement of its nuclear facilities that had been underway according to the October 3 agreement.
  This step took effect on August 14 and the parties concerned have already been notified of this.
  Second, the DPRK will consider soon a step to restore the nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon to their original state as strongly requested by its relevant institutions.

• North Korean Six-Party Talks and Implementation Activities
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  Statement before the Senate Committee on Armed Services Washington, DC July 31, 2008 View Video Introduction Thank you, Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, and distinguished Members for inviting me to update you on the status of our efforts to achieve the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through the Six-Party process. I also want to talk today about our broader vision – as outlined in the September 2005 Joint Statement – of a region where the benefits of human rights protections and economic development go along with progress on denuclearization. I am pleased to be joined today by my colleague Will Tobey from the Department of Energy (DOE), a key partner in the implementation of our Six-Party agreements. We have made important progress recently in the Six-Party Talks, but much work remains for the full implementation of the September 2005 Six-Party Joint Statement and the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Before turning to the specific status of implementation of Six-Party agreements, I want to reflect on the importance of the Six-Party framework that we have built.
  In response to the DPRK’s actions to fulfill its Second Phase commitments, the United States has also moved forward on fulfilling our Second Phase commitments. On June 26, President Bush announced that he was terminating the exercise of authorities under the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK, and notified Congress of his intent to rescind designation of the DPRK as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) following the 45-day Congressional notification period. The President made clear that we would use this 45-day period to assess the DPRK’s cooperation, including on reaching agreement on a verification protocol, and respond accordingly
  Even as we have seen progress on these fronts, the United States remains concerned about outstanding questions relating to North Korea’s uranium enrichment efforts and proliferation. We will continue to engage the DPRK in detailed and candid discussions on these issues until North Korea resolves these concerns in a verifiable manner
• How A Mock Trial Could Turn Victory into Defeat on North Korea’s Nuclear Arms
  By Leon V. Sigal
  August 20th, 2008 Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project in New York and author of Disarming Strangers: Nuclear Diplomacy with North Korea, writes, “Diplomatic give-and-take with North Korea is yielding payoffs for American and regional security. Turning the talks into a mock trial would only be a waste of time.
• KCNA Slams U.S. Provocative Act to Scuttle Denuclearization Process of Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, August 18 (KCNA) -- The United States is again raising the "human rights issue" of the DPRK. This is clearly evidenced by the fact that U.S. President Bush during his junket to Asian countries blustered that he would handle the "human rights issue" as "an element for negotiations with north Korea." We categorically dismiss this as a premeditated act of the U.S. to deliberately throw a hurdle in the process of the six-party talks and, furthermore, go without implementing points of the October 3 agreement on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. As far as the "human rights issue" touted by the U.S. is concerned, it is a trite method it employed whenever it felt it necessary to delay or scuttle the talks in a bid to pursue its hostile policy toward the DPRK. This is clearly proved by the whole process of the six-party talks.
  As already known, the DPRK submitted an accurate and complete nuclear declaration according to the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks. The U.S., however, has not honored its commitment to write the DPRK off the list of "state sponsors of terrorism", a key political compensation in concluding the implementation of the agreement, although the date it promised to do so has already passed. This is obviously a violation of the principle of "action for action" essential for realizing denuclearization.
  There is the most serious human rights issue in the U.S. as it is a rogue state that exterminated tens of millions of native Indians and accumulated wealth through slave trade and flesh traffic and a country where the almighty dollar principle and the fin de sickle lifestyle based on the law of the jungle prevail. [Agreement07103] [Renege] [Camouflage]
• 11 nuclear power plants to be built by 2030
  The government has decided to build 11 more nuclear power plants by 2030, boosting the percentage of power generated by nuclear energy from the current 26 percent to 41 percent. It has also decided to boost the percentage generated by renewable energy sources from 2.24 percent to 11 percent. [Nuclear energy] [Double standards]
• Verification in stages is needed to solve N. Korean nuclear issue
  [Editorial]   The removal of North Korea from America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism could have taken effect on August 11, but now that will be postponed. The nuclear discussions between the North and the United States in Singapore in April saw the negotiations going well, but now the parties are hanging back. All the nations involved in the six-party process need to work to make sure this latest development does not hurt the momentum of the talks as a whole.   The U.S. State Department says it "needs" a "strong verification regime." In other words, it might not lift Pyongyang off the terror sponsor list until there is an agreement on verification. The problem is that the verification regime is supposed to cover uranium-based nuclear programs and proliferation issues, not just plutonium. At the U.S.-North Korea talks in Singapore, which dealt with how Pyongyang will declare its nuclear past and present, the United States focused on the "present issue" of plutonium and left the questions about uranium -- a vague issue to begin with -- and past proliferation for another day. Since then, the U.S. administration has been facing criticism for that on the home front, and so now wants a verification program that is more comprehensive.
• U.S. keeping the North on terror list
  August 13, 2008 Despite disclosure of its nuclear inventories and activities, North Korea is expected to remain for the time being on the United States’ list of state sponsors of terrorism.
  In April, North Korea submitted an accounting of its nuclear inventories and activities to China, the host of six-party talks aimed to denuclearize the country. The White House, in turn, agreed to delist the North from the terrorism list and notified Congress of its intention. But Washington repeatedly stressed the declaration itself means little unless its veracity is fully confirmed. The Bush administration last month provided the country a draft of a possible verification mechanism but the North has yet to respond. [Renege]
• US Yet to Delist N. Korea From Terrorism List
  The United States has yet to remove North Korea from its terrorism list even though the deadline for the delisting has passed, the State Department said Monday, citing the lack of an agreement for the verification of North Korea's nuclear programs. Monday was the deadline for Washington to lift Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, as Bush notified Congress in late June of his intention to delist the North within 45 days unless the legislature specifically opposed the move. [Declaration] [Renege]  
• Doubts About Nuclear Verification Keep N. Korea on List of Terrorist States
  By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August 12, 2008; Page A09 North Korea missed its first chance yesterday to be removed from the State Department's list of terrorist states, U.S. officials said, because it has not provided a way for international inspectors to verify claims about its nuclear program. President Bush said in June that the United States would begin the process of taking North Korea off its terrorism blacklist, and yesterday was the earliest that Pyongyang could have been removed. But U.S. officials said that North Korea has not followed through on allowing outside verification of its nuclear program, which the Bush administration has set as a condition for action. [Declaration] [Renege]
• Toward the Abolition of Nuclear War: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Declarations
  On the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we present once again the Peace Declarations of the two cities. They call on all nations, and particularly the nuclear powers, to honor their commitments as signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to abolish nuclear weapons, noting that precisely the opposite has been the tendency of recent years. Both also outline citizen-based approaches to ending nuclear war and abolishing nuclear weapons.
• Khan's wife says Musharraf lied
  Published: Aug. 10, 2008 at 5:14 PM Order reprints | Print Story | Email to a Friend | Post a Comment Close Khan's wife says Musharraf lied Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf (UPI Photo Files/Roger L. Wollenberg) ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 10 (UPI) -- The wife of Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan said President Pervez Musharraf lied about her husband's role in the country's nuclear program. In an interview with the German newspaper Der Spiegel, Hendrina Khan said her husband had only carried out government orders by shipping centrifuge tubes used to enrich uranium to North Korea in 2000, among other activites. "It is too late for (the concerned government and Musharraf) to 'confess'. The consequences for the country would be too drastic ... especially from the Americans who have been supporting Musharraf through thick and thin," Hendrina Khan said. [Pakistan] [HEU]
• U.S. won't take N.Korea off terrorism list yet
  Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:17pm EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Japan that Washington would not remove North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism on the initial deadline of Monday, Japan's foreign minister and the State Department said. The White House had made clear it did not expect a deal with Pyongyang by Monday for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programs, but it had said talks would continue. Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters Rice told him in a telephone call of the delay in taking North Korea off the list of states viewed by Washington as sponsors of terrorism. The list includes Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. In Washington, the State Department confirmed the phone call on Sunday night U.S. time between the two ministers and said Rice made clear there were no plans to take North Korea off the list on Monday. [Declaration] [Renege]
• U.S. says N.Korea unlikely to meet nuclear deadline
  Reuters Sunday, August 10, 2008; 6:48 AM BEIJING (Reuters) - The White House made clear on Sunday it did not expect a deal with North Korea by Monday's initial deadline for presenting a verification plan for its nuclear programmes, but said talks would continue. "I think it is reasonable to say that tomorrow will come and go without that happening," Dennis Wilder, a senior official with the White House National Security Council told reporters during President George W. Bush's visit to Beijing for the Olympics.   [Renege] [Inversion]
• U.S. hints Monday deadline for North Korea will lapse
  Reuters Friday, August 8, 2008; 3:28 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Friday North Korea had to make "substantial progress" on a verification plan for its nuclear weapons before being taken off a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Washington promised North Korea it could be removed from the list as early as August 11 -- Monday -- if a robust verification plan was in place, but U.S. officials have made clear this was a "minimum timeline" rather than a fixed date. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Washington was still in negotiations with North Korea on this issue and signaled an announcement was unlikely on Monday. "We have made it very clear that they would have to have made substantial progress on a verification protocol and that when the day passes (August 11) we will take another look at all that information and decide how to act and when," Gallegos told reporters. Removal from the list would see an end to sanctions that have mostly cut off North Korea -- which President George W. Bush has branded as part of an "axis of evil" -- from international banking and also clear the way for multilateral aid packages. [Sanctions] [Renege] [Declaration]
• 10 More Nuke Power Plants to Be Built Until 2030
  By Lee Hyo-sik Staff Reporter Ten more nuclear power plants will be built in the country by 2030 to generate up to 41 percent of domestic electricity demand. Alternative energy, such as wind and other renewable sources, will also meet 11 percent of demand, up from 2.4 percent. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy Thursday unveiled these measures aimed at boosting energy self-reliance and diversifying energy sources due to difficulty securing a stable supply of crude oil and other fossil fuels amid tight global supply and soaring prices. To better cope with rising oil and other fossil fuel prices, the ministry will build more nuclear plants to generate 29 percent of the country's electricity needs in 2020, and push it up further to 41 percent by 2030. [Nuclear energy] [Double standards]
• 'N. Korea Has Lot to Do Before Getting Off Terror List'
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter U.S. President George W. Bush sounded a cautious note Wednesday on the prospects of North Korea being removed from the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism, warning that there is still much that Pyongyang needs to do first. ``I don't know whether or not they're going to give up their weapons. I really don't know," Bush said during a joint press conference with President Lee Myung-bak at Cheong Wa Dae, following summit talks. [renege]
• Bush Presses North Korea on Weapons
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: August 6, 2008 SEOUL — President Bush said on Wednesday that North Korea had not yet done enough to merit removal from an American list of governments that sponsor terrorism, raising the prospect of new delays in the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear program.   [Renege] [Terrorism list] [Declaration]
• U.S. Likely to Keep N.Korea on Terror List
  Experts anticipate that the U.S. will put off striking North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism which was expected to take place around Aug. 11 since the six-nations in talks on North Korea’s nuclear program have failed to agree on a way of verifying the stockpiles and programs the North has declared. The U.S. special envoy on North Korean affairs, Sung Kim, recently met the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s America chief Li Gun in Beijing to discuss the verification procedure, including the question of unannounced visits to the nuclear facility at Yongbyon for inspection, gathering of samples, and interviews with technical personnel. But they reportedly failed to reach agreement. The general feeling is that unless the U.S. and North Korea reach consensus in another round of bilateral talks slated for this week, it seems likely the U.S. will keep the North on the terror list indefinitely. A diplomatic source in Washington said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made clear that establishing a satisfactory verification regime is a precondition to removing the North from the list. It depends on the extra round of talks whether the North will be removed from the terror list and whether the phase three process of denuclearization can start. The date of Aug. 11 was widely mooted because U.S. law requires the president to notify Congress of his intention to strike a foreign country from the terrorism list 45 days in advance, and President George W. Bush notified Congress on June 26. [Terrorism List] [Declaration] [Renege]
• New abduction probe key to talks
  Ichiro Ue / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Writer
  Japan is finding itself the odd man out in the framework of six-party talks on North Koreas's nuclear arms program as the six nations are preparing for discussions on a third stage of the reclusive state's denuclearization To overcome its diplomatic impasse, this nation must make a painful decision about whether to end some sanctions imposed on North Korea with the aim of making progress in resolving the abduction issue. The Japanese diplomatic strategy linking the abduction issue with removing Pyongyang from the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism has failed. The United States is carrying out procedures for removing North Korea from the list despite a lack of progress in settling the abduction problem. North Korea is determined to wait for the United States to effect that country's removal from the list on Aug. 11. This will likely be followed by Pyongyang's attempt to accelerate efforts to improve relations with Washington. [Japan NK] [Abductees]

• Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity: The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond
  Report prepared by an independent Commission at the request of the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency
  May 2008
  Nonproliferation, disarmament, and peaceful use – the three pillars of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) – are integrally linked, and achievements in each area are likely to require progress in the others. In particular, gaining agreement on the steps needed to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime will require meaningful progress toward nuclear disarmament and toward making the benefits of nuclear energy potentially available to all. Hence, a bold agenda is required that seeks to address all of these challenges simultaneously.
  Indeed, there are now more states that have started nuclear weapons programs and verifiably given them up than there are states with nuclear weapons. Historically, nonproliferation efforts succeed more often than they fail. At the same time, however, the stresses in the system have grown. If Iran and North Korea both become established nuclear weapons states, other states would come under increased pressure to follow suit and the global nonproliferation regime would be severely weakened. If nuclear weapons continue to be seen as offering security and prestige, and states that maintain them continue to send the message that nuclear weapons are essential to security, more states may seek such weapons. If, as nuclear energy grows and spreads, the dual-use technologies that make it possible to produce nuclear weapons material also spread, more and more states may be in a position to leave the global regime and produce nuclear weapons on short notice. In short, as the UN High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change warned, “we are approaching the point at which the erosion of the non-proliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation.”4 10. Progress on disarmament is slow. Four decades after the NPT was signed, some 25,000 nuclear weapons still exist – thousands of them on quick-launch alert. The nuclear weapons states point to ongoing reductions in their nuclear stockpiles as evidence that they are fulfilling their NPT Article VI obligations to negotiate in good faith toward nuclear disarmament. By contrast, many of the non-nuclear-weapons states see the progress as too slow, and believe that the nuclear weapons states are not serious about carrying out their obligations. Some states with nuclear weapons are pursuing the production of weapons-grade material and indeed seem to be increasing their reliance on nuclear weapons, laying plans for maintaining nuclear arsenals indefinitely. [NPT]
• Korea Policy Institute Provides Analysis and Pragmatic Approach to Halt North Korea’s Nuclear Arms
  October 10, 2006
  LOS ANGELES—October 10—The U.S.-based Korea Policy Institute (KPI) releases a policy analysis of events leading up to North Korea’s testing of a nuclear device on October 9. In September 2005, the United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan, and Russia agreed on a basic trade: North Korean denuclearization in return for something approaching normal relations between the U.S. and North Korea. The latter agreed to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs" on the grounds that both countries would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize relations.” However, four days after the agreement was signed, the U.S. virtually declared economic war on North Korea by imposing new financial sanctions with the goal of cutting off North Korean access to the international banking system. [Nuclear test] [US NK policy] [JS050919] [BDA]
• N.Korea ‘to Stay on Terror List Until Verification Is Agreed’
  The U.S. has told North Korea that it will not strike it from the list of state sponsors of terrorism until it agrees on a verification protocol for its nuclear programs and stockpiles, it emerged on Thursday. A reliable source in Washington said Wednesday the U.S. reaffirmed its position that it will not remove North Korea from the terrorism list until it agrees on a detailed verification procedure. The U.S. was expected to strike the North off the list on Aug. 11 but will hold off however long it takes for Pyongyang to agree on the protocol, the source added. [Agreement071003] [Renege] [Terrorism list]
• In First Meeting, Rice Presses North Korean on Nuclear Effort
  By HELENE COOPER Published: July 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met with her North Korean counterpart on Wednesday for the first time, and prodded the government in Pyongyang to move quickly to dismantle its nuclear arms program. The meeting in Singapore between Ms. Rice, President Bush’s top diplomat, and Pak Ui-chun, the foreign minister of the country Mr. Bush labeled as part of the "axis of evil" in 2002, occurred with surprisingly little fanfare, given the years of buildup. Bush administration officials said Ms. Rice and Mr. Pak spoke for a few minutes after an 80-minute official conference among the United States, North Korea, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea in Singapore outside a regional meeting.   [Media]
• N.Korea 'Demands Respect as a Nuclear State'
  North Korea reportedly asked to be recognized as a nuclear state at a meeting of foreign ministers from countries in six-party talks on Wednesday. North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun urged the U.S. to stop its hostile policy toward the North, saying verification of the nuclear facilities and stockpiles it has declared is not a duty but cooperation.
• Rice Describes Meeting with N. Korean Counterpart as 'Good'
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says parties to the six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear program have "a sense of urgency" about moving the process forward. She spoke Wednesday after meeting in Singapore with foreign ministers of the other five nations taking part in the nuclear disarmament talks. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the Association of South East Asian Nations forum, included the first face-to-face talks between Rice and her North Korean counterpart, Pak Ui-chun. Rice described it as "a good meeting," with officials committed to moving ahead rather than having another hiatus of several months. [Bilateral]
• Six-party progress requires greater S. Korean participation
  [Editorial] The foreign ministers of the nations participating in the six-party talks met yesterday in Singapore on the occasion of the ASEAN Regional Forum. It is the first time the six foreign ministers have meet since the six-party process began five years ago. These were unofficial talks, but the meeting was significant nevertheless for elevating the discussion to a higher level.
• N.Korea ‘Still Part of Axis of Evil’
  North Korea and Iran remain part of an "axis of evil" in the mind of the U.S. administration, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday. Asked if North Korea and Iran are still part of what Bush called the axis of evil, Perino replied, "I think that until they give up their nuclear weapons programs completely and verifiably, I think that we keep them in the same category."
• North Korea: What We Know, What We Don’t Know
  Published: July 23, 2008 To the Editor:   Art Brown dismisses what we have learned about North Korea’s nuclear programs and yet, based on what we do not know, criticizes the United States’ negotiations with North Korea. What he dismisses as the "creaking plutonium apparatus at Yongbyon" could have generated another five or six bombs’ worth of plutonium in the next two years, and a recently refurbished plant could have made more fuel rods to reload the reactor and generate still more plutonium. Shutting these facilities certainly does look like progress. As for North Korea’s clandestine enrichment program, how many centrifuges does it have at work enriching uranium? How long will it take for them to enrich a bomb’s worth to high levels? Were the "traces of uranium" found on documents turned over by the North highly enriched and did they originate in North Korea? We don’t know. But direct talks and inspections have revealed something important about the thousands of aluminum tubes that North Korea had acquired. As Christopher R. Hill, the United States’ top North Korea envoy, put it on Jan. 30 at Amherst College, "We’ve seen that these tubes are not being used for the centrifuge program." As for North Korea’s stockpile of plutonium and weapons, why is Mr. Brown so sure that Kim Jong-il will keep that stockpile if the United States continues to move away from enmity? Can he read Mr. Kim’s mind?
  Leon V. Sigal Director, Northeast Cooperative Security Project Social Science Research Council New York, July 15, 2008
• Court in Pakistan Muzzles Disgraced Nuclear Scientist
  By SALMAN MASOOD Published: July 22, 2008 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An Islamabad court on Monday barred the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan from giving interviews about the illicit nuclear network he once confessed to running, but eased some of the restrictions he has been under since President Pervez Musharraf placed him under house arrest in 2004.
  Public pressure to release Dr. Khan from house arrest has increased since a new, more nationalistic government took power a few months ago, eclipsing the power of Mr. Musharraf.
• US offers nuclear proposal to North Korea
  By JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Tuesday, July 22, 2008; 3:28 AM SINGAPORE -- The United States has proposed a mechanism for verifying North Korea's claims about its nuclear past, Washington's top envoy to the nuclear talks said Monday. The proposal was made in Beijing last week, and the U.S. is waiting for a response from Pyongyang, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters. After giving North Korea the proposal "we ... asked them to come back with specific comments," said Hill, who will assist U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in talks between the foreign ministers of the six nations involved in the nuclear negotiations _ China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S. On Tuesday, South Korea's main nuclear envoy confirmed the proposal was made to the North. "The ball is actually in the North Korean court because they already received the draft of verification protocol," Kim Sook told reporters after talks with Hill. Details of the proposal were not known. [Declaration]  
• Rice shrugs at meeting with top NKorean envoy
  By MATTHEW LEE The Associated Press Sunday, July 20, 2008; 11:32 PM SHANNON, Ireland -- The United States and North Korea are about to have their highest-level face-to-face contact in four years, but Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it's no big deal. Rice will meet this week in Singapore for the first-time ever with a top diplomat from the reclusive Stalinist state amid promising developments in the effort to get North Korea, a charter member of President Bush's "axis of evil," to abandon nuclear weapons. She will see North Korean Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun, marking the first time since 2004 that the highest level diplomats from the two countries have met. On Monday, Rice played down the meeting's significance. "I wouldn't put too much weight on this meeting," she told reporters aboard her plane en route to Abu Dhabi, where she will stop before attending an Asian security forum in Singapore on Wednesday and Thursday. [Bilateral]
• U.S. in Meeting on North Korea
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: July 19, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — Foreign ministers of the United States, North Korea and four other countries will meet in Singapore next week for discussions on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, a South Korean government official said on Friday. [Bilateral]
• Rice to Meet N. Korean Diplomat
  Gathering With Asian Foreign Ministers Is Called 'Informal' By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, July 19, 2008; Page A11 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet next week with her North Korean counterpart and the foreign ministers of four other countries involved in the effort to end Pyongyang's nuclear programs, the State Department said yesterday. The session, which will take place on the sidelines of a Southeast Asia security conference in Singapore, will mark Rice's first meeting with the North Korean official, Pak Ui Chun, and follows on an extraordinary thawing in the tensions between the two countries. North Korea last month demolished the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility after President Bush notified Congress that he intended to remove the country from the list of sponsors of terrorism.   [Bilateral]
• An Uncomfortable Conversation about Nukes
  Conn Hallinan | July 17, 2008
  Why are Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry, and Sam Nunn writing opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons? Keep in mind, these four people are not just major defense hawks. People like Kissinger and Nunn helped push through the single most dangerous and destabilizing innovation in nuclear weaponry, the arming of missiles with multiple warheads. All four have supported every conflict the United States has engaged in since World War II, all have enthusiastically supported nuclear weapons, and none has suddenly gone kumbaya on us. But all four have concluded that nuclear weapons no longer serve the interests of the great powers. Why the change of mind? The answer has some disquieting aspects. Proliferation Consideration The sudden concern with nuclear weapons is, in large part, due to the steady erosion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the real danger that the Big Five -- China, Russia, the United States, France, and Britain -- may one day confront a host of nations similarly armed. Countries like Brazil, Argentina, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Taiwan, and South Africa could all produce nuclear weapons in less than a decade if they wanted to. Several of these countries had begun the process before mothballing their programs several decades ago. Israel, Pakistan, and India, of course, already have nuclear weapons. In the past, wars with countries like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq involved the loss of life and wealth -- far greater for them than for us -- but these countries never presented a serious obstacle to our use of military power. We might not “win” these wars in the conventional sense of the word, but none of these nations could prevent the United States from attacking them. The acquisition of nuclear weapons has changed all that. [Imperialism] [NPT] [Nuclear weapons] [Military balance]
• N.Korea in Counteroffensive About USFK 'Nukes'
  North Korean delegates at six-party nuclear talks in Beijing recently requested the right to verify whether the U.S. Forces Korea have nuclear weapons. The North made the demand when the participating countries discussed verification of North Korea’s dismantlement of nuclear programs, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday. RFA said North Korean delegates claimed they could not agree on a verification scheme for North Korea's nuclear programs unless the six-party talks permit verification of whether the USFK has nuclear weapons. The reason no joint statement, considered a higher-level document than the press communique issued after the six-party talks last Saturday, could be agreed on was that there were "differences in opinion" between the U.S. and North Korea on that demand.
• Two steps to zero
  Paul Rogers
  If Britain is serious about controlling nuclear proliferation, it has to take a lead. 17 - 07 - 2008 It may be apocryphal but it still says a lot. An inner-cabinet group of Clement Attlee's post-1945 Labour government was discussing whether, in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Britain should develop its own nuclear weapons. Why not instead rely merely on close cooperation with the United States? The ebullient foreign secretary and former trade unionist, Ernest Bevin, was emphatic: "I don't care what sort of bomb it is, as long as it has a bloody Union Jack on top of it" (see Brian Cathcart, "Britain and the atomic bomb", 5 August 2005). Ever since then, Britain's nuclear forces have had at least as much to do with national status as with the perceived requirements of security. [Proliferation]
• China welcomes six-party ministerial informal meeting amid ASEAN meetings
  GOV.cn Thursday, July 17, 2008 The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday the country has "no difficulty" in having a six-party ministerial informal meeting during the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial meetings in Singapore on Sunday. Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi would attend the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial meetings. He said relevant countries had suggested an informal consultation gathering the six foreign ministers from countries involved in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, namely hosts China, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, United States, Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan, on the sidelines of the ASEAN meetings. "China has no difficulty with that (suggestion), and is coordinating with other parties on that," Liu said, Chief delegates of the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue just ended three days of talks on July 12. They agreed to establish a verification mechanism for denuclearization and reiterated the six-party ministerial meeting would be held in Beijing at an appropriate time.
• Simpleminded or Farsighted? - The US' handling of North Korea
  By Masahiro Matsumura
  July 15^th , 2008 President Bush's proclamation removing North Korea from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism has the world puzzled about the underlying strategic calculations. This sharp, if not abrupt, turn in the US' North Korea policy has also appalled Japanese leaders and the public deeply concerned about the fate of many Japanese abductees long held in North Korea, a quintessential terrorist crime that Pyongyang has committed. Without a follow-up fix, US appeasement will definitely disturb the Japan-US alliance and the non-proliferation regime, possibly eventuating in turbulence in the regional and international security order. Why President Bush believes North Korea is no longer a terrorist state is a riddle. Washington and Tokyo now have to emulate Pyongyang's salami-slicing approach and strip Pyongyang of the infamous terrorist-state label while minimizing substantial benefits accruing therefrom. Pyongyang craves the economic aid from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank against which Washington, under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, exercised a de facto veto based on the statuary prerogatives embedded in the charters. At this moment, Washington should continue to block this aid as a matter of policy discretion through the Boards of Governors and the Executive Boards, wherein Tokyo also possesses a significant voting power to support Washington. Pyongyang will then be subjected to further economic penetration by China, involving the deepening of China's actual economic colonization. Under these parameters, Pyongyang would be constrained to negotiate sincerely with Washington and Tokyo. [Abductees] [Terrorism List] [China-NK relations]
• Denuclearization of the DPRK—A Role for the United Nations?
  by Anne Wu The denuclearization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continues to be a source of considerable international concern. Yet, no coherent international framework has emerged to deal with this challenge in parallel with the regional mechanism of the six-party talks. With the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference set for 2010, appropriately addressing the DPRK nuclear issue is being identifi ed as essential to maintaining the strength of the NPT.1 Can the United Nations (UN) afford to take a back seat in attempts at resolution? This article examines the potential of, and prospects for, an active UN role in facilitating Pyongyang’s denuclearization process.
• North Korea’s Stacked Deck
  Op-Ed Contributor
  By ART BROWN Published: July 15, 2008 Vienna, Va.
  CHINA’S announcement on Saturday that negotiators have agreed on a blueprint for verifying North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is being seen as the latest in a string of hopeful signs. For a while, the drumbeat in Washington has been that the so-called six-party talks are going well and the North Korean nuclear program is well on its way to being contained. If only that were true. In fact, the Kim Jong-il regime is getting exactly what it wants and using American hunger for diplomatic success to split us from our most important regional allies in the process. If this were high-stakes poker, the North Koreans would be biting their lips to hide their smiles at the cards in their hands. As it stands now, we have agreed to ship North Korea a million new tons of fuel oil, released Mr. Kim from the handcuffs of our Trading With the Enemy Act, and — within the legally mandated 45 days — will throw in other goodies that come with removing North Korea from the State Department’s state-sponsor-of-terrorism list. This comes on top of the American decision last year to allow the North Koreans to transfer their tainted money out of a bank in Macao. But the topper is that Kim Jong-il knows he still gets to keep his stockpile of plutonium and even hang on to his existing rack of nuclear weapons (minus the one he tested in October 2006 to set the tone of the game). Nor are the North Koreans going to be required to fess up to the uranium-enrichment program they picked up from Pakistan earlier in the decade. Nor must they explain their role at the suspected nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert that Israeli jets were reported to have destroyed in 2007. [Declaration] [Bizarre]
• N.Korea to Complete Nuclear Disablement by October
  Six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program wound up on Saturday with an agreement to complete the disablement of nuclear facilities and delivery of energy aid to Pyongyang by the end of October. At the end of the meeting, the participants released a six-point press communique including an agreement to verify dismantlement with focus on inspections of the nuclear facility at Yongbyon. But participants failed to come up with concrete verification methods, persuade Japan to participate in aid to the North or set the dates for a meeting of foreign ministers from the six countries or the next round of the talks. With regard to verification, participants agreed on three points -- visits to North Korean nuclear facility, review of documents, and interviews with technical personnel. A concrete verification schedule will be discussed by the denuclearization working group. Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, asked whether nuclear verification will begin before Aug. 11, the day when the U.S. is expected to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, said, "We’re anticipating that, and we don’t see any obstacles to getting that done."
  The communique states that Japan will "participate, depending on circumstances" in the supply of heavy fuel oil. But if it does not do so by the end of October, the deadline for shipments of the Japanese portion, South Korea and the U.S. agreed to share the Japanese portion. A source at the talks said, "We've promised North Korea to complete supplies of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil by the end of October, regardless of Japan's participation."
• Six parties agree on timetable for nuclear disablement
  Disablement and aid deliveries to be complete by October » Envoys from South and North Korea meet at Diaoyutai State Guesthouse before the six-party talks get underway on July 9. The six nations engaging in talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program agreed on a timetable for implementing the October 3 Agreement, the second-stage of the September 19 Joint Declaration. By the end of October, the six parties will complete disablement of the North’s main nuclear reactor will be complete and provide deliveries of economic and energy aid to Pyongyang. However, the six parties were unable to come up with a timetable for verifying the “completeness and accuracy” of the North’s declaration of its nuclear activities, which was submitted last month.
• Heads of Delegations to Six-Party Talks Meet
  Pyongyang, July 13 (KCNA) -- Talks of the heads of the delegations to the six-party talks were held in Beijing from July 10 to 12. The talks estimated the implementation of the October 3, 2007 agreement and there reached an agreement on successfully winding it up before adopting a press release. According to the press release, the DPRK agreed to make efforts to complete the disablement in parallel with the other five parties' winding up of economic compensation equivalent to a million tons of heavy oil on the principle of "action for action" by October. It was also agreed to set up a mechanism for verifying the fulfillment of each side's commitments within the framework of the six-party talks, pursuant to the September 19, 2005 joint statement aiming at the realization of the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula.
• Deal on Verifying North Korean Disarmament
  By JIM YARDLEY and JAKE HOOKER Published: July 13, 2008 BEIJING — Negotiators in the North Korean nuclear talks agreed Saturday to a blueprint for verifying North Korea’s nuclear disarmament as part of a deal under which it would disable its main Yongbyon nuclear weapons complex by the end of October in exchange for energy and economic aid. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Peter Parks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill talked to reporters in Beijing about the North Korean nuclear disarmament talks. The accord, announced by China in a joint communiqué among the six nations involved in the talks, gives new momentum to the negotiations, yet leaves many difficult issues unresolved in what has been a long and halting process to rid North Korea of its nuclear arsenal. No timetable has been set for full disarmament.
  Mr. Hill said the talks would “continue to address uranium enrichment,” but he offered no other details. [Declaration] [HEU]
• Action mechanism of 6-party talks increasingly complete
  14:22, July 14, 2008 Chief delegates of the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue ended talks in Beijing on Saturday afternoon, or July 12. They agreed to establish verification and monitoring mechanisms for denuclearization, adopted guiding principles for the relevant mechanisms and formulated the timetable for remaining actions, thus mapping out a clear and distinct blueprint for an all-round implementation of the remaining actions of the second-phase talks.
• Press communique of the heads of delegation meeting of the 6th round of the six-party talks
  + - Full text: 09:56, July 13, 2008 The following is the full text of the press communique of the heads of delegation meeting of the 6th round of the six-party talks.
  Press Communique of the Heads of Delegation Meeting of the Sixth Round of the Six-Party Talks Beijing, 12 July 2008
• Accord in North Korea Talks
  Nations Approve Nuclear Inspections but Still Lack Timetable
  By Edward Cody
  Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, July 13, 2008; Page A12 BEIJING, July 12 -- Diplomats from six nations agreed in principle Saturday to set up an intrusive inspection program to verify that North Korea has dismantled its plutonium-based program to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. After three days of talks in Beijing, however, the negotiators were unable to complete a detailed inspection schedule and decided to refer specific issues back to their capitals in hopes of working out an itemized inspection regime in September, according to the chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill. "All this kind of stuff requires a lot of scrutiny," Hill said. The limited progress -- agreement in principle but still bogged down in details -- was typical of the tortuous path followed during the past five years of Chinese-sponsored six-party negotiations designed to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
  In addition, North Korea has yet to respond in detail to U.S. questions about whether it was seeking to produce material for nuclear weapons through a separate program based on highly enriched uranium and whether it cooperated with Syria in a nuclear development project that Israeli warplanes destroyed in September. [Declaration] [HEU]
• Six Nations Squabble Over Verifying N.Korea Declaration
  Six-party talks on the denuclearization of North Korea finally resumed Thursday afternoon at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, after nine months of stalemate. "This meeting is a power station for the comprehensive implementation of second phase of the action plan, as well as a turning point for the six-party talks to go into a new phase," Chinese chief negotiator Wu Dawei said at the opening ceremony. But the six countries reportedly have different priorities and diverging opinions on the verification process, causing intense disputes among them.
• KCNA Blasts U.S. Conservative Hard-liners' Deliberate Act to Scuttle Denuclearization Process
  Pyongyang, July 10 (KCNA) -- The U.S. conservative hard-liners have become all the more undisguised in their moves to hinder the implementation of the October 3 agreement adopted by the six-party talks now that it has entered the new phase of implementation thanks to the DPRK's sincere efforts. They submitted to Congress a bill on postponing the measure for taking the DPRK off the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" while underscoring the need for "correct verification of the nuclear declaration" and "dismantlement of nuclear weapons". This is a typical example of those moves. The DPRK resolutely dismisses this as a despicable act to scuttle the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula in the end. What should not be overlooked is that the U.S. conservative hard-liners have seriously misinterpreted the DPRK's willingness and efforts for denuclearization in order to serve their interests. The DPRK's disablement of its nuclear facilities has been done more than 80 % as of now and it fulfilled the agreed point calling for submitting an accurate and complete nuclear declaration. The DPRK blew up the cooling tower at the pilot atomic power plant as a measure taken out of good faith, demonstrating once again its will for denuclearization at home and abroad. This notwithstanding, the conservative hard-liners painted the DPRK as "a country good at deceptive artifice," claiming that "north Korea is capable of possessing highly-enriched uranium technology without a cooling tower". This proves to what extent their hostile policy toward the DPRK has reached. The principle of "action for action" is the key to realizing the denuclearization. The U.S. is obliged to join the DPRK in its efforts for the process by honoring its commitments with good faith. The DPRK will make a relevant decision depending on the U.S. future actions. The U.S. conservative hard-liners had better clearly understand that they will be held fully accountable for all the ensuing consequences should they persistently bar the progress of the talks.
• Verification is key in this round of six-party talks
  U.S. is eager to set up procedures for verifying N. Korea’s nuclear declaration The six-party talks officially reopened at 5:30 p.m. on July 10 in Beijing, China, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. This is the first time talks have been held since October. In his opening remarks, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that the six-party talks would aim at wrapping up the second phase of the three-step denuclearization process and moving into the third phase of dismantlement.
• Six-party talks move forward once more
  [Editorial] The six-party talks resume in Beijing on July 10, approximately nine months since the sixth round of six-party talks in early October of last year. Being that the talks start up again right after North Korea submitted its declaration, and with the United States having begun removing Pyongyang from its list of terror-sponsoring states, one hopes these new negotiations set a new cornerstone for things to come. The focus of this month’s talks will be assessing the contents of Pyongyang’s declaration and coming up with a verification regime.
• The Incredible Shrinking HEU Program
  posted Friday March 2, 2007 under north-korea, intelligence by Jeffrey
  So, Joe DeTrani and Chris Hill admit that the intel on North Korea’s enrichment program is sketchy and all hell breaks loose ... (Read the full text of their testimonies). Giacomo, Sanger and Broad, Kessler, and Landay all have stories. Cue the outraged editorials by the Washington Post and New York Times lamenting that the Administration might have been fixing the facts around the policy, in the parlance of our times. Shocked to find gambling in the casino, eh? Not a single one of these reporters cited the other reporters who beat them to the punch in 2003 and 2005. After the CIA released a November 2002 estimate claiming that North Korea was constructing a uranium enrichment facility that would be operational by “mid decade,” Barbara Slavin and John Diamond in USA Today and Paul Kerr in Arms Control Today managed to point out that the story was bogus. [HEU] [Disinformation]
• Bush’s North Korea Decision Twists the Partisan Divide
  By Matt Korade, CQ Staff What some are hailing as a largely symbolic gesture by the Bush administration toward North Korea has a political mix of lawmakers in Congress plotting opposition. In a partisan twist, Democrats on key committees are cautiously supportive of the administration’s decision to ease trade sanctions on North Korea and remove it from the terrorism blacklist in return for information on its nuclear programs. Republicans, on the other hand, have been joined by hawkish counterparts across the aisle in publicly and privately expressing outrage. [Dissension] [Partisan]
• Bush Gets One Right?
  by JOHN FEFFER | Monday, July 7, 2008 Vol. 3, No. 27 The vehemence of the hard-line opposition to the Bush administration’s North Korea policy suggests that, after seven years of blunders and miscues and outright war crimes, Washington has finally done the right thing on a foreign policy issue. I know: it’s really hard to keep the knee from jerking. Heck, I wrote a whole book on the flaws of Bush’s North Korea policy, so I am predisposed to skepticism. But just look at how angry John Bolton and the congressional hawks are at the recent Bush administration decision to take North Korea off the Trading with the Enemy Act list and the State Sponsor of Terrorism list. Never mind that North Korea has served up an accounting of its nuclear programs and even destroyed the cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, as per agreement. The bottom line: this is what diplomacy smells like. Bolton and company, however, catch only the whiff of sulfur. Some hardliners are furious that the Administration has pushed ahead on a nuclear agreement with the North Korea without addressing human rights concerns. Tokyo is furious that Washington didn’t consider North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens in the decision to remove Pyongyang from the terrorism list (an issue I explore in more detail in The Abduction Narrative of Charles Robert Jenkins). Others have argued that North Korea has not come clean on its uranium enrichment program or the proliferation of nuclear technology. It’s like “the police sitting down with the Mafia to discuss their common interest in law-enforcement,” writes John Bolton. [Agreement071003] [Declaration] [Dissension]
• Pyongyang Used 26 Kgs of Plutonium for Nuke Bombs
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter North Korea revealed in its nuclear declaration last week that it used 26 kilograms of plutonium for manufacturing weapons, according to a new report. That amount might have been sufficient to create possibly three and as many as eight nuclear bombs, reported Tokyo Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper. One nuclear weapon could contain roughly 4 to 8 kilograms of the weapons-grade plutonium, depending on the technical expertise used in the nuclear program. The report said North Korea, in all, had produced 38.5 kilograms of plutonium. From that amount, 26 kilograms were used for manufacturing nuclear bombs and 2 kilograms were used in the October 2006 nuclear test. An additional 2 kilograms represented waste materials, the report said, citing sources from participants in six-party talks. Separately, Kyodo News offered slightly different numbers.
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Implementation of Agreement Adopted by Six-Party Talks
  Pyongyang, July 4 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry released the following statement Friday as regards the implementation of the October 3 agreement adopted by the six-party talks:
  The October 3 agreement has entered a new phase in its implementation thanks to the DPRK's sincere efforts.
  The disablement of the nuclear facilities in the DPRK has been done more than 80 percent as of now and it implemented the agreed point that calls for presenting an accurate and complete nuclear declaration.
  The DPRK took the measure of completely blowing up the cooling tower of the pilot atomic power plant, in particular, going beyond the phase of disablement.
  This constitutes a step taken out of good will, a proof of the DPRK's will for the denuclearization, as it means that it has taken in advance the action to be done at the phase following the dismantlement of the nuclear facilities.
  The other participating parties of the six-way talks should join the DPRK in its efforts by honestly fulfilling their commitments.
  The U.S. published the measure for political compensation according to the October 3 agreement, but the measure for taking the DPRK off the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" has not yet taken effect due to its procedural factor and the measure for putting an end to applying the "Trading with the Enemy Act" against the DPRK has not been implemented to the full in the light of its substance, though the U.S. claims it came into force.
  The commitments of the five parties to make economic compensation have been fulfilled just 40 per cent as of now.
  A party whose chief delegate had seconded the above-said agreement by raising his hand at the six-party talks is refusing to participate in the undertaking to implement it, but it is still connived at.
  The DPRK is ready to cooperate in verifying the nuclear declaration but is maintaining the basic principle that the principle of "action for action" should be observed.
  By origin, the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula in line with the September 19 joint statement presupposes its verification. The fulfillment of the commitments by all participating parties including the U.S. should be verified without exception.
  Only when all the participating countries accurately wind up the fulfillment of their commitments, is it possible to see the full implementation of the October 3 agreement and only then can the discussion of the issues at the next phase make smooth progress.
  This is the basic requirement of the principle of "action for action" and the consistent stand of the DPRK. [Declaration] [Agreement071003] [JS050919]
• Bush Wants to See Commitment From N.Korea
  U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday speculated North Korean leader Kim Jong-il “is tired of being isolated in the world... and would try to advance his country in a way that makes it easier for the people to have a better life." Bush was commenting on Pyongyang’s recent more cooperative attitude in giving up its nuclear program. In an interview with Japanese reporters prior to taking part in the G8 summit in Japan, Bush said, "Expectations are that (Kim) will move forward, action for action." He said he expects “a full declaration of manufactured plutonium. We expect there to be a full disclosure of any (sic) enrichment activities and proliferation activities." [Declaration] [Backdown] [HEU]
• N.Korean Nuclear Dismantlement 'to Cost US$575 Million'
  The U.S. Congress has estimated that it will cost the country US$575 million over the four years from 2009 to dismantle and replace North Korea’s nuclear facilities, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday. The estimate in a recent budget report is based on the assumption that the North would dismantle the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and a nuclear fuel-rod plant. This breaks down to $300 million for 2009, $200 million for 2010, $50 million for 2011, and $25 million for 2012. It also includes the costs of removing spent fuel rods, from which plutonium can be extracted, to a third country for disposal. Congress compiled the report based on information supplied by the State Department and the Department of Energy, the two U.S. government agencies in charge of overseeing North Korea's nuclear dismantlement. RFA added the report does not mention dismantlement of nuclear weapons or any uranium enrichment program. [HEU]
• Scientist: Pakistan knew of NKorea nuke deal
  By MUNIR AHMAD – 14 hours ago ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The disgraced architect of Pakistan's nuclear program said Friday that it provided centrifuges to North Korea in a 2000 shipment supervised by the army under President Pervez Musharraf. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who remains a national hero despite confessing four years ago to heading a clandestine proliferation network, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the uranium enrichment equipment was sent from Pakistan in a North Korean plane that was loaded under the supervision of Pakistani security officials. His claims contradict his 2004 confession that he was solely responsible for spreading nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya — and Pakistan's repeated denials its army or government knew about Khan's nuclear proliferation activities. Khan said the army had "complete knowledge" of the shipment of used P-1 centrifuges to North Korea and that it must have been sent with the consent of Musharraf, the then-army chief who took power in a 1999 coup. "It was a North Korean plane, and the army had complete knowledge about it and the equipment," Khan said. "It must have gone with his (Musharraf's) consent." [HEU]
• 'NK Nuclear Declaration Is Completed'
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter The U.S. State Department, responding to questions on whether North Korea fully disclosed information on its uranium program and nuclear proliferation, said Pyongyang's declaration last week was ``completed" and that there were no gaps. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said during a press briefing in Washington Wednesday that North Korea ``made statements that can be verified." The spokesman's comments indicate that Pyongyang presented information on its nuclear proliferation to Syria and the uranium-based nuclear program, in addition to the plutonium program.
• State Department Daily Press Briefing - Sean McCormack, Spokesman
  Washington, DC July 3, 2008
  QUESTION: On North Korea, North Korea said the cooling tower has been destroyed but it doesn’t mean giving up their nuclear programs. What is your comment on this?
  MR. MCCORMACK: Well, we’ll see, I think. We haven’t gotten to the abandonment phase. We have nearly completed the disablement phase. I have to see if they’ve completed all the items – 12 items on the checklist. But they’ve taken dramatic steps towards completing the disablement phase. Dramatic, I mean, blowing up the cooling tower. It’s also very practical. At the moment, they can’t produce more plutonium because the reactor is disabled. The word, disabled, implies that that is a reversible step. We want to get -- meaning the five members of the P-5 – of the six-party talks want to get to the step where this is abandoned. They have given up their nuclear program, meaning Yongbyon is abandoned. It’s gone. All the various elements of their program are gone. We haven’t gotten to that stage yet. That’s the ultimate endpoint. We’ll see. We’ll see if North Korea is willing to do that. This is a step-by-step process, action-for-action. And this – you know, the – when they do have a head of delegations meeting, that will essentially begin to answer your question, will they give up their nuclear program; will they abandon, in full, their nuclear program as they stated and committed to back in October – the fall of 2005? [Declaration]
• U.S. Lawmakers in Move to Keep N.Korea on Terror List
  An increasing number of American political leaders oppose U.S. President George W. Bush's plan to strike North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. In the latest move, Brad Sherman, chairman of the Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, submitted a bill to Congress raising the bar for North Korea’s removal from the list. [Dissension] [Agreement071003] [Terrorism List]
• North Korea saddened by loss of reactor tower
  By MATTHEW LEE – 6 days ago SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — There hasn't yet been any official North Korean reaction to the destruction of the most visible symbol of its nuclear program, but a U.S. diplomat who witnessed it said Saturday that the big blast saddened government officials there. A day after North Korea blew up the cooling tower at its Yongbyon reactor complex to demonstrate its commitment to abandoning nuclear weapons, the State Department's top Koreas expert said he believed the event was an emotional loss for the Stalinist state. "I detected ... a sense of sadness when the tower came down," said Sung Kim, who traveled to Yongbyon, about 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang to watch the demolition of the 60-foot-tall cylindrical structure. "There is a significant degree of emotional attachment to the Yongbyon facilities," he told reporters in the South Korean capital after briefing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other officials about the destruction of the tower on Friday.
• North Korean Denuclearization and the U.S.-DPRK Relationship
  Tong Kim
  Given the slow - albeit important -- progress that has been made in the process of North Korean denuclearization, it is clear by now that the task of finding a final verifiable resolution will inevitably be handed over to the next U.S. administration. Simply there is too much work to be done and not enough time left for the Bush administration. It would probably take at least three or four more years of "action for action" engagement with the DPRK to dispose its last nuclear weapon, if the next U.S. administration would stay the current course of engagement without elevating its diplomatic format to a higher level that could include a summit meeting between the United States and the DPRK.
  The Bush administration took an abrupt about-face in North Korean policy in late 2006, when the Neocons lost influence in Washington as a result of Congressional power shift from Republicans to Democrats. Since then the Bush administration has engaged North Korea intensely to resolve the nuclear issue. [Bilateral] [US NK policy]
• Caution Against Overestimating Pyongyang's Move
  By Andrei Lankov
  July 3rd, 2008 Andrei Lankov, an Associate Professor at Kookmin University, Seoul, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Research School of Pacifica and Asian Studies, Australian National University, writes, "The efforts of the negotiators are not likely to produce the ideal outcome, that is, complete and verifiable destruction of all North Korean nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, it is possible to achieve the compromise, which will make the further increase of the North Korean nuclear arsenal difficult."
• Message to U.S. Preceded Nuclear Declaration by North Korea
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 2, 2008; Page A07 Just days before North Korea delivered to China last week its long-awaited declaration on its plutonium-based nuclear programs, Pyongyang privately acknowledged the United States' long-standing concerns about alleged uranium-enrichment activities and possible proliferation to Syria, U.S. and Asian officials said yesterday. U.S. officials have made only cryptic references to Pyongyang's private message to Washington, in part because it represents a significant scaling back of the administration's goals and ambitions for North Korea's declaration. Originally, the administration had promised that Pyongyang would come clean on its uranium-enrichment activities, not merely "acknowledge" U.S. concerns. The unusual move to separate vexing issues from the declaration was essential to help clear the way for North Korea to offer its declaration and for President Bush to begin removing some sanctions against North Korea. [Declaration] [HEU] [Backdown]
• Investigation: How Washington State lost uranium plant and jobs to Idaho
  By Chris Mulick | Tri-City Herald OLYMPIA — Gov. Chris Gregoire was repeatedly pressed to support Areva's $2 billion uranium enrichment plant and told her help was critical to luring its 400 high-paying jobs to the Tri-Cities, according to e-mail and other communications obtained by the Herald. [HEU] [Double standards]
• North Korean nuclear deal may signal internal shift
  By Norimitsu Onishi and Jim Yardley
  Published: June 27, 2008 TOKYO: North Korea's deal over its nuclear program with the Bush administration could strengthen the hand of reformers in the isolated nation, though any further steps forward in denuclearizing, or opening up the country, will be painstakingly slow. People with knowledge of North Korea's leadership said that its long-delayed nuclear declaration Thursday - followed by its destruction Friday of a massive concrete cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor - did not signal a broad shift in its approach to the outside world or a clear renunciation of its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
  Paik Hak Soon, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, said that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea had basically pursued the long-term goal of formally ending the Korean War and normalizing relations with the United States.
  "That is the only way for North Korea to survive," Paik said. "North Korea wanted the United States to come to the negotiating table, and since the United States did not want to come voluntarily, North Korea used the nuclear card." [Inversion] [NK US policy]
• Yongbyon cooling tower demolition
  A combination photo shows a cooling tower being demolished at its main reactor complex in Yongbyon, North Korea on Friday. North Korea toppled the cooling tower at its plutonium-producing reactor in a symbolic move to show its commitment to a disarmament deal that comes a day after it submitted an inventory of its nuclear program. REUTERS/Kyodo [Declaration]
• Explosive Progress in the Six Party Talks: What's Left To Do When It Is All Done?
  by Nicole Finnemann (nmf@keia.org) Adhering to the action-for-action framework of the February 13, 2007 agreement, North Korea and the United States traded symbolic actions last week that grabbed the headlines—explosive video footage of North Korea's destroying part of its Yongbyon nuclear complex and announcements of dramatic change in Bush administration's policies. Before the dust from the fallen 20-meter tall cooling tower could even settle, however, concerns throughout Washington (and Japan) were voiced in full volume. Has the United States finally learned how to play North Korea's shell game?
• The Tragic End of Bush's North Korea Policy
  By JOHN R. BOLTON
  June 30, 2008; Page A13 Maskirovka – the Soviet dark art of denial, deception and disguise – is alive and well in Pyongyang, years after the Soviet Union disappeared. Unfortunately, the Bush administration appears not to have gotten the word. With much fanfare and choreography, but little substance, the administration has accepted a North Korean "declaration" about its nuclear program that is narrowly limited, incomplete and almost certainly dishonest in material respects. In exchange, President Bush personally declared that North Korea is no longer a state sponsor of terrorism or an enemy of the United States. In a final flourish, North Korea has undertaken a reverse Potemkin Village act, destroying the antiquated cooling tower of the antiquated Yongbyon reactor. In the waning days of American presidencies, this theater is the stuff of legacy.
  The only good news is that there is little opportunity for the Bush administration to make any further concessions in its waning days in office. But for many erstwhile administration supporters, this is a moment of genuine political poignancy. Nothing can erase the ineffable sadness of an American presidency, like this one, in total intellectual collapse. [Dissension] [US NK policy]
• Partially True Confessions: How Big is the North Korea Deal?
  by Marcus Noland, Peterson Institute
  Op-ed in Newsweek July 7, 2008 North Korea's recent nuclear confession (sic) and the quick response from US President George W. Bush bring us closer to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But there are many more steps left. North Korea's disclosure was conspicuous for what it omitted: bombs. It laid out some details of Pyongyang's plutonium-based weapons program, but much of that information is not new. The Koreans admitted that they had moved spent fuel rods and reprocessed them into fissile material, which we knew—but we still don't know how much they have. North Korea has an unknown number of weapons, and the statement shed no light on those. Pyongyang did invite foreign news organizations to film the demolition of the Yongbyon reactor's cooling tower for a fee. But this was a publicity stunt. The declaration also did not cover Pyongyang's alleged uranium-enrichment program and its various foreign weapons deals, including suspected assistance for Syria. This might explain why President Bush's response was fast but also hesitant. He lifted restrictions on commerce with North Korea and told Congress he planned to remove Pyongyang from the list of terrorism sponsors. But the White House hedged by preserving some existing sanctions and saying the rewards would be reversed if Pyongyang's confession turns out to be inaccurate. Lifting the trade restrictions will have a minimal impact. North Korea will remain one of a few countries that does not have normal trade relations with the United States, meaning its exports will continue to be subjected to punitive tariffs of up to 90 percent. [Sanctions] [Spin]
• North Korea: Presidential Action on State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA)
  Statement by the U.S. Department of State
  June 30th, 2008 The U.S. Department of State released this fact sheet on the disablement of the Yongbyon reactor, the lifting of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to the DPRK and intent to the rescind the DPRK’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. [Declaration] [US NK policy]
• When the Tough Decide to Become Diplomatic
  Immanuel Wallerstein
  Commentary No. 236, July 1, 2008 President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy. In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the "Axis of Evil" - composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea - and indicated that the United States would act to dismantle their regimes, not to negotiate with them.
  The return of the United States to diplomacy and its acceptance of incremental progress was denounced by neo-cons now outside the U.S. government, like John Bolton, as "a sad, sad day" in which the United States had been "taken to the cleaners." Vice-President Cheney is considered to have lost the internal battle with advocates of negotiations like Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates. Supporters of the decision in the administration hailed it as a "diplomatic success." Others pointed out that, had the United States not suspended the Agreed Framework, North Korea might never have been able to explode the nuclear weapon. Hence, they argued, non-negotiation had actually facilitated, rather than prevented, North Korea's becoming a nuclear power. What changed between 2002 and 2006, such that the United States went from the "tough" line to the "diplomatic" approach? That's easy to discern. [Bilateral]
• Rare Bush success leaves sour taste
  By Jim Lobe
  WASHINGTON - While, in his dreams, US President George W Bush might have seen a "Mission Accomplished" banner unfurled as the cooling tower at North Korea's plutonium-producing plant was blown up, Friday's internationally televised fireworks at Yongbyon offered merely a glimmer of possible success in a foreign policy legacy that seems to be getting darker by the day. Indeed, a week that was supposed to end on the bright note of Friday's demolition produced instead a steady drumbeat of more bad news from overseas, not to mention the steep slide in US stock markets fueled in part by the continuing rise in the price of oil. In January 2007, Rice persuaded Bush to permit her chief Asia aide, Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill, to meet directly with a senior North Korean envoy to hatch a deal that was formalized in a new six-party accord the following month.
• DPRK Foreign Ministry's Spokesman on U.S. Lifting of Major Economic Sanctions against DPRK
  Pyongyang, June 27 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA Friday as regards the U.S. announcement of its decision to lift major economic sanctions against the DPRK:
  On June 26 the U.S. made public a decision on starting the process of taking the DPRK off the list of "state sponsors of terrorism" and exempting it from the "Trading with the Enemy Act" as a practical measure for lifting economic sanctions against the DPRK under the October 3 agreement reached at the six-party talks.
  The DPRK appreciates and hails this as a positive measure.
  What is important in the days ahead is for the U.S. to fundamentally drop its hostile policy toward the DPRK, a policy that compelled it to have access to a nuclear deterrent.
  The measure taken by the U.S. to lift the major sanctions which it has applied against the DPRK, listing it as an enemy state for more than half a century, should lead to totally withdrawing its hostile policy toward the DPRK in all fields in the future.
  Only then can the denuclearization process make smooth progress along its orbit.
  Other participating nations of the six-party talks should also fully honor their commitments to make economic compensations in time as already promised.
  The six parties should have the fulfillment of all their commitments verified and monitored on the principle of the September 19 joint statement which calls for denuclearizing the whole Korean Peninsula in a verifiable manner.
  The DPRK will sincerely implement the September 19 joint statement, closely following each party's fulfillment of its commitment on the principle of "action for action" in the future, too, as it submitted a complete and accurate declaration on its nuclear activities this time in keeping with the U.S. measure for political compensation.

• Another Tenet Sting Failure?
  by Gordon Prather According to the Washington Post, David Albright – a man their sycophantic reporter inexplicably considers to be "a prominent nuclear weapons expert" – has charged that an "international smuggling ring," having already "sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea," has somehow acquired "blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon," which Albright contends were intended to be – or already had been – "sold" to any number of countries, including Iran [Thinktank] [Disinformation]
• The Nuclear Expert Who Never Was
  By Scott Ritter
  I am a former U.N. weapons inspector.
  I bring up this history because during the entire time of my intense, somewhat intimate cooperation with the IAEA Action Team, one name that never entered into the mix was David Albright. Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS, an institute which he himself founded), and has for some time now dominated the news as the “go-to” guy for the U.S. mainstream media when they need “expert opinion” on news pertaining to nuclear issues. Most recently, Albright could be seen commenting on a report he authored, released by ISIS on June 16, in which he discusses the alleged existence of a computer owned by Swiss-based businessmen who were involved in the A.Q. Khan nuclear black market ring. According to Albright, this computer contained sensitive design drawings of a small, sophisticated nuclear warhead which, he speculates, could fit on a missile delivery system such as that possessed by Iran. [Thinktank] [Disinformation]
• Chris Hill BEATS John Bolton: Bush Declares New Track for US-North Korea Relations
  Thursday, Jun 26 2008, 7:45AM What I reported two days ago about the White House asking Congress to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terror list was confirmed a few moments ago by President Bush. In a Rose Garden statement, President Bush also suspended sanctions on North Korea that are tied to the "Trading with Enemies Act". This is huge news -- and is a giant step in putting US-North Korea relations on a new and more constructive track. This is a success for the Bush administration -- and more importantly for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacfic Affairs Christopher Hill who has been a punching bag for former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who has been spitting on Hill's deal-making for the last year. [Dissension]
• Bush Moves on Terror List as N.Korea Files N-Declaration
    North Korea submitted its inventory of nuclear materials and facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear plant to China, the host of the six-party nuclear talks, on Thursday (Korea Time). U.S. President George W. Bush in a statement after the nuclear inventory was submitted, said, "We welcome today's development as one step in the multi-step process laid out by the six-party talks." Bush said he is issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act for North Korea, and is notifying Congress of his intent to strike North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terror in 45 days.
• N.Korea Remains Under Sanctions
  North Korea will not be able to engage freely in activities in the international community immediately, even when it is no longer on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism or covered by the Trading with the Enemies Act. Besides these two sanctions, North Korea has been under various other sanctions from the UN and the U.S.
• US to take N Korea off terror blacklist
  By Demetri Sevastopulo and Daniel Dombey in Washington and Anna Fifield in Seoul
  Published: June 26 2008 04:31 | Last updated: June 26 2008 23:27 The US is taking North Korea off its state sponsors of terrorism list in return for a long-awaited declaration by Pyongyang about its nuclear activities. George W. Bush, US president, announced on Thursday the beginning of the 45-day process to remove North Korea from the list and its immediate exemption from the Trading with the Enemy Act. Korea policy - Jun-25US to send food to N Korea under new deal - May-13 Both are largely symbolic measures that affect US assistance and trade with Pyongyang.
• A very small step
  Published: June 26 2008 19:30 | Last updated: June 26 2008 19:30 President George W. Bush’s eagerness on Thursday to play up the significance of North Korea’s belated nuclear declaration and to praise the multilateral diplomacy that led to it must have caused wincing among hawkish supporters who remember his tough talk about confronting the "axis of evil" and the "pygmy" dictator Kim Jong-il. Mr Bush, who removed North Korea from the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and announced plans to rescind its designation as "state sponsor of terror", did admit that the declaration was merely one step of many to come. He also said the US had no illusions about Mr Kim’s regime. However, had the Bush administration in its final months not been casting around desperately for a foreign policy success, it is hard to imagine Mr Bush giving so much political credit to North Korea for such an insignificant document.
• Bush hails Korean breakthrough as Pyongyang delivers inventory of its nuclear activities·
  State to be taken off terror list and given financial aid · Atomic plan's most visible symbol to be demolished Jonathan Watts, east Asia correspondent and Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington The Guardian, Friday June 27, 2008 The Korean peninsula took a significant step towards being nuclear-free yesterday when North Korea submitted a long-awaited inventory of its atomic activities, prompting the US to initiate steps to remove Pyongyang from its list of states that sponsor terrorism. The breakthrough, which will also see Washington lift some sanctions and Pyongyang demolish part of its nuclear facilities, is expected to jump-start six-party talks aimed at easing 55 years of tension on the peninsula.
• Triumph for Kim Jong-il
  Jonathan Watts, east Asia correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday June 26, 2008 By offering to drop North Korea from the US list of states that sponsor terrorism, George Bush has taught the world's despots a lesson: if you want to survive, build a nuclear arsenal. Six years ago, the US president labelled North Korea alongside Iraq and Iran as part of an "axis of evil", because of its dictatorial political system and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. In the years since, Pyongyang has compromised the least of those three nations and gained the most. While Saddam Hussein let the weapons inspectors in, Kim Jong-il kicked them out. While Iran fudged its nuclear intentions, North Korea proclaimed its strength in October 2006 with a test explosion of an atomic weapon.
• Evil no more
  Friday June 27, 2008 North Korea came in from the cold yesterday, after handing over a declaration of its nuclear programme to Chinese officials. Even though the declaration falls short of what the US once demanded, President George Bush said he would lift US trade sanctions and notify Congress that he intends to take North Korea off the state department list of nations that sponsor terrorism. One of the spokes seems to have come off the axis of evil. There was no shortage of irony in yesterday's statements. With the clock ticking on his remaining months in power, North Korea could well go down as Mr Bush's sole foreign policy success
• U.S. set to lift sanctions on N. Korea
  Nuclear declaration brings quick response from U.S. » A special CNN team arrives at the Pyongyang International Airport on June 26 to broadcast the explosion of the cooling tower at the Yongbyon reactor on June 27. North Korea handed over a declaration that details how much plutonium it has produced, and nuclear activities at its main reactor facility in Yongbyon, to China, the host of the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear weapons program, on June 26. In a gesture demonstrating its intention to abandon its nuclear ambitions, North Korea is scheduled to destroy the cooling tower at the Yongbyon reactor at 11:00 a.m. on June 27. The explosion will be broadcast live on CNN and via television station in each of the other five nations.
• A measure of success for N. Korea
  [Editorial]   North Korea has submitted its declaration of its nuclear activities to China, since it holds the chair for the six-party talks. The United States, in turn, says Pyongyang is going to be removed from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and will be freed from the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act. This means we have arrived at the end of the second phase of the three phase process (freezing, disablement, and dismantlement) for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue. In marathon terms, we’re at the turning point. This is an important accomplishment, one that follows the September 19th Joint Declaration of 2005 and the February 13th Agreement of 2007.   It was the will of the United States and North Korea that has brought us to where we are now. The work of the American delegation to the six-party talks, led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has been particularly remarkable. This team of Americans calmed concerns in the United States and elsewhere about an alleged uranium enrichment program and allegations that the North had worked with other countries on nuclear development, and succeeded in moving the process forward. The live, televised destruction of the cooling tower at the North’s Yongbyon reactor was one result of their efforts. The North deserves to be recognized for its profoundly changed attitude in negotiating the implementation of nuclear disablement and about declaring its nuclear activities. You can see that Pyongyang has taken one step closer to that so-called "strategic decision" (giving up on its nuclear programs).
• U.S. to lift sanctions on North Korea
  Move comes after Pyongyang makes a declaration of its nuclear program June 27, 2008 In a file photo released by U.S. researchers who visited North Korea, the cooling tower of a nuclear reactor is seen at the Yongbyon Nuclear Center in North Korea. [AP] The United States said late last night that it will lift sanctions against North Korea following that country’s belated disclosure of its nuclear program. The Washington announcement cautioned that there was still "work to be done" for the North to fully escape from its political isolation, but Thursday’s step was a large one.
• N. Korea Details Nuclear Program
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter North Korea's declaration of its nuclear programs is raising hopes for a new period of detente in and around the Korean Peninsula, with the United States and Japan set to improve relations with the communist state by offering economic and diplomatic incentives. At the same time, however, concerns also remain about whether North Korea is really on the course of abandoning its nuclear programs. In a symbolic gesture to spur multilateral negotiations on the nuke programs, the North will destroy a 20-meter-tall cooling tower at its Yongbyon reactor today, with U.S. envoy Sung Kim on hand. The demolition will be broadcast live worldwide by CNN.
• Bush Rebuffs Hard-Liners to Ease North Korean Curbs
  By HELENE COOPER Published: June 27, 2008 WASHINGTON — Two days ago, during an off-the-record session with a group of foreign policy experts, Vice President Dick Cheney got a question he did not want to answer. "Mr. Vice President," asked one of them, "I understand that on Wednesday or Thursday, we are going to de-list North Korea from the terrorism blacklist. Could you please set the context for this decision?" Mr. Cheney froze, according to four participants at the Old Executive Office Building meeting. For more than 30 minutes he had been taking and answering questions, without missing a beat. But now, for several long seconds, he stared, unsmilingly, at his questioner, Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, a public policy institution. Finally, he spoke: "I’m not going to be the one to announce this decision," the other participants recalled Mr. Cheney saying, pointing at himself. "You need to address your interest in this to the State Department." He then declared that he was done taking questions, and left the room. [Dissension]
• Diplomatic Success That Defies the Critics
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: June 27, 2008 WASHINGTON — North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear activities is a triumph of the sort of diplomacy — complicated, plodding, often frustrating — that President Bush and his aides once eschewed as American weakness. In more than two years of negotiations, the man who once declared North Korea part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, angrily vowing to confront, not negotiate with, its despotic leader, in fact demonstrated a flexibility that his critics at home and abroad once considered impossible.  
• North Korea Destroys Tower at Nuclear Plant
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: June 28, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea -- With international TV networks broadcasting live from the scene, North Korea blew up the most visible symbol of its nuclear program on Friday in a gesture demonstrating its commitment to stop making plutonium for weapons. The 60-foot cooling tower at the North’s main nuclear power plant was demolished on Friday, as promised by the North Korean government. The collapse of the concrete structure, the most conspicuous part of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 60 miles, north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, bore witness to the incremental progress that has been made in American-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.
• The North Korea Deal
  Published: June 27, 2008 For six years, President Bush rejected any serious diplomacy with North Korea. That obstinacy made the world a more dangerous place. While he was refusing to talk, Pyongyang made more fuel for more weapons and tested a nuclear device. Now that American diplomats finally have been freed to negotiate, there is a chance that North Korea can be persuaded to give up its weapons. That would make the world a safer place.
• U.S. to Delist North Korea As Sponsor Of Terrorism
  Video Bush: Important Step in North Korean Relations President Bush says North Korea handing over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday is "a step closer in the right direction." By Blaine Harden and Robin Wright Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, June 27, 2008; Page A01 KYOTO, Japan, June 26 -- President Bush moved Thursday to drop North Korea from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism and to lift some trading sanctions, after the isolated totalitarian state turned over a long-delayed report that includes details of plutonium production in its nuclear program. Nearly two years after North Korea stunned the world by detonating a small nuclear device, Bush said the declaration marked the start of an "action for action" process meant to end with full dismantling of the highly militarized country's nuclear facilities and nuclear weapons. Bush took office with an uncompromising approach to North Korea, designating it as part of an "axis of evil." Later the administration moved toward engagement, sometimes looking the other way when the North faltered on its pledges.
• Bush Remarks on the North Korean Nuclear Declaration
  Transcript
  Thursday, June 26, 2008; 9:23 AM PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Good morning. The policy of the United States is a Korean Peninsula free of all nuclear weapons. This morning, we moved a step closer to that goal, when North Korean officials submitted a declaration of their nuclear programs to the Chinese government as part of the six-party talks. The United States has no illusions about the regime in Pyongyang. We remain deeply concerned about North Korea's human rights abuses, uranium enrichment activities, nuclear testing and proliferation, ballistic missile programs, and the threat it continues to pose to South Korea and its neighbors.
• An Important Step Forward on the DPRK Nuclear Issue
  + - 16:44, June 27, 2008 On June 26, through the efforts of all parties, significant progress was made at the second session of the Six-Party Talks. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) submitted a nuclear declaration to the chairman of the Six-Party Talks, and on the same day the United States removed the DPRK from its list of countries that support terrorism and lifted restrictions on the DPRK imposed by the Trading with the Enemy Act. This is an important step in the process of pushing for the disarmament of the DPRK peninsula in the Six-Party Talks, and it has received widespread attention and welcome from the international community.
  As the host country of the Six-Party Talks, China will rigorously evaluate the progress of carrying out the joint mission of the Six-Party Talks during the second session, and will continue to play a constructive role in carrying out the ultimate goal of disarmament of the DPRK peninsula.(sic)
• U.S. could re-impose sanctions on DPRK if it fails obligation
  + - 09:07, June 27, 2008 The United States could impose new sanctions or re-impose past sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) if it fails to meet its obligation to fully disclose and dismantle its nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said Thursday. "To the extent applicable and to the extent we can do it legally, we would re-impose past sanctions," U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley said at a briefing. [Dissension]
• North Korea's Nuclear Declaration: What to Expect Next
  By Ralph Cossa June 26th, 2008
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently announced that North Korea will soon release its much anticipated (and long overdue) "complete and correct declaration" of all its nuclear activities. In return, the Bush administration will remove Pyongyang from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) restrictions; actions that could be reversed if the North's list proved to be inadequate or if cooperation on verification was "insufficient." Some have argued that it would make more sense to wait until the list is delivered and verified before restrictions are lifted, and they are probably right. Unfortunately, that was not what Washington promised. If we have learned nothing else about North Korea we should know one thing by now: While Pyongyang might not be too good at living up to its own promises, it will not budge an inch if it perceives that others are not living up to theirs. As a result, it is useful to review what has actually been promised, first during the landmark September 2005 six-party talks joint statement and later during two "breakthrough" declarations that took place in February and October of 2007. [Declaration] [Agreement070213] [Agreement071003]
• Breakthrough expected Thursday in North Korea talks
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — North Korea on Thursday will provide a long-awaited declaration detailing its nuclear weapons programs, a potential breakthrough in a 17-year-long effort to rid the Stalinist state of nuclear arms, U.S. officials said. North Korea's tally of its weapons work, which initially will be delivered to China, the chair of the six-nation nuclear talks, will trigger a rapid series of events in the normally slow-moving diplomacy that eventually could lead to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the isolated communist nation. Also on Thursday, President Bush is expected to announce that he intends to remove North Korea from the U.S. government's list of nations that sponsor terrorism and waive it from the provisions of the Trading With the Enemy Act, which bars almost all commerce. As early as Friday, North Korea plans to demolish the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, with the head of the State Department's Korea desk, Sung Kim, on hand to witness. Pyongyang also has invited foreign television stations to videotape the event, said a senior State Department official who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.   [Declaration]
• Rice Expects N. Korean Action Soon
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 26, 2008 Filed at 4:38 a.m. ET KYOTO, Japan (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she expected developments on North Korea's long-delayed nuclear declaration within hours, as she arrived in Japan to attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, said an announcement on North Korea's declaration would be made later Thursday in a special news conference. He did not elaborate. The White House said earlier this week that Thursday was the deadline for the North to hand over an accounting of its nuclear program. In exchange, the U.S. said it will move to lift sanctions and remove North Korea from the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism. Rice stressed that any moves the United States makes in response to the declaration would be subject to the verification of the North Korean documents.
• U.S. To Respond Quickly to N. Korea Nuclear Report
  By REUTERS Published: June 25, 2008 Filed at 12:38 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States could move quickly to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism sponsors after Pyongyang issues an expected declaration of its nuclear activities, the White House said on Wednesday. North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in October 2006, planned to give the long-awaited report to China by Thursday, Japan's Kyodo news agency said earlier this week. Once North Korea makes the declaration, "it could be quite soon" that the United States would move to remove it from its list of terrorism sponsors, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
• Evening Walk-Through at Six-Party Talks
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs China World Hotel Beijing, China June 23, 2008 View Video ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Hi. I really don’t have a lot for you tonight. I met with Wu Dawei this afternoon. We discussed the sequence of events with respect to the Six-Party meeting starting with the submission that the DPRK will make to the Chinese on their declaration, followed by the bilateral issues that the U.S. will then undertake -- including the lifting of North Korea from the terrorism list and the removal of the designation of the Trading With the Enemy Act. And then we discussed how to organize a Six-Party meeting to deal with the declaration and to look at what would be the next phase. So I think the Chinese are going to continue to consult with the parties on the Six-Party schedule, and I hope they’ll be able to announce something very soon. [Declaration] [Terrorism list]
• North Korean Denuclearization: Beyond Phase II Disablement
  By Tong Kim June 24th, 2008 Tong Kim, former senior interpreter at the U.S. State Department and now a visiting professor with the Graduate University of North Korean Studies, a research professor with Ilmin Institute of International Relations at Korea University and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, writes, “Final denuclearization would require the normalization of relations between the United States and the DPRK… Any way one looks at the prospects of the six party process, it clearly has a long way to go yet with many difficult problems to surmount in the path.”
• Six-Party Nuclear Talks Likely to Resume Next Week
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter The multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear programs are expected to resume next week with the communist regime preparing to declare its nuclear projects, while the United States is moving to remove it from its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries in return.
• IAEA inspectors face daunting task in looking for alleged secret Syrian nuclear program
  The Associated Press Published: June 21, 2008 VIENNA, Austria: A mission to the Syrian desert by U.N. nuclear sleuths to examine a building flattened by Israeli war planes could open a new front in the search for rogue nations trying to develop atomic arms under the radar of the international community. It is a low-key endeavor: Only four International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors will participate in the three-day project starting Sunday, and both Damascus and the U.N. agency have pulled down the blinds on news media seeking to report on the trip, keeping all details secret. Yet the stakes are huge for both Damascus, which denies working on a secret nuclear program, and the International Atomic Energy Agency — and through it, the United States and its other 34 board member nations. Washington hopes that the U.N agency team will come back with persuasive evidence backing U.S. intelligence that the structure hit by the Israel in September was a nearly completed plutonium-producing reactor. If so, the trip could mark the start of massive atomic agency investigation similar to the probe Iran has been subjected to over the past five years. What's more, the probe could draw in countries like North Korea, which Washington says helped Damascus and Iran, which media reports have also linked to Syria's nuclear strivings. Such prospects alarm Syria. It agreed to allow the nuclear inspectors to visit the bombed Al Kibar site in early June only after months of delay [Media] [Inversion]
• NK to Demolish Nuclear Cooling Tower in Yongbyon
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter North Korea has invited five media companies from around the world, including CNN to cover its planned demolition of a cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, Seoul's top nuclear envoy said Sunday. Before the scheduled destruction to be broadcasted live, the North will submit a complete list of its past and current nuclear activities to China, the host of the six-party talks aimed at abolishing Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs, for verification, said Kim Sook. The multilateral nuclear talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. Diplomatic sources said the submission would likely be made as early as this week. ``CNN has already been invited and a South Korean broadcaster was also invited for the event,'' Kim told reporters, saying the invitations had been delivered to the media firms concerned. ``The North informed the companies of the date for the cooling tower demolition, and whether or not to accept the invitation is up to the media companies,'' added Kim, before his departure to China to meet with his U.S. and Chinese counterparts to discuss verification of the North's nuclear declaration and resumption of the six-nation talks.
• U.N. Inspectors Head For Nuclear Probe In Syria
  By REUTERS Published: June 22, 2008 Filed at 4:47 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph VIENNA (Reuters) - Senior U.N. inspectors left for Syria on Sunday to investigate U.S. allegations that Damascus built a nuclear reactor in secret for nuclear weapons purposes before the site was destroyed in an Israeli air strike. Syria denies the accusations, saying the remote desert target was an ordinary military building under construction. Washington says the project at al-Kibar was camouflaged to hide its nature and Western nuclear analysts say satellite pictures taken since the bombing show it was bulldozed in an apparent effort to remove incriminating evidence. Digging out the truth is likely to be difficult for International Atomic Energy Agency investigators nine months after the Israeli attack. The IAEA team heading for Damascus was led by Olli Heinonen, head of its Vienna-based agency's global inspectorate, and included two nuclear technology experts familiar with Syria.   IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has condemned Israel's air strike, saying it undermined the agency's mandate. "We will do everything in our power to clear things up," ElBaradei has said. But, still fuming over Israel's intervention and the tardiness of U.S. intelligence-sharing, he added: "It is doubtful that we will find anything there now, assuming there was anything there in the first place." [Syria] [Evidence]
• New Data Found On North Korea's Nuclear Capacity
  Intelligence on Enriched Uranium Revives Questions About Weapons
  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said U.S. is "troubled." (Mario Tama - Getty Images) By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, June 21, 2008; Page A08 The United States in recent weeks has obtained new intelligence -- fresh traces of highly enriched uranium discovered among 18,000 pages of North Korean documents -- that are raising new questions about whether Pyongyang pursued an alternative route to producing a nuclear weapon, according to sources familiar with the intelligence findings. Officials at the State Department and with the director of national intelligence declined to comment on the new information, but sources said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made an oblique reference to it in a speech on North Korea policy to the Heritage Foundation on Wednesday. "As we've gotten deeper into the process, we've been troubled by additional information about North Korea's uranium-enrichment capability," Rice said. "And this information has reaffirmed skepticism about dealing with North Korea." The new intelligence arrived at an awkward moment for the Bush administration. North Korea next week plans to submit its long-awaited declaration on its nuclear programs, which is expected to disclose that its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon produced about 37 kilograms of plutonium. Then, on June 27 or 28, North Korean officials are expected to blow up the cooling tower attached to the facility, diplomats said. [HEU] [Evidence] [Disinformation]
• Condoleezza Rice:Interview With the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board
  But let me say a word about both the HEU and the Syrian proliferation issue. Look, I think it’s deeply – look, I was a part of the decision-making group that decided to go to them and say, you’ve got an alternative way to make nuclear weapons. And that’s a real problem, the HEU decision of 2002. And I think it was the right decision. And I’m sorry that they walked out of the Agreed Framework, but it was the right decision.
  The problem on -- so I'm convinced that there is -- that they have been either seeking or have gotten or have done something on the highly enriched uranium side. The problem is we don't actually know what they've done. I will tell you that the more we dig into it and the more we actually get -- talk to them about it, the more concerning it is. But we're actually learning more through this process about it than we would have known through our intelligence, because it is an opaque, closed, difficult place. HEU is by its very nature hard to know what's going on. I mean, we have inspectors all over the Iranians and it's still hard to know what's going on. And so the question I would ask is: Should we really stop the process of what I would call excavating about this HEU program? And I think we will learn more about this HEU program through these discussions with them, through insisting that they give us things like the tubes, which -- the aluminum tubes, which they did; insisting that they let us interview personnel and so forth. So I'd like to keep this process going.
  ########## QUESTION: You're not going to do an Albrightian last-month visit to Pyongyang, are you? (Laughter.) The vignette? SECRETARY RICE: Let's see what phase three looks like. We're working hard to get a sense of what phase three looks like; in other words, what they have in mind as they contemplate actually giving up weapons. QUESTION: That sounds like a maybe. (Laughter.)
  SECRETARY RICE: Let me put it this way: I'm not anxious to go. (Laughter.)
  Great.
• North will declare nukes soon: Rice
  June 20, 2008 North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, right, with visiting Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, left, in Pyongyang on Wednesday. [AP] WASHINGTON - North Korea will present a declaration of its nuclear programs to China in a prelude to reopening the stalled multilateral talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, a top American diplomat said Wednesday. "North Korea will soon provide its nuclear declaration," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a seminar here.
• Rice Focusing on N.Korea’s Nuclear Dismantlement
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been devoting a great deal of time and effort in recent days to the question of North Korea’s declaration and dismantlement of its nuclear program. Rice devoted 30 minutes of an hour-long speech on "U.S. Policy Toward Asia" at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on Wednesday to the issue. "And President Bush would then notify Congress of our intention to remove North Korea from the state sponsors of terrorism list and to cease the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In the next 45 days after that, before those actions go into effect, we would continue to assess the level of North Korean cooperation in helping to verify the accuracy and completeness of its declaration. And if that cooperation is insufficient, we will respond accordingly," Rice said. Rice focused on the verification of the declaration, presumably mindful of the public criticism that the State Department has made too many concessions in its negotiations with the North, motivated by the need to establish a legacy for the lackluster Bush administration
• A nightmare of loose nukes
  Wednesday, June 18, 2008 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/18/opinion/edkhan.php A nightmare scenario has come true, to judge from the revelation that the smuggling network once run by A.Q. Khan, the so-called father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, had acquired, and stored electronically, blueprints for an advanced, compact nuclear device. This means that the knowledge needed to produce an easily deliverable nuclear weapon may have already passed into the hands of Iran, North Korea, some other truculent state, or a terrorist group. [Proliferation]
• Pakistan's A.Q. Khan denies new nuke weapons claim
  By MUNIR AHMAD – ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The architect of Pakistan's nuclear program on Tuesday rejected a report alleging that his network may have shared blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon with countries such as Iran and North Korea. Speaking to The Associated Press by telephone, Abdul Qadeer Khan described the report issued Monday as a "pack of lies" and lashed out at its author, former top U.N. arms inspector David Albright. "It is all concoction, it is a pack of lies, and this is a campaign. Whenever they see Pakistan can be pressured, they pressure it," Khan said from the Islamabad villa where he is under house arrest. "The previous government has been succumbing to such pressure."
  Khan, who gave the interview in Urdu, claimed Albright's report was funded by the CIA and was an attempt by the United States to spread negative propaganda about Pakistan. "He (Albright) has been writing against Pakistan for years since we started our program," Khan said. "This is all lies. We never made any compact (device). In the beginning, we made a simple weapon in 1983, and we never made it again or changed it," he said. [Disinformation] [Proliferation]
• Text of Bush and Brown in London
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: June 16, 2008 Filed at 3:21 p.m. ET Text of President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday, as provided by the White House. Brown: We have resolved, first of all, as we did some years ago, that it is in the British national interest to confront the Taliban in Afghanistan or Afghanistan would come to us.
  Q: Good morning, Mr. President, prime minister. I'd like to ask you both about Iran. President Bush, you've talked about it at every stop. A similar process, it seems, that is deterring North Korea from its nuclear ambitions has basically allowed North Korea to make progress toward nuclear weapons. At what point are you willing to draw a line here with Iran, and isn't Iran seemingly learning a lesson from the North Korea experience? BUSH: Ed, I just strongly disagree with your premise that the six-party talks has encouraged Iran to develop nuclear weapons. I don't know why you have even come to that conclusion, because the facts are the six-party talks is the only way to send a message to the North Koreans that the world isn't going to tolerate them having a weapon. I mean, in other words, they are -- we'll see what they disclose, but we hopefully are in the process of disabling and dismantling their plutonium manufacturing. We're hopefully in the process of getting them to disclose what they have manufactured and eventually turning it over. We're hopefully in the process of disclosing their proliferation activities, and it's a six-party process. I mean, the only way, in my judgment, to diplomatically solve these kinds of problems with nations like Iran and North Korea, non-transparent nations, is through a multilateral process, where there's more than one nation sending the same message to the leaders of these respective countries. And so I disagree with your premise. As a matter of fact, the Iranians must understand that when we come together and speak with one voice, we're serious. That's why the Prime Minister's statement was so powerful, and that's the lesson that the North Koreans are hearing. And so it's -- I said the other day that, you know, one of the things that I will leave behind is a multilateralism to deal with tyrants, so problems can be solved diplomatically. And the difficulty, of course, is that sometimes economics and money trumps national security interests. So you go around asking nations -- by the way, it's not a problem for Great Britain -- so you say to your partners, don't sell goods; you know, let's send a focused message all aiming to create the conditions so that somebody rational shows up. In other words, people hopefully are sick of isolation in their respective countries, and they show up and say, we're tired of this; there's a better way forward. And in order for that to be effective, Ed, there has to be more than one voice. So if I were the North Koreans and I were looking at Iran, or the Iranians looking at North Korea, I'd say, uh-oh, there are coalitions coming together that are bound tightly -- more tightly than ever in order to send us a focused message. [Bizarre] [US NK policy] [Iran] [energy security] [Nuclear energy]
• Mystery Over Nuclear Blueprints Grows
  The revelation that blueprints to build a smaller, easily transportable nuclear weapon were discovered on computers in a handful of foreign nations has set off a worldwide search to see if any rogue nations or groups got ahold of the plans. The A.Q. Khan smuggling ring, which is accused of sharing the plans for an advanced nuclear weapon with a Swiss family, also sold bomb-making material to Libya, Iran and North Korea. And it's unclear whether Khan, the 72-year-old father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, sold the nuclear bomb blueprints to anyone else. The fallout from the public acknowledgement of the plans, which were discovered in 2006 on computers owned by the Tinner family in Switzerland, sent U.S. officials scrambling over the past week and prompted a not-too-subtle warning to Pakistani officials regarding the potential release of Khan, who is currently under house arrest, The New York Times reported. Khan, who admitted in a televised broadcast in 2004 that he sold bomb-making plans and know-how to foreign governments, said he was coerced into confessing to that crime. In a June interview with The Post's Candace Rondeaux, Khan said he only did what Pakistani officials asked of him and denied any role in a smuggling operation. "I didn't want to leave behind the stigma for my family that their father or husband is a traitor or a bad man," he said.
• Officials Fear Bomb Design Went to Others
  By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: June 16, 2008 WASHINGTON - Four years after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the leader of the world's largest black market in nuclear technology, was put under house arrest and his operation declared shattered, international inspectors and Western officials are confronting a new mystery, this time over who may have received blueprints for a sophisticated and compact nuclear weapon found on his network's computers. [Proliferation]
• Nuclear Ring Reportedly Had Advanced Design
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: June 15, 2008 WASHINGTON — American and international investigators say that they have found the electronic blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon on computers that belonged to the nuclear smuggling network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, but that they have not been able to determine whether they were sold to Iran or the smuggling ring’s other customers. [Proliferation] [Media]
• Smugglers Had Design For Advanced Warhead
  By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 15, 2008; Page A01 An international smuggling ring that sold bomb-related parts to Libya, Iran and North Korea also managed to acquire blueprints for an advanced nuclear weapon, according to a draft report by a former top U.N. arms inspector that suggests the plans could have been shared secretly with any number of countries or rogue groups. The drawings, discovered in 2006 on computers owned by Swiss businessmen, included essential details for building a compact nuclear device that could be fitted on a type of ballistic missile used by Iran and more than a dozen developing countries, the report states. The computer contents -- among more than 1,000 gigabytes of data seized -- were recently destroyed by Swiss authorities under the supervision of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is investigating the now-defunct smuggling ring previously led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. But U.N. officials cannot rule out the possibility that the blueprints were shared with others before their discovery, said the report's author, David Albright, a prominent nuclear weapons expert who spent four years researching the smuggling network. [Proliferation] [Media]
• U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive
  By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
  Published: March 1, 2007
  WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 — Last October, the North Koreans tested their first nuclear device, the fruition of decades of work to make a weapon out of plutonium.
  For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates, has accused North Korea of also pursuing a secret, parallel path to a bomb, using enriched uranium. That accusation, first leveled in the fall of 2002, resulted in the rupture of an already tense relationship: The United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.
  But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002. [Backdown] [HEU] [Evidence]
• Japan-made pumps 'used at N-facilities in N. Korea'
  The Yomiuri Shimbun Japanese-made vacuum pumps used for uranium enrichment were discovered at nuclear facilities in North Korea during an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency last year, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. According to sources, the U.N. nuclear watchdog notified the Japanese government of the discovery, which prompted a search earlier this month by the Kanagawa prefectural police of five locations, including the head offices of Tokyo Vacuum based in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Nakano Corp., a Minato Ward, Tokyo-based import-export agency. The two companies are suspected of exporting the vacuum pumps without permission in violation of the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law, according to the sources. The police suspected the pumps were shipped through Taiwan and dispatched investigators to the island in an effort to trace how the pumps reached North Korea, the sources said. This is the first time an IAEA inspection has revealed Japanese products have been diverted for use in North Korea's nuclear program. [Sanctions] [HEU] [Disinformation]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry's Spokesman on DPRK-U.S. Experts Negotiations
  Pyongyang, June 12 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK Thursday gave the following answer to the question raised by KCNA as to the negotiations held between experts of the DPRK and the United States: The negotiations between experts of the DPRK and the U.S. took place in Pyongyang on June 10 and 11. The negotiations discussed technical and practical ways of rounding off the disablement of the DPRK nuclear facilities and the issue of winding up the political and economic compensation for it. The negotiations proved successful.
• Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?
  By Edward J. Markey
  June 10, 2008; Page A15 Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars? If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right. Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions.
  We would do well to remember that it was the U.S. who provided the original nuclear assistance to Iran under the Atoms for Peace program, before Iran's monarch was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Such an uprising in Saudi Arabia today could be at least as damaging to U.S. security [Double standards]
• N. Korea demands Japan pay partial cost for gas-producing facilities
  SEOUL June 10 North Korea has demanded Japan pay $40 million, part of a total sum needed to construct facilities to produce gases from anthracite under an aid-for-denuclearization deal, Yonhap News Agency reported Tuesday. The request was made at working-level talks with South Korea at the truce village of Panmunjeom last Thursday, a diplomatic source told Yonhap. North Korea also asked China to carry out the construction work.
• Normalization of N. Korea-Japan Relations Crucial for Six-Party Talks
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter The normalization of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Japan is crucial for the six-party negotiations on the North's nuclear programs to move forward, officials in Seoul said Tuesday. The two sides will start two days of informal talks in Beijing Wednesday to seek normalization of their relations.
• US Defense Secretary: important to maintain nuclear deterrent
  LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Virginia (AFP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday the importance of the US nuclear arsenal was likely to grow in importance in coming years as Russia moves to strengthen its nuclear forces. Gates said he made the comment in a closed door question-and-answer session with rank-and-file airmen in explaining his decision to replace the air force leadership over two major nuclear blunders. In a speech earlier, Gates told airmen he regretted having to remove General T. Michael Moseley as chief of staff and Michael Wynne as air force secretary. "But there is no room for error in this mission. Nor is there, unfortunately, any room for second chances -- especially when serious questions about the safety and security of our nuclear arsenal have been raised in the minds of the American people and international partners," he said. "When systemic problems are found, I believe that accountability must reached beyond NCOs and even colonels," he said. Reporters were made to leave the room when Gates opened the floor to questions from the airmen at this headquarters for US air combat forces. However, Gates told reporters later on a flight to Colorado Springs, Colorado that among the points he made is that the US nuclear deterrent was likely to grow in importance, not diminish.
  Gates said that he was asked about China several times during the question and answer session, in the context of the tension between current requirements and future military needs. "I basically said I'm the last person to dismiss the possibility of a near-peer conflict at some future date, but I thought that date was well into the future if it ever came. [Nuclear weapons] [Double standards] [China confrontation]
• N.K. vows not to denuclearize unless U.S. drops hostility
  SEOUL, June 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea warned Monday that it will be forced to bolster its nuclear arsenal and other "war deterrents" if the United States and South Korea continue to threaten it militarily. In a statement issued by its military mission to the border village of Panmunjom, the North also warned that a recent series of anti-North Korean moves by Seoul and Washington would undermine six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
• U.S. Official to Visit N.Korea Over Nuke Issue
  Sung Kim, the director of the Korean affairs desk at the U.S. State Department, will visit North Korea again on Tuesday to discuss with officials the disablement of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and the Stalinist country's declaration of its nuclear programs and stockpiles
• Israel 'has 150 nuclear weapons'
  Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal.
  The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s. Mr Carter made his comments on Israel's weapons at a press conference at the annual literary Hay Festival in Wales. He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth". Mr Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in response to a question on US policy on a possible nuclear-armed Iran, arguing that any country newly armed with atomic weapons faced overwhelming odds. "The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," he said. Israel's Dimona reactor is understood to provide plutonium for the country's nuclear weapons "We have a phalanx of enormous capabilities, not only of weaponry but also of rockets to deliver every one of those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target." [Double standards]
• ElBaradei's candor
  By CAROLINE GLICK
  Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei's most prominent personality trait is his chutzpah. Two weeks before Israel destroyed the North Korean-built nuclear reactor in Syria on September 6, ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was complaining to Australian television about the US's decision to augment its military assistance to Israel by $30 billion over the next 10 years. The move, he said, would lead to a regional arms race. As far as ElBaradei is concerned, diplomacy means never having to say you're sorry and always attacking people who actually care what you think. And so it is not surprising that ever since Israel destroyed the installation in al-Kibar, ElBaradei has reserved his sharpest attacks not for Syria, which was exposed as an illicit nuclear proliferator, but for Israel and the US. Unlike Israel, Syria is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. At this week's meeting of the IAEA's Board of Governors, ElBaradei discussed how - in breach of its treaty obligations - Syria has refused IAEA requests to inspect the bombed out site and three other suspected nuclear sites in the country. [Chutzpah] [Bizarre]
• N.K. nuke declaration may be delayed until after U.S. election: expert
  SEOUL, June 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's promised declaration of its complete nuclear holdings could take place after the U.S. presidential election due to the currently complex political terrain within the U.S., a U.S. expert on North Korea said Friday. The U.S. is expected to take initial steps to remove the North from its list of terrorism-sponsoring nations and terminate application of the Trading with the Enemy Act to Pyongyang as soon as it submits the declaration. Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA) that the U.S. is in a difficult position in terms of carrying out an immediate removal of North Korea from the list, due to complex political circumstances revolving around the upcoming presidential election. Conservatives in the U.S. may still be skeptical about North Korea's credibility, he explained. Flake also noted that there still remains a large dispute within the current U.S. administration surrounding its recent promise to take initial steps to remove the North from the terror list as soon as it submits a "complete and correct" declaration. Meanwhile, Larry Niksch, an Asia and foreign affairs expert at the Congressional Research Service, told the RFA that the denuclearization process may lose momentum if the declaration and removal from the list does not occur in June, noting that the dialogue may have to be handed over to the next U.S. administration. [Agreement071003] [Declaration] [Dissension] [Inversion] [Media]
• North Korea complains of slow energy aid
  PANMUNJOM, SOUTH KOREA (AFP) — North Korea protested Thursday over what it said was the "very slow" pace of energy assistance it has received from six-party talks partners involved in an aid-for-disarmament deal. The complaint emerged when the two Koreas met at a truce border village of Panmunjom, north of Seoul, to work out details on further energy aid to North Korea arranged under the agreement. "Energy aid is related to our disabling (of the nuclear site in Yongbyon)," Hyun Hak-Bong, the North's deputy negotiator to six-party talks, told reporters. "While the disabling has been completed for more than 80 percent, overall energy cooperation business is going very slowly -- at 30 percent to 36 percent... We hope this meeting can bear fruit."
• North wants to keep its nukes, says expert
  June 06, 2008 WASHINGTON - North Korean officials likened their future status to that of the Israelis, who are "friends" with the United States despite having nuclear weapons, reinforcing the message that they are not willing to give up their atomic arsenal, a former U.S. envoy said yesterday. Jack Pritchard, president of the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, said Pyongyang officials made clear to him that they would be willing to "begin" discussion of giving up their weapons only after "full and final normalization" of relations with the United States. "Then, at that point we can begin discussions. Then at that point we will not have a basis for a need for nuclear weapons," Pritchard quoted the North Koreans as saying. [Media] [Disinformation]
• Two Koreas to Discuss Energy Aid at Panmunjeom
  South and North Korean officials will hold talks at the truce village of Panmunjeom Thursday afternoon to discuss Seoul's supply of fuel and energy-related equipment to Pyongyang. The talks will be held within the framework of the six-way nuclear accord signed last year.
• Father of Pakistan's Bomb Stands Defiant
  Khan, Speaking Out From House Arrest, Insists Government Officials Had Role in Proliferation
  By Candace Rondeaux Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, June 5, 2008; Page A10 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The garden is in full bloom at Abdul Qadeer Khan's house. A lazy summer haze has settled over his manse, and at the small police substation across the way, several men chitchatted amiably on a recent day, barely glancing at the upscale villa that for the past four years has been part prison, part palatial refuge for the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb. Until very recently, Khan has been virtually cut off from the world -- banished to house arrest by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after admitting in a national television broadcast in 2004 to selling nuclear weapons-making technology and know-how to Iran, North Korea and Libya. But as Pakistan marked the 10th anniversary of its first nuclear bomb test last week, Khan, 72, publicly disavowed his confession, telling reporters that it was coerced.
• Rogue nuclear scientist defends role with helping Iran, Libya, North Korea
  By SAEED SHAH McClatchy Newspapers
  ISLAMABAD, Pakistan | A.Q. Khan, the renegade nuclear scientist from Pakistan who once admitted helping Iran and Libya obtain nuclear-weapons technology, gave his first interview with an American news organization Tuesday. Khan said that he’d only introduced those two “rogue” regimes to Western businessmen who provided the technology and the know-how for their fledgling nuclear-weapons programs. In a telephone interview with McClatchy Newspapers in Islamabad, his first with an American news organization, Khan also said that others in Pakistan who’d aided him had gotten away “scot-free” while he’d become a “black sheep” for offering advice on nuclear weaponry. Khan’s protestations of innocence didn’t impress Western experts. Told of Khan’s defense, David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who now heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said simply: “He’s just lying; the facts are established.”
  Khan disputed his confessed assistance to North Korea as well. He said that North Korea had obtained a different technology from its relationship with Russia. “North Korea, right from the beginning, was one of the closest partners of Russia. All the North Korean scientists and engineers studied in Russia,” Khan said. Khan described the North Korean program as having “excellent technology” with “very sophisticated designs.” [media] [Proliferation]
• S.Korea to Be Declared Free of Nuclear Weapons
  South Korea will be declared nuclear weapons free at the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors meeting in Vienna on Wednesday, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said Tuesday. For a country to be recognized as nuclear weapons free, the safeguards of the IAEA stipulate there can be "no indication of diversion of declared nuclear material" and "no indication of undeclared nuclear material and activities for the state as a whole." Some 47 out of 163 member countries are considered nuclear weapons free. This is the first time South Korea had its nuclear activities declared peaceful. [Spin] [Media]
• Six-party talks could resume at end of June
  U.S. officials have discussed resumption of talks to coincide with G-8 summit in early July » Members of the six-party talks watch a traditional Chinese show during a visit to the Imperial Palace Museum after the second day of talks aimed at shutting down North Korea’s nuclear program in Shenyang, China, Friday, Aug. 17, 2007. AP Photo.   With a nuclear declaration by North Korea and removal of the North from the United States’ list of states sponsoring terrorism imminent, the nations involved in the six-party talks are reportedly pursuing a resumption of the talks as early as the end of June or beginning of July.
• U.N. Nuclear Inspectors to Visit Syria
  By WILLIAM J. BROAD Published: June 3, 2008 Syria will let nuclear inspectors visit the site of a suspected reactor that Israeli warplanes bombed last September, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday. The visit, to a desolate spot on the Euphrates River some 90 miles north of the Iraqi border, is to take place June 22 to 24. The atomic agency, the nuclear monitor of the United Nations, had pledged to investigate after American intelligence officials released evidence in late April of what they described as a clandestine nuclear reactor that had been "nearing operational capability" a month before the bombing.
• Nuclear bomb blueprints for sale on world black market, experts fear·
  Warning as Swiss destroy documents to prevent leak · Copies may remain with data smuggling network Ian Traynor, Europe editor The Guardian, Saturday May 31 2008 Article history Iran tests a Shahab-3 long-range missile in 2006. Some fear it could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead using information possessed by Abdul Qadeer Khan network, which had contact with Iran. Photograph: Ruhollah Vahdati/AP Nuclear bomb blueprints and manuals on how to manufacture weapons-grade uranium for warheads are feared to be circulating on the international black market, according to investigators tracking the world's most infamous nuclear smuggling racket. Alarm about the sale of nuclear know-how follows the disclosure that the Swiss government, allegedly acting under US pressure, secretly destroyed tens of thousands of documents from a massive nuclear smuggling investigation. The information was seized from the home and computers of Urs Tinner, a 43-year-old Swiss engineer who has been in custody for almost four years as a key suspect in the nuclear smuggling ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani metallurgist who in 2004 admitted leaking nuclear secrets and is under house arrest in Islamabad.
• S. and N. Korea negotiators meet in Beijing
  The first talk since President Lee’s inauguration may have focused on the agenda for the six-party talks
  On May 30 in Beijing, the chief South and North Korean negotiators to the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, Kim Sook of the South and Kim Kye-gwan of the North, held a bilateral meeting.   "This (May 30) afternoon, Kim met the North Korean deputy foreign minister Kim at the Diaoyutai state guesthouse for about an hour," a South Korean government official said. It’s the first time that the two nuclear envoys from the two Koreas held a meeting since the inauguration of the government of President Lee Myung-bak.
• Pakistani Nuclear Scientist Denies Selling Secrets
  By ALAN COWELL Published: May 31, 2008 PARIS — Abdul Qadeer Khan, the founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, was reported on Friday to have withdrawn an admission that he sold nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya, saying that he had made it under pressure from President Pervez Musharraf. He made the comment in a telephone interview with a correspondent in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, from The Guardian, a British newspaper, which called the conversation his first with the Western media since an emotional television appearance in 2004 in which Dr. Khan admitted selling nuclear technology to other countries
• Bhutto Dealt Nuclear Secrets to N. Korea, Book Says
  Benazir Bhutto traded nuclear data with North Korea, a new book says. (By Mary By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 1, 2008; Page A16 Former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, on a state visit to North Korea in 1993, smuggled in critical data on uranium enrichment -- a route to making a nuclear weapon -- to help facilitate a missile deal with Pyongyang, according to a new book by a journalist who knew the slain politician well.
  The assertion is based on conversations that the author, Shyam Bhatia, had with Bhutto in 2003, in which she said she would tell him a secret "so significant that I had to promise never to reveal it, at least not during her lifetime," Bhatia writes in "Goodbye, Shahzadi," which was published in India last month. Bhutto was slain in December while campaigning to win back the prime minister's post. The account, if verified, could advance the timeline for North Korea's interest in uranium enrichment. David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a research organization on nuclear weapons programs, said the assertion "makes sense," because there were signs of "funny procurements" in the late 1980s by North Korea that suggested a nascent effort to assemble a uranium enrichment project. [HEU]
• A.Q. Khan Bombshells for Musharraf and U.S.
  Saturday, May 31, 2008 A.Q. Khan Interviews Indicate Skids Being Greased for Exit of Pakistan’s President and Challenge U.S. Assertions of Pakistan Government Non-Involvement in Nuclear Proliferation Network ABC News obtained a telephone interview with Pakistan’s Dr. A.Q. Khan. For American viewers, the big news is that Dr. Khan retracted his televised “confession” that his proliferation of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea had been a rogue operation: As to his widely publicized confession, Khan said he was told by Musharraf that it would get the United States "off our backs" and that he was promised he would be quickly pardoned. "Those people who were supposed to know knew it," Khan said about his activities. In another telephone interview with the Pakistan media outlet Dawn, Dr. Khan was more explicit: When asked if he had been involved in leaking nuclear secrets to any other country, Dr Khan said he was not a part of any illegal or unauthorised deal in any way.“This one sentence covers the whole thing,” he asserted.
• In Disclosure, North Korea Contradicts U.S. Intelligence on Its Plutonium Program
  By HELENE COOPER Published: May 31, 2008
  WASHINGTON — An 18,000-page declaration submitted by North Korea to the United States is stirring debate about whether American intelligence agencies previously overstated how much plutonium the Pyongyang government might have produced for its nuclear weapons program. Skip to next paragraph Related North Korea Gives U.S. Files on Plutonium Efforts (May 9, 2008) Bush administration officials have declined to comment on the declaration, which State Department officials say will take weeks to study, but they have indicated that North Korea is acknowledging it produced 37 kilograms of plutonium, or about 81 pounds. [Intelligence] [Evidence] [Plutonium]

• Latest Development of Iran’s Peaceful Nuclear Activity
  In the Name of God PRSS RELEASE On Latest Development of Iran’s Peaceful Nuclear Activity
  The latest IAEA report attests to the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program.
  Press release from the Iranian Embassy, Wellington
• Uranium Enrichment: The Bushes, The Saudis and The Bomb
  by Chris Floyd Thursday, 29 May 2008 The Saudis have been trying to get hold of nuclear weapons for decades, with the active help of their business partners, the Bush Family.Did you hear the alarming story about a country led by draconian Muslim religious extremists acquiring enriched uranium for their nuclear plants -- plants which could be weaponized any time in the future, putting weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Sharia law fanatics who repress women, chop off heads and throttle all dissent? What's more, they were given this weapons-grade material by a rogue nation led by a goonish tyrant who gained power only because he was the wastrel son of the former leader. Break out the regime change machinery right away; this evil must be stopped! What's that? No, we're not talking about Iran getting souped-up nukestuff from North Korea. We're talking about George W. Bush's bestowal of enriched uranium on his pals and business partners, the Saudi royals, the most draconian religious tyrants in the world. [Proliferation] [Double standards]
• Evening Walk-Through Remarks at Six-Party Talks
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Grand Hyatt Hotel Beijing, China May 28, 2008 ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Hi. QUESTION: Anything good out of today’s meeting? ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I’d say there were three very good meetings. I first talked to the DPRK delegation this morning and through lunch. Then I had a lengthy discussion with the Chair of the Six Parties, that is, with Deputy Minister Wu Dawei. Then I just had dinner and talked to the Japanese delegation, in particular with Saiki-san. Ambassador Saiki is beginning his own round of discussions. So I would say the main issue was to try to talk about the sequencing and events ahead. I thought, in particular, my discussion with the North Koreans was very much focused on the need for verification and to fully cooperate in a verification regime. So I think we had a very good discussion on that, a very positive discussion on the issue of verification, which is so central to this process. As we’ve said before, we all have some obligations and discussed what those obligations are. I don’t want to get into too many specifics, but I think it’s something we can move forward on the basis of a common understanding. QUESTION: Can’t you say you have made a conclusion on the declaration issue today? ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Again, we’re going to be having some technical meetings in the next couple of weeks or so. I think things are moving ahead, but I’m not in position really to talk about timetable. I thought what was important for us was the understanding on the need for a verification regime.
• U.S. 'Wants to Be Sure About N.Korea’s Nukes'
  The United States has made it clear it will reserve its decision whether to remove North Korea from its list of terrorist countries until it is satisfied that it fully understands North Korea’s nuclear programs. In a recent interview with the Weekly Standard, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was asked whether it is possible for North Korea to be struck off the list even if it does not explicitly admit nuclear cooperation with Syria. Rice said, "What we're doing is we want to look at -- take a look at the totality of the nuclear (question). So, I'm not going to make any judgments until we … know where we are on these issues."
• Disgraced atomic scientist disowns confession
  Father of Pakistan's bomb rejects smuggling claim
  · Khan defiant in first talk to western media since 2004
  Declan Walsh in Islamabad The Guardian, Friday May 30 2008 Article history Supporters of Pakistan Muslim League-N party hold a picture of disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan as they gather near a replica of Chaghi mountain, where the nuclear tests were conducted. Photograph: Reuters/Faisal Mahmood For four years Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, has lived in the shadows, confined to his Islamabad home since a tearful televised confession in which he admitted selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya. But yesterday the 76-year-old scientist returned to the spotlight with a bold new twist: that he had not meant a word of his earlier admission. In his first western media interview since 2004, Khan said the confession had been forced upon him by President Pervez Musharraf. "It was not of my own free will. It was handed into my hand," he told the Guardian. More worryingly, he swore never to cooperate with investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, despite persistent fears that nuclear technology traded by his accomplices could fall into terrorist hands.   [HEU] [Disinformation] [Evidence]
• N. Korea Taking Tougher Stance, Ex-Envoy Warns
  By Glenn Kessler
  Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 30, 2008; Page A10 Senior North Korean officials recently said that the United States should get used to a nuclear-armed North Korea, and they refused to acknowledge the validity of U.S. concerns about Pyongyang's interest in uranium enrichment or its nuclear collaboration with Syria, according to Charles "Jack" Pritchard, a former top U.S. negotiator with North Korea. Pritchard's report, based on extensive talks in the North Korean capital, appears to undermine the Bush administration's assertions of progress with the nation and suggests that the nuclear issue will fall squarely in the hands of the next U.S. administration. North Korea, he said, made it clear that it expects the United States to build a new nuclear reactor for the reclusive government in the next three years [LWR] [US NK policy]
• Rice Says Policy on N. Korea Is A Team Effort
  By Glenn Kessler
  Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 30, 2008; Page A11 Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wants people to know: The Bush administration's policy toward North Korea has been carefully coordinated and developed by many people at different agencies. That might come as a surprise to many insiders, who have complained for months that Rice and her chief negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, have kept many skeptics of the diplomatic effort in the dark as they maneuvered to keep disarmament talks with North Korea alive. It also might come as a surprise to Hill, who is quoted in an upcoming book, "Meltdown," by Mike Chinoy, as saying: "Some of this minimal paperwork business is coming directly from the secretary. She said, 'Bring it only to me.' " Hill appeared to be confirming what already has appeared in various news reports, and is amply documented in Chinoy's book -- that Rice and Hill keep the circle of knowledge about his dealmaking tightly held. [US NK policy] [Dissension]  
• North Korean nuclear documents challenge CIA assertions
  By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — Thousands of pages of nuclear documents submitted by North Korea earlier this month cast doubt on a U.S. intelligence estimate of how much weapons-grade plutonium the secretive communist country has been able to amass, U.S. officials and a leading private analyst said Wednesday. An initial review of the documents, they said, provides no evidence that communist North Korea covertly extracted plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons, from its reactor complex at Yongbyon before 1992. Some CIA officials have alleged that North Korea had done so, meaning that it could have more plutonium, and thus the capacity to make more nuclear weapons, than it's admitted. In an unclassified document provided to Congress in 2002, the CIA estimated North Korea had one or possibly two nuclear weapons using plutonium produced prior to 1992. North Korea has acknowledged extracting plutonium from spent reactor fuel in 1994 and 2005. The question of how much nuclear fuel the isolated North Korean regime manufactured is critical to a historic nuclear disarmament deal that President Bush hopes to conclude with North Korea before his presidency ends in January. The deal already faces a skeptical reception in Congress, and the new documents are bound to rekindle a debate over North Korea's trustworthiness.   [Intelligence] [Disinformation]
• World Russia, China call for peaceful solution to N.Korea nuke problem
  BEIJING, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - Russia and China have spoken out in favor of finding a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear problem, the presidents of the two countries said in a joint declaration on Friday. "The sides positively assessed the progress of the six-party talks on the Korean peninsula's nuclear problem and urge all involved parties to continue dialogue, negotiations and set a course to find a peaceful solution to the problem," the document said. The declaration was issued after a meeting between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing, where the Russian leader arrived on Friday for his first official visit since he was inaugurated president on May 7. The six-party talks that started in 2003 involve the two Koreas, China, Russia, the United States and Japan. [media]
• Diplomats: China is middleman between NKorea, IAEA
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 25, 2008 Filed at 4:42 p.m. ET VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- The U.S. has agreed to share documents on North Korea's secretive nuclear program with the U.N. nuclear monitor and is ready to enlist China as the middleman in the delicate process, diplomats have told The Associated Press. At issue are 18,500 pages of documentation provided by Pyongyang earlier this month. Washington plans to scrutinize the technical logs from the North's Yongbyon reactor to see if North Korea is telling the truth about a bomb program that it has agreed to trade away for economic and political rewards. [China rising]
• Mid-Level Official Steered U.S. Shift On North Korea
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 26, 2008; Page A01 Early in President Bush's second term, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice convened a series of strategy sessions on how to persuade North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons programs. One key official, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, remained largely silent, four participants said, except to pipe up periodically with the same refrain. "If you just let me go to Pyongyang, I'll get you a deal," the career Foreign Service officer said, prompting others to roll their eyes and move on. In the twilight of the Bush presidency, the nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush's best hope for a lasting foreign policy success. In the process, Hill has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea, from confrontation to accommodation [Bilateral] [US NK policy] [Dissension]
• Swiss say they destroyed evidence in nuclear smuggling case for security reasons
  The Associated Press Published: May 23, 2008 BERN, Switzerland: The Swiss government destroyed sensitive evidence in a high-profile nuclear smuggling case linked to Libya's now-abandoned effort to build an atomic bomb because of security reasons, Switzerland's president said Friday. The documents formed part of a criminal case against three members of a Swiss family of engineers accused of involvement in the nuclear smuggling ring of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's atomic weapons program. Khan has admitted selling nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
• U.S. Senate OKs economic, disablement fund for N.K.
  WASHINGTON, May 22 (Yonhap) -- The Senate on Thursday passed the fiscal year 2008 war supplemental legislation that includes US$15 million in economic support funds (ESF) for North Korea and lifts restrictions on financing Pyongyang's nuclear dismantlement. Out of $1.13 billion approved for ESF, the bill gives $15 million to the North to fund "critical health, economic and security needs." The amount is much higher than the $2 million initially sought by the State Department. The department had spent $25 million on ESF for North Korea in fiscal year 2007. The bill partly waives what is commonly known as the "Glenn Amendment," which automatically imposes sanctions on states that have detonated a nuclear device, as North Korea did in October 2006. Specifically, the amendment bars the Energy Department from financing nuclear dismantlement activities.
• S. Korea seeks to buy N. Korean nuclear fuel rods
  SEOUL, May 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea is pushing to purchase nuclear fuel rods stored at North Korea's main atomic facility as work continues for the disablement of the complex under a denuclearization agreement, a senior South Korean government official said Thursday. South Korea thinks the unused rods in Yongbyon can be used at its nuclear power plants, he added. [Double standards]
• Hill proposed destruction of Yongbyon cooling tower last year
  Event may be broadcast live via Associated Press Television News » In this television image from February 22, 2008, North Korean workers operate the equipment at Yongbyon, North Korea’s main nuclear reactor. (AP Photo/APTN)   U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was reportedly the first to propose that North Korea destroy a cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor about a year ago.   A diplomatic source who is familiar with relations between Pyongyang and Washington said, on May 21, "Hill proposed that the North destroy the nuclear facility about a year ago and the North has recently accepted." It is likely that Hill made the proposal during his first visit to Pyongyang on June 21-22, 2007.   Meanwhile, Kim Sook, the chief South Korean negotiator to the six-party talks, said that Washington and Pyongyang agreed that if the United States removes the North from its list of nations sponsoring terrorism by the time the North submits its official nuclear declaration to China, the host country of the six-party talks, North Korea will destroy the cooling tower before the talks resume in June.
• Pyongyang to hand its nuclear data to Beijing
  May 22, 2008 North Korea will fully declare its nuclear inventories and activities to China and in turn, the United States will take the North off its list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to South Korea¡¯s chief nuclear envoy, Kim Sook. After that, Kim said, the North will dismantle the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear site. Kim said the move will revive the six-party talks on the denuclearization of the North among the three countries and South Korea, Russia and Japan. It was the first time for a senior government official here to publicly map out a schedule on the North¡¯s moves to address its nuclear programs. Kim, who visited Washington to coordinate the next round of six-party talks with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, said Washington and Pyongyang agreed to dismantle the cooling tower as a symbolic gesture of another breakthrough in Pyongyang¡¯s denuclearization, according to Yonhap News. [Declaration] [Six Party Talks] [Realignment]
• N.Korea Nuke Facility ‘Could Be Blown Up This Month’
  The chief South Korean negotiator to six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, Kim Sook, hinted Tuesday that the cooling tower attached to the North’s main nuclear facility could be blown up some time this month. Kim said it was likely to be done "around the time when North Korea submits a declaration on its nuclear program, rather than when the six-party talks resume."
• Korean nukes crank out power
  May 20, 2008 Korea s atomic energy output surpassed the 2-trillion kilowatt hour mark for the first time ever, a state-run nuclear power company said yesterday. The Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company said the record output is a first for the country that first started nuclear generation in June 1977. The kWh unit is the amount of energy delivered by power companies in a one hour period and is commonly used to measure electric energy worldwide. KHNP said that at its peak output earlier in the day, nuclear power provided 38.2 percent of all electricity needs in the country. As of late 2006, Korea ranked sixth in terms of nuclear power output after the United States, France, Japan, Russia and Germany. It has 20 commercial reactors in four nuclear power plants and plans to build more units in the coming years to meet growing energy needs. Yonhap [nuclear energy]
• Kim leaves for nuclear discussions in the U.S.
  May 19, 2008 South Korea¡¯s chief nuclear envoy left yesterday for talks in Washington amid hopes that North Korea would soon submit a long-awaited declaration on its nuclear program. Kim Sook will take part in a trilateral meeting there with U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill and Japanese counterpart Akitaka Saiki, a foreign ministry official said.
• Next round of six-party talks expected in early June
  N. Korea could submit official declaration by end of May
  Kim Sook, South Korea’s chief negotiator to the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear program, said on May 16 that he "expects the six-party talks to take place in the first-half of next month (before June 16)."   In a press conference after recent visits to the United States and China, Kim said, "The next round of six-party talks is very important, but will by no means be easy."   In reference to this, a senior South Korean government official said, "North Korea should submit its official declaration by the end of May, giving the participating nations time to review it." The countries involved in the six-party talks are the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, China and Russia.
• China calls for timely implementation of second-phase actions of six-party talks
  www.chinaview.cn 2008-05-13 20:39:51 Print Special Report: The sixth round of six-party talks BEIJING, May 13 (Xinhua) -- China voiced the hope here Tuesday that participants in the six-party talks would expand their mutual trust in an aim to comprehensively, and in a balanced way, carry out the second-phase actions at an early date. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the remarks at a regular press conference in response to a question concerning the meeting in Beijing between Kim Sook, new-appointed Republic of Korea delegation head and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei who heads the Chinese delegation. Qin said the two exchanged views "on how to promote the six-party talks process". Qin said the six-party talks had progressed recently, and the parties had stepped up the implementation of the second-phase action plan. "The good momentum of talks process should be preserved," Qin said, calling on the parties to increase mutual trust and demonstrate their pragmatic will and flexibility in a bid to comprehensively carry out the second-phase actions plan in a balanced matter. "China will continue to play a constructive role and maintain consultation and cooperation with other concerning parties", Qin added. The six-party talks involve China, DPRK, the United States, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and Russia. Under an agreement reached at the six-party talks in Beijing in February last year, the DPRK agreed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs and declare all its nuclear programs and facilities by the end of 2007, in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives. However, the DPRK missed the deadline despite reported progress in its nuclear disablement and declaration. [Declaration]
• US Welcomes NK Nuclear Documents
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter A senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday that North Korea appeared to have handed over the full details of its weapons-grade plutonium programs, painting a bright picture for the nuclear disarmament process down the road. The chief nuclear negotiators from South Korea, the United States and Japan are scheduled to hold tripartite talks in Washington next week to discuss the resumption of the six-party nuclear talks, a foreign ministry spokesman in Seoul said. Sung Kim, the top Korea expert at the State Department, who returned home from Pyongyang earlier this week with over 18,000 pages of documents detailing its nuclear activities, described the handover as ``an important first step.'' ``These are operating and production records for the five-megawatt reactor and the reprocessing plant in Yongbyon,'' Kim told a news conference in Washington, D.C., displaying some of the 18,822 documents, which do not cover North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program. ``I do think these documents are an important first step in terms of verifying North Korea's declaration,'' he said, adding a team of experts will review the Korean-language documents which still have to be translated. Kim said it was not yet clear if that declaration would be ``ready anytime soon'' to be handed to China, the host of six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions. [Declaration]
• China Hand on Alleged Syrian Reactor
  China Hand Article on Alleged Syrian Reactor Up at Japan Focus Wednesday, May 14, 2008At the invitation of Japan Focus, I wrote an article about the alleged nuclear facility in Syria. Since the Syrians steadfastly deny that there was a reactor at al Kibar and the physical evidence has been bombed, buried, and dismantled into oblivion, I ended up writing more about the creaky Non-Proliferation Treaty regime that the International Atomic Energy Agency and its Director General, Mr. ElBaradei are charged with safeguarding. The article is entitled Twilight of the NPT? and it’s available here.
  The message that nuclear wannabes in the Middle East would have extracted from this incident, other than the unwelcome image of a “well-worn tool”, would be threefold: First, the IAEA is transparent, or at least highly vulnerable, to penetration by US intelligence services and the IAEA lacks the capability, funding, and/or will to protect the security of its communications. Second, it should be assumed that the content of any communication and the result of any site visit will find its way to Langley or the NSA. Third, any nuclear program, peaceful or otherwise, has to be kept secret from the IAEA during the planning and construction phases when it is most vulnerable to US challenge and disruption. So, the conclusion I have drawn from Syria’s bizarre decision to build a secret nuclear facility within bombing range of the Israeli air force is that Syria wanted a nuclear capability and believed that if they built a facility small and plausible enough to be presented as a harmless civilian project, they could reveal it prior to fueling and get it blessed by ElBaradei and the IAEA with little more than a stern tongue-lashing (and, possibly, an understanding wink). Of course, that possibility was forcibly pre-empted by Israel’s bombing raid. [IAEA] [Syria]
• U.S. Pores Over Transcripts to Try to Oust Nuclear Chief
  By Dafna Linzer Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, December 12, 2004; Page A01 The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials
  In Vienna, where the IAEA has its headquarters, officials said they were not surprised about the eavesdropping. "We've always assumed that this kind of thing goes on," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. "We wish it were otherwise, but we know the reality."
  Earlier this year, Clare Short, who served in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, said British spies had eavesdropped on U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's calls during that period and that she had read transcripts of the intercepts. [IAEA] [UNUS] [Surveillance]
• PM Han Secures Uranium Promise From Uzbekistan
  Prime Minister Han Seung-soo, on a diplomatic tour of Central Asia, on Tuesday confirmed that Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov will continue to expand supplies of uranium to Korea. First Vice Foreign Minister Kwon Jong-rak said Tuesday that Han paid a courtesy call on Karimov in Tashkent. Karimov said he was happy to see the Korean and Uzbek prime ministers sign an agreement on the long-term supply of 2,600 tons of uranium to Korea, and expressed willingness to increase the supply as needed, Kwon said.
• Abduction issue not a prerequisite to removing N. Korea from list of state sponsors of terrorism’
  [Interview] Alexander R. Vershbow, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea This year, The Hankyoreh is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of articles and interviews in the print edition of the paper to commemorate the publication of its first issue on May 15, 1988. As a special addition to our online edition, Jang Jungsoo, The Hankyoreh’s the executive editor and the former editor of this website, met with Alexander R. Vershbow, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, on May 7 in the ambassador’s office in Seoul.   Vershbow was appointed to his current post in October 2005, prior to which he served as the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2001-2005 and the U.S. ambassador to NATO from 1998-2001. He was at the end of the first year of his tenure in Seoul when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test and has been active in the six-party process on resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. He was also part of negotiations on the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement.   In the interview, Vershbow discussed his views on the current situation with U.S. beef imports, the North Korean nuclear issue and ratification of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. Vershbow will step down from his position in September, but remarked that he hopes to maintain his relationship with South Korea and stay involved in Northeast Asian affairs in the future. [Abductees] [Six Party talks] [Terrorism list]
• North Korea Documents Make Debut, at a Distance
  By HELENE COOPER Published: May 14, 2008 WASHINGTON — The State Department, seeking to ward off criticism, kicked off a public-relations offensive on Tuesday by offering reporters a view — from a distance — of nuclear documents that senior officials said appeared to represent a complete accounting of North Korea’s plutonium production.
• North Korean nuclear documents may not be enough
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 13, 2008 Filed at 7:58 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration put copies of North Korean nuclear logs on triumphant display Tuesday but conceded the documents are far from enough to dispel doubts about the secretive regime's nuclear weapons. Officials say they are still waiting for a full accounting of Pyongyang's atomic past, now nearly five months past due. What they have is a down payment, a cache of records that will be used to check the accuracy of a fuller report if it ever comes. The administration hopes the documents will help convince skeptics in Congress and elsewhere that a nuclear disarmament deal with the North is still worth having, despite delays, foot-dragging and revelations about the alleged sale of North Korean nuclear technology to Syria.   [Declaration]
• U.S. Increases Estimate Of N. Korean Plutonium
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 14, 2008; Page A13 U.S. intelligence analysts have prepared a fresh estimate of the size of North Korea's stockpile of plutonium -- larger than previous assessments -- that will be compared with the information contained in 18,822 pages of reactor production records turned over by North Korea last week, according to U.S. officials. North Korean officials have said about 30 kilograms of plutonium was produced at their five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, at the low end of most private and government estimates. The new U.S. estimate is expected to be from 35 to 40 or 50 to 60 kilograms, though sources would not detail how much it had increased from the last government estimate.
• U.S. says N.Korea to cooperate on nuclear checks
  By Arshad Mohammed Reuters Wednesday, May 14, 2008; 12:36 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has agreed to cooperate fully on verifying its nuclear declaration, a U.S. official said on Tuesday as he displayed some of the 18,822 documents Pyongyang has given Washington about its plutonium program. Obtaining the documents last week was a victory for the Bush administration, which has struggled to persuade the secretive Communist nation to produce a "complete and correct" declaration of its nuclear programs that was due on December 31. [Declaration]
• NKorean nuke documents appear complete
  By MATTHEW LEE WASHINGTON (AP) — A preliminary review of thousands of nuclear documents turned over to the United States by North Korea indicates they appear to be a complete accounting of their plutonium production, U.S. officials said Tuesday. While translation and analysis of the 18,822 Korean-language documents is still under way, officials said an early look indicates they include full details of North Korea's plutonium program dating back to 1986. The officials cautioned, however, that a full assessment is not done and experts are still poring through the files. "It appears to be a complete set," said Sung Kim, the U.S. diplomat who traveled to North Korea to pick up the documents in seven large boxes and returned to Washington on Monday. He said a full review by an interagency team from the departments of State, Energy and intelligence organizations would take several weeks. The documents include daily operational logs, production notes and receipts, he told reporters. "These documents are an important first step," Kim said, but on their own are not enough to satisfy North Korea's obligation to fully account for its plutonium work, and to address allegations that it operated a separate uranium program and spread nuclear technology or material to countries such as Syria. [Declaration][Agreement071003] [Aid weapon]
• Nuclear Matters in North Korea: Building a Multilateral Response for Future Stability in Northeast Asia
  By James L. Schoff, Charles M. Perry, and Jacquelyn K. Davis May 13th, 2008
  This article is based on the book "Nuclear Matters in North Korea: Building a Multilateral Response for Future Stability in Northeast Asia" published by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. James L. Schoff, Associate Director of Asia-Pacific Studies at IFPA, Charles M. Perry, Vice President and Director of Studies at IFPA, and Jacquelyn K. Davis, Executive Vice President of IFPA, write, "Building a multilateral response for future stability in East Asia is not a way for the United States, or China, or any other country to abdicate responsibility for North Korea's nuclear challenge. In fact, it is the growing convergence of interests amongst the countries involved (particularly between China and the United States) to strengthen regional and global non-proliferation norms that could potentially bind the nations of Northeast Asia closer together on security issues, rather than divide them into two separate camps."
• S.Korea to discuss North's nuclear list with China
  By Jon Herskovitz Reuters Tuesday, May 13, 2008; 12:53 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's chief nuclear envoy goes to China on Tuesday for talks that could preface North Korea's return to international disarmament negotiations and the release of a long-delayed inventory of its atomic arms programme. At the weekend, a U.S. nuclear envoy returned from Pyongyang with documents detailing the North's weapons-grade plutonium programme. Washington said this was an "important first step" in getting a full nuclear declaration. South Korea's foreign ministry said envoy Kim Sook will be in Beijing for discussions on six-country nuclear talks, which have been on ice since North Korea missed an end-2007 deadline to provide the nuclear list. North Korea is likely to make the declaration to China, host of the six-country talks, in the next two weeks, a South Korean official familiar with the process said, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic maneuvering.
• The Right Path With N. Korea
  By Siegfried S. Hecker and William J. Perry
  Tuesday, May 13, 2008; Page A15 The Bush administration's North Korea strategy is being criticized from the right and the left for letting Pyongyang off the hook. Some advocate scuttling the six-party talks. Others suggest slowing our own compliance with the agreement to get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear program first. We disagree with both positions. Our mantra should be: It's the plutonium, stupid. North Korea does have the bomb -- but a limited nuclear arsenal and supply of plutonium to fuel its weapons. The Yongbyon plutonium production facilities are closed and partially disabled. In separate visits to North Korea in February, we concluded that the disablement was extensive and thorough. We also learned that Pyongyang is prepared to move to the next crucial step of dismantling Yongbyon, eliminating plutonium production. This would mean no more bombs, no better bombs and less likelihood of export. After this success, we can concentrate on getting full declarations and on rolling back Pyongyang's supply of weapons and plutonium. [Declaration] [Partisan]  
• Update on the Six-Party Talks
  May 10, 2008 Latest News from US State department
  On May 8 in Pyongyang, the DPRK provided approximately 18,000 pages of documentation related to its nuclear programs to a U.S. government delegation led by Sung Kim, Director of the State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs. These documents were provided as part of the Six-Party Talks, the goal of which is the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner. This goal was stated in the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Parties. The DPRK has stated that the documentation provided May 8 consists of operating records for the five-megawatt reactor [5-MW(e)] and fuel reprocessing plant at the Yongbyon nuclear complex, where the DPRK had produced its stock of weapons-grade plutonium. These operating records date back to 1986 and are expected to cover reactor operations and all three reprocessing campaigns undertaken by North Korea. These documents will be examined thoroughly by a team of U.S. verification and other experts. [Agreement071030]
• Spread of Nuclear Capability Is Feared
  Global Interest in Energy May Presage A New Arms Race
  By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, May 12, 2008; Page A01 VIENNA -- At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials here to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs, a trend that concerned proliferation experts say could provide the building blocks of nuclear arsenals in some of those nations. At least half a dozen countries have also said in the past four years that they are specifically planning to conduct enrichment or reprocessing of nuclear fuel, a prospect that could dramatically expand the global supply of plutonium and enriched uranium, according to U.S. and international nuclear officials and arms-control experts. [Nuclear energy]
• Deeper into the morass
  M.V. RAMANA
  Ten years after Pokharan
  Since Pokharan, we have been witness to an opportunistic shift in the stance of the government, from an outright condemnation of nuclear deterrence to an unabated enthusiasm for the development of a full-fledged arsenal.
  Hand in hand, expenditures on non-nuclear military activities and acquisition of conventional weapons have also increased dramatically...The impact of these expenditures, of course, falls primarily upon the poor and the vulnerable.
  Photo: AFP Charred remains: The nuclear site after the underground detonation in Pokharan in May 1998. In 1996, the International Court of Justice offered a historic Advisory Opinion where it ruled that “the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, and in particu lar the principles and rules of international humanitarian law” and endorsed unanimously a legal obligation on all States “to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Earlier, as the case was being considered, India submitted a Memorial where it argued that nuclear deterrence should be considered “abhorrent to human sentiment since it implies that a state, if required to defend its own existence, will act with pitiless disregard for the consequences of its own and adversary’s people”. This description is apt. Though just an unproven assumption, nuclear deterrence relies on the accumulation of weapons of mass destruction aimed at killing large numbers of people in the wishful hope that such annihilation would deter another country from attacking because of fear. Some years later, in January 2003, the Indian government issued a nuclear doctrine which explicitly stated that the country is pursuing nuclear deterrence, though this was qualified as a minimal one.
  The biggest event occurred 10 years ago, on May 11, 1998, when three nuclear devices exploded in the Pokharan desert. Two days later, two more explosions were conducted and Prime Minister Vajpayee proudly announced that India was now a nuclear weapon State. Pakistan’s leaders, showing that they too subscribed to the twisted logic that drives the acquisition of nuclear weapons, conducted six explosions of their own on May 28 and 30. With those tests, the half-century-old conflict between India and Pakistan acquired a nuclear edge. [Nuclear weapons]
• Purchases Linked N. Korean to Syria
  Pyongyang Company Funneled Reactor Parts to Damascus, Intelligence Officials Say
  By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, May 11, 2008; Page A18 When North Korean businessman Ho Jin Yun first caught the attention of German customs police in 2002, he was on a continental buying spree with a shopping list that seemed as random as it was long. This Story Purchases Linked N. Korean to Syria MAP: A Secret, Global Conduit for Nuclear Wars Yun, police discovered, had been crisscrossing Central Europe, amassing a bafflingly diverse collection of materials and high-tech gadgets: gas masks, electric timers, steel pipes, vacuum pumps, transformers and aluminum tubes cut to precise dimensions. Most of these wares Yun had shipped to his company's offices in China and North Korea. But some of the goods, U.S. and European officials now say, were evidently intended for a secret project in Syria: a nuclear reactor that would be built with North Korean help, allegedly to produce plutonium for eventual use in nuclear weapons.   [Syria] [Evidence]
• North Korea and the Chimera in the Syrian Desert
  Gavan McCormack
  Did the month of April bring us nearer to the so-much desired grand bargain settlement on North Korea? The Singapore agreement between the US and North Korea on 8 April seemed to do so, resolving the key plutonium issue so that North Korea would disable its Yongbyon reactor and seal its plutonium wastes in preparation to handing them over, and establishing broad agreement on the size of those stocks (for North Korea, 30 kgs, which it has expressed readiness to prove by opening its records, and for the US, "between 30 and 40 kgs"). On the other issues - uranium enrichment and proliferation - North Korea would admit nothing, but the US would state its "concerns" and North Korea acknowledge them. This "declaration" process would complete the second phase of the Beijing agreement and open the path to the third and final stage - the grand peninsula settlement. The State Department mission to Pyongyang that followed was assumed to be working on the fine detail, bringing the two countries to the brink of reconciliation, and therefore offering the prospect of relief for the poor and hungry citizens of the North.
• Twilight of the NPT? The US, Syria, Iran, North Korea and the Control of Nuclear Weapons
  China Hand
  The United States has pushed the international non-proliferation regime to the breaking point. Anxiety over US attempts to define and direct the international non-proliferation regime may be provoking some dangerous decisions in the Middle East. The alleged clandestine nuclear facility at al Kibar in Syria that Israel bombed in September 2007 is a riddle wrapped in an enigma. The Syrian government emphatically denies that there was a nuclear facility there. Experts aren’t sure there was a reactor, and are even less sure, if there was one, that its purpose was weapons-related. [Syria] [Evidence] [NPT]
• Vetoing the Verifiers
  May 8, 2008; Page A14 The State Department is justifying its decision to let North Korea renege on its pledge to give a "complete declaration of its nuclear programs" by promising a strict verification regime. So why is Foggy Bottom cutting its own verification experts out of the loop? [Dissension] [Agreement071003]
• On the Brink. Prospects for US-DPRK Settlement Dim, Yet Again
  May 09, 2008 By Tim Beal Source: Japan Focus Every time it looks as if US-DPRK negotiations are on the verge of a breakthrough someone in Washington throws a spanner in the works. [Znet posting]
• NKorea has ten plutonium war charges - SKorean official
  08.05.2008, 10.01 TOKYO, May 8 (Itar-Tass) - North Korea has up to ten plutonium war charges in its nuclear arsenal. These data were given by former South Korean foreign minister and delegation head at the six-party talks on denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula Lee Soo-hyuck in his book, published in Seoul. The 59-year-old veteran of the South Korean diplomatic service noted, “North Korea has 8-10 war charges, made of plutonium”. It is supposed that North Korea “produced up to 35-42 kilos of arms-grade plutonium”. Lee Soo-hyuck noted that North Korean military specialists “are capable of manufacturing one nuclear charge out of four kilos of plutonium by improving technology of production”. The Japanese press noted that the North Korean side said earlier at closed talks with the US that it had produced 30 kilos of arms-grade plutonium. Out of the total, 18 kilos were used for nuclear development projects and six kilos for a nuclear test in October 2006. However, according to Washington’s estimates, North Korea could produce 50 kilos of plutonium, suitable for manufacturing nuclear weapons.
• New policy needed on N. Korea
  [Editorial]     North Korea has reportedly submitted a massive amount of information on its plutonium-based nuclear plans, including several logs on the operations of its Yongbyon reactor, to Sung Kim, the director of Korean affairs at the U.S. State Department. Prior to this, Christopher Hill, the U.S. chief negotiator for the six-party talks, had said that Kim’s visit was aimed at receiving the North’s promised nuclear declaration, suggesting that the second phase in the North Korean nuclear process will be finalized at some point in the near future.   If and when the North submits its official nuclear declaration to China, the host country of the six-party talks, the United States will take steps to remove the country from its list of states sponsoring terrorism. There also is news that Pyongyang and Washington have agreed to televise the North’s destruction of a cooling tower at the Yongbyon reactor. With this, it is hoped that efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue will overcome the current crisis. It certainly has not been easy to negotiate the next stage, which involves verification of the North’s nuclear declaration and the method and timetable by which its nuclear programs will be scrapped. As the North and the United States seem to be determined to resolve the issue, however, the six-party talks are not likely to run off track again.
• North Korea Gives U.S. Files on Plutonium Efforts
  By HELENE COOPER Published: May 9, 2008 WASHINGTON — North Korea has turned over to the United States 18,000 pages of documents related to its plutonium program dating from 1990, in an effort to resolve remaining differences in a pending agreement meant to begin the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Bush administration officials said Thursday.
  The documents contain information about North Korea’s three major campaigns to reprocess plutonium for nuclear weapons, in 1990, 2003 and 2005, a senior official said. The official, like some others who agreed to discuss the documents, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic considerations.
• U.S. says North Korea documents date back to 1986
  By Sue Pleming Reuters Saturday, May 10, 2008; 1:30 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States said on Saturday documents handed over by North Korea detailed its weapons-grade plutonium program as far back as 1986 and were an "important first step" in getting a full declaration of the North's nuclear activities. In a "fact sheet" providing limited details of the documents, the State Department said the 18,000 pages covered some three major periods when plutonium was produced by North Korea for nuclear weapons.
• N.Korea 'Hands Over Key Nuclear Documents'
  North Korea on Thursday handed over the key documents on its nuclear program including the production log of a closed reactor used to produce plutonium, AP reported Friday citing U.S. State Department officials. They said the North turned the documents over to Sung Kim, director of Korean affairs at the department. An official said the documents "are an important element in the verification of a declaration which will include figures for the amount of plutonium they have produced." Many are hopeful that this breakthrough would level the ground for further progress on resolving the four-month long impasse over the North’s nuclear declaration issue.
• North Korea Gives U.S. Files on Plutonium Efforts
  By HELENE COOPER Published: May 9, 2008 WASHINGTON — North Korea has turned over to the United States 18,000 pages of documents related to its plutonium program dating from 1990, in an effort to resolve remaining differences in a pending agreement meant to begin the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Bush administration officials said Thursday.
• On the Brink. Prospects for US-DPRK Settlement Dim, Yet Again
  Tim Beal
  Every time it looks as if US-DPRK negotiations are on the verge of a breakthrough someone in Washington throws a spanner in the works. This is what happened in 2005 as the Chinese were forcing through the Joint Statement of 19 September which seemed to put the negotiations, under the aegis of the Six Party Talks, on a course for a successful resolution. The US Treasury designated the Macau bank used by North Korean entities (and British companies and joint ventures in DPRK), Banco Delta Asia, as a “Primary Money Laundering Concern under USA PATRIOT Act”. [1] Although the allegations were subsequently discredited, partly through the investigative reporting of the US chain McClatchy Newspapers, the action put the Six Party Talks in limbo for over a year, as well as having a serious impact on DPRK foreign trade, and hence on the economy itself, which reportedly shrank 1.1% in 2006. [2] Negotiations between US Under Secretary of State Christopher Hill and DPRK Vice Minister Kim Kye-gwan resulted in a couple of agreements in 2007, one in February the other in October, which seemed to offer a way forward.[3]These hopes have been dashed and prospects at the moment look dim. [Agreement071003] [Dissension] [Syria] [HEU]
• U.S. envoy returns to North Korea to extract nuclear list
  By Jack Kim Reuters Thursday, May 8, 2008; 3:36 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - A team led by a U.S. State Department nuclear envoy entered North Korea on Thursday to persuade Pyongyang to declare its nuclear activities as called for in a six-country disarmament deal, an official said. U.S. envoy Sung Kim led a similar delegation to the secretive state about two weeks ago, pressing for an inventory of its fissile material and nuclear weaponry and for answers to U.S. charges that it enriched uranium for weapons and transferred technology to Syria.
• A Pushover for Pyongyang
  By Danielle Pletka
  From the American Enterprise Institute
  Tuesday, May 6, 2008; 7:20 PM     The Bush administration is on the verge of signing an agreement with North Korea that, it argues, will result in the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. In practice, however, the likely outcome will be the continuation of North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the proliferation of North Korean nuclear technology around the world. The evolution of the administration's approach to North Korea has been an object lesson in muddled diplomacy, a "how-not-to" handle rogue states. Six years ago, the Bush administration cancelled the Clinton administration's Agreed Framework Between the United States of America and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, holding back a generous package of aid and light water nuclear reactors that had been promised to Pyongyang in exchange for giving up its plutonium-based nuclear weapons program. At the time, the Bush administration accused North Korea of cheating on the agreement by establishing a covert uranium enrichment program. Intelligence and the North Koreans themselves affirmed those charges.     [Disinformation] [US NK policy] [Partisan] [Neocon] [Bizarre]
• Nuclear ambition behind the figure game
  + - 13:41, May 05, 2008 The U.S. had reduced its nuclear warheads stockpile by nearly 50% from over 10, 000 warheads at the end of 2006 to about 5,400 at the end of 2007. It will further cut the stockpile to 4,500 by 2012, according to the article US Nuclear Forces, 2008 published on Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists March/April, 2008. From 10,000 to 5,400, the reduction seems very significant. The National Nuclear Security Administration thus claimed this sent a signal to the world that the U.S. government has been committed to reduction of the nuclear weapon stockpile. But what are behind the beautiful figures? Let us see what had been reduced and what are still remain in the US nuclear weapon arsenal. Most of the 5,000 warheads removed from its arsenal just underwent a change of status, from active and ready to launch state to in storage state. If necessary, they will be reactivated to become nuclear weapons again. In fact, the U.S. only dismantled 250 warheads in 2007. This is a mere figure game, which does not affect the U.S. nuclear capacity at all. The figures don't alter the fact that the U.S. is still the owner of the world's largest nuclear weapons arsenal, nor do they change "the capability to incinerate all of our enemies on 15 minutes' notice". This figure change cannot cover the U.S. nuclear ambition to dominate the world. [Nuclear weapons] [US military dominance] [Disinformation]
• India Tests Long - Range Nuclear - Capable Missile
  By REUTERS Published: May 7, 2008 Filed at 3:05 a.m. ET
  BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - India successfully tested a home-grown, long-range missile on Wednesday, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets more than 3,000 km (1,900 miles) away, the government said in a statement. It was the third test -- and the second successful one -- of the Agni III missile, which can hit targets deep inside China, a country India briefly fought in 1962 over border disputes that have not yet been resolved. [Media] [Double standards]
• North Korea Trip Report
  By Keith Luse
  May 6th, 2008 Professional Staff Member in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, notes discussions with DPRK officials over the countries nuclear program. The report includes the comment, “One million tons of HFO was committed, with one-half to be delivered in-kind. Five hundred thousand tons of HFO (in equivalent), should have been delivered in equipment and materials. Only two hundred thousand tons of HFO has been delivered so far. We are adjusting the speed of disablement to the speed of the five parties” [Agreement081003]
• N.Korea Six - Party Talks Could Come This Month: Report
  By REUTERS Published: May 5, 2008 Filed at 3:07 a.m. ET SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. State Department envoy's visit to Pyongyang this week could help set the stage for six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs later in May, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said on Monday. North Korea failed to disclose an inventory of its nuclear activities when it was due on December 31, slowing the implementation of a 2005 deal under which Pyongyang pledged to abandon all nuclear programs in return for aid and diplomatic recognition. The State Department's Sung Kim, who last visited the communist state's capital in late April, is expected to wrap up coordination on the nuclear declaration, Yonhap said.   [Declaration] [Media] [Disinformation]
• Bush-Cheney Israel Disinformation Campaign to Justify an Attack on Iran
  by William H. White
  Global Research, May 2, 2008 The Bush administration and Israeli government appear to be operating a joint disinformation campaign, whose objective is to establish a media based alternative reality from which to accuse Syria/Iran of developing nuclear weapons with help from North Korea, by using a real event combined with planted stories establishing a defining narrative. This accusation in turn is augmented with stories about Iranian sponsored "Special Groups killing US troops in Iraq" and purported naval incidents the Persian Gulf, creating self-reinforcing, media based crisis. The immediate purpose of this disinformation campaign is apparently to help justify the planned US attack on a wide range of Iranian industrial and military targets. And, as in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the objective is to swiftly inflict substantial damage to the national infrastructure of Iran, followed by an abrupt cessation of attacks and a call for a cease-fire to prevent substantial Iranian retaliation. Again, as in the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the US likely will resist calls for a cessation of the attacks until a significant portion of the Iranian target set has been addressed, then it will accept calls for a cease-fire and demand Iran do the same. Any subsequent attacks by Iran would probably be characterized by the US as Iranian aggression, further justifying US follow-up attacks on remaining Iranian assets as defensive measures. The transparent duplicity of such US actions and claims is not a problem because US corporate media is prepared to report repeatedly the administration's claims with little or no criticism or mention of alternative assessments. In other words, subjecting its audience to blatant propaganda masquerading as journalism, which is effective as it is because of US corporate media's quantitative monopoly on information provided the public. [Disinformation] [Syria]
• Seymour M. Hersh
  The New Yorker staff writer talks with the magazine’s editor-in-chief, David Remnick. From the 2007 New Yorker Festival. [Syria]
• N. Korea edges closer to nuclear declaration
  With the solid support of the U.S., six-party talks could resume within weeks
  » Christopher Hill, the U.S. assistant secretary of state and chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, arrives at Beijing International Airport following a meeting with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, in Singapore on April 8.   North Korea appears ready to submit its nuclear declaration, which is the core issue for implementation of the second stage of denuclearization, leading some analysts to think that the United States will soon take measures to remove the North from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.
• N. Korea Agrees to Blow Up Tower at Its Nuclear Facility
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 2, 2008; Page A13 North Korea has agreed to blow up the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility within 24 hours of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, diplomats said this week. The destruction of the cooling tower is intended by U.S. officials to be a striking visual, broadcast around the globe, that would offer tangible evidence that North Korea was retreating from its nuclear ambitions. Wisps of vapor from the cooling tower appear in most satellite photographs of Yongbyon, making it the facility's most recognizable feature, though experts say its destruction would be mostly symbolic
• Evidence-based bombing
  By publishing intelligence on a possible Syrian nuclear facility, the US has endorsed after the fact Israel's illegal use of force in attacking it Scott Ritter
  All Scott Ritter articles About Webfeeds April 25, 2008 5:30 PM | Printable version It looks as if Israel may, in fact, have had reason to believe that Syria was constructing, with the aid and assistance of North Korea, a facility capable of housing a nuclear reactor. The United States Central Intelligence Agency recently released a series of images, believed to have been made from a videotape obtained from Israeli intelligence, which provide convincing, if not incontrovertible, evidence that the "unused military building" under construction in eastern Syria was, in fact, intended to be used as a nuclear reactor. Syria continues to deny such allegations as false. On the surface, the revelations seem to bolster justification not only for the Israeli air strike of September 6 2007, which destroyed the facility weeks or months before it is assessed to have been ready for operations, but also the hard-line stance taken by the administration of President George W Bush toward both Syria and North Korea regarding their alleged covert nuclear cooperation. In the aftermath of the Israeli air strike, Syria razed the destroyed facility and built a new one in its stead, ensuring that no follow-up investigation would be able to ascertain precisely what had transpired there. Largely overlooked in the wake of the US revelations is the fact that, even if the US intelligence is accurate (and there is no reason to doubt, at this stage, that it is not), Syria had committed no crime, and Israel had no legal justification to carry out its attack. Syria is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and under the provisions of the comprehensive safeguards agreement, is required to provide information on the construction of any facility involved in nuclear activity "as early as possible before nuclear material is introduced to a new facility". There is no evidence that Syria had made any effort to introduce nuclear material to the facility under construction. [Legality] [NPT] [Dissension] [Agreement071003]
• N. Korea to give nuke files to U.S.
  Published: May 1, 2008 at 3:04 PM WASHINGTON, May 1 (UPI) -- North Korea tentatively has agreed to give the United States thousands of records from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor from 1990, officials said. Administration and congressional officials said the move would supply supportive material for an expected declaration of the North's nuclear programs. The United States wants that access plus samples of toxic waste and destruction of the "cooling tower" at the North Korean main nuclear complex. The tentative agreement was reached last week in Pyongyang between Kim Kye-gwan, the chief North Korean negotiator, and Sung Kim, director of the Korea office at the U.S. State Department, The Washington Times said Thursday. [Agreement071003]
• Final nuke list 'in two weeks'
  By Lee Joo-hee North Korea could submit its final nuclear programs declaration within a fortnight as differences over a plutonium program to be included in the list have been narrowed, sources said yesterday. The North could give China the declaration in one or two weeks, paving the way for six-party talks to reconvene by the end of this month, the sources said. "At the latest discussion, North Korea was extremely enthusiastic, asking what they needed to do to get off the list of states sponsoring terrorism," an official said on condition of anonymity. The Washington Times reported on Thursday that Pyongyang tentatively agreed during a visit by U.S. officials last week to give the United States thousands of records from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor dating back to 1990. Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill was quoted as telling visiting South Korean lawmakers that the six-party talks could resume "in a few weeks." The six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programs have been deadlocked since the end of last year, when Pyongyang failed to submit a "complete and correct" list of its nuclear programs. However, disablement works at the Yongbyon facilities continued, as did the delivery of energy aid worth 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil. Following the bilateral meeting between Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Singapore last month, signs of a breakthrough began to show. The two sides began to fine-tune the declaration, which is likely to comprise a detailed record of the plutonium-based program, and acknowledgements of a uranium enrichment program and proliferation activities linked to Syria. In return, Washington is set to begin the process of removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and terminate application of the Trading with the Enemy Act to Pyongyang.
• House draws line on North Korea
  By Demetri Sevastopulo and Daniel Dombey in Washington Wednesday Apr 30 2008 18:30
  A key congressional committee on Wednesday approved legislation that could complicate US efforts to reach a denuclearisation deal with North Korea. The House foreign affairs committee unanimously approved a bill that would place conditions on any move by the Bush administration to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. If approved by Congress, the measure would require the White House to certify that North Korea has provided a "complete and correct declaration" of all its nuclear programmes before lifting sanctions. But the bill would also waive the so-called Glenn amendment, which would have blocked the US energy department from assisting North Korean moves to disable its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. [Dissension] [Terrorism list]
• North Korea Update
  Scott Rembrandt (sr@keia.org) Revelations on the Syria Link, Disagreement on Its Implications for Six Party Talks After eight months of information blackout by the Bush Administration following the September 6 Israeli raid on the “Al Kibar” site, U.S. intelligence agency officials briefed members of the U.S. House and Senate select committees on intelligence on April 24 about its knowledge of Syria’s nuclear program. Based upon U.S. and Israeli intelligence findings, the United States concluded that Syria had constructed a nuclear reactor based upon the Yongbyon design. Officials presented still photos and a video to the members of Congress from inside the Al Kibar site revealing a design of a graphite-moderate reactor that mirrored Yongbyon’s.
• N. Korea Agrees to Blow Up Tower at Its Nuclear Facility
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 2, 2008; Page A13 North Korea has agreed to blow up the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility within 24 hours of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, diplomats said this week. The destruction of the cooling tower is intended by U.S. officials to be a striking visual, broadcast around the globe, that would offer tangible evidence that North Korea was retreating from its nuclear ambitions. Wisps of vapor from the cooling tower appear in most satellite photographs of Yongbyon, making it the facility's most recognizable feature, though experts say its destruction would be mostly symbolic
• Vanunu`s Fifth Year of Restrictions and Norway Caves
  [Jerusalem] On April 7, 2008 Mordechai Vanunu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for the last twenty-two years learned that Israel has continued the restrictions against his right to leave the state or to speak with human beings if they are not Israelis. On April 9, 2008 it was reported that now Norway has joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu. Norway's Bergens Tidende recorded "that Vanunu's application for asylum in Norway had in fact been approved by the country's immigration agency UDI (Utlendingsdirektoratet) back in 2004. UDI was overruled, however, by Norway's center-right government at the time. Political considerations, not least Norway's efforts to remain on good terms with Israel and the US, were more important than Vanunu's human rights." [1] [Human rights] [Double standards] [NPT]
• US Air Force planned nuclear strike on China over Taiwan: report
  WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States Air Force had considered a plan to drop nuclear bombs on China during a confrontation over Taiwan in 1958 but it was overruled, declassified documents showed Wednesday. When he learned about it, President Dwight Eisenhower instead required the Air Force to initially use conventional bombs against Chinese forces if the crisis escalated, according to previously secret US Air Force history. The president's instructions seemingly astounded the Air Force top brass but the author of one of the studies released said US policymakers recognized that atomic strikes had "inherent disadvantages" because of the fall-out danger in the region as well as the risk of nuclear escalation. The report on the crisis by Bernard Nalty, a then historian with the Air Force, included significant detail on nuclear planning, including an initial plan to drop 10-15 kiloton bombs on airfields in Amoy (now called Xiamen) in the event of a Chinese blockade against Taiwan's so-ca [Nuclear weapons] [China confrontation]
• Air Force Histories Released through Archive Lawsuit Show Cautious Presidents Overruling Air Force Plans for Early Use of Nuclear Weapons
  B-57 D aircraft used for atomic cloud sampling operations during Operation Hardtack nuclear test series (April-August 1958) Source: U.S. National Archives, Still Pictures Division, Record Group 374, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 374-ANT, box 5, Project 23 Operation Hardtack WDC-1C-20. Washington, D.C., April 30, 2008 - The U.S. Air Force expected to use nuclear weapons against China during the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958, but President Eisenhower required the Air Force to plan initially to use conventional bombs against Chinese forces if the crisis escalated, according to a previously secret Air Force history obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit and posted today by the National Security Archive. Eisenhower's instructions astounded the Air Force leadership, but according to Bernard Nalty, the author of one of the studies released today, U.S. policymakers recognized that atomic strikes had "inherent disadvantages" because of the fall-out danger in the region as well as the risk of escalation. [Nuclear weapons] [China confrontation]
• BBC documentary reveals government reckless in drive for nuclear weapons
  By Trevor Johnson 29 April 2008 Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author In a recently aired documentary, “Windscale: Britain’s Biggest Nuclear Disaster,” the BBC investigated the history of the first British nuclear power station and its role in the development of nuclear weapons. It presented strong evidence that the Windscale fire of 1957—the first fire in any nuclear facility—was caused by the flagrant abandonment of safety measures. This took place because of pressure from the British government to produce bomb-making material. The programme explained how the 1957 fire brought Windscale to the brink of a major nuclear disaster, in which many of the people working there could have been killed and a wide area around the site left contaminated for decades. There were interviews with key scientists and operators from the time, such as Tom Tuohy (Windscale deputy general manager), Terence Price (reactor physicist) and John Harris (scientific officer). Previously undisclosed material was used, including taped interviews conducted directly after the fire. There was a “heady” mood when the Windscale project was in its infancy in the late 1940s. The nearby village of Seascale suddenly became “the brainiest place in Britain.” Most of the newcomers were young graduates and postgraduates, hailed in the media as “atom men” who would bring in a new age of scientific and technological achievement in which people would have better lives. In contrast to the image created for Windscale by the media, the programme showed that its real purpose was “to make bombs.” After the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the US at the end of the Second World War, Winston Churchill was determined to establish a “special relationship” between the “British Commonwealth and Empire” and the United States. He believed this was justified by the role of British scientists in the development of the atom bomb at Los Alamos, but the US government did not agree. “You helped, but we did it,” said a US nuclear historian. In 1946, the US passed a law making it a capital offence to pass nuclear secrets to any other nation, even to former allies. This threw the post-war Labour government, led by Clement Attlee, into a crisis. Labour ministers Stafford Cripps, Hugh Dalton and others advised Attlee that Britain could not compete with the US and had nothing to gain by trying. However, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevan was determined to preserve Britain’s imperial might. “We have got to have this thing whatever it costs and we have got to have the bloody Union Jack flying on top of it,” he declared. Labour’s aim was to shore up Britain’s position on the world stage by the development and use of high-technology weaponry so as to persuade America that Britain was its natural nuclear ally.
• Six-Party Talks to Continue: Seoul, Washington Vow
  South Korea and the U.S. on Monday reaffirmed that six-nation talks on denuclearization of North Korea will continue. Kim Sook, the newly appointed South Korean envoy to the talks, met his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill in Washington D.C., and the two agreed to resume the talks soon and put priority on the plutonium extracted from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.
• Syria disclosure meant to press N.K.: Bush
      The U.S. decision to disclose the North Korea-Syria nuclear connection last week was intended to press Pyongyang to come clean on its atomic weapons programs, President George W. Bush said Tuesday.   The U.S. wanted to "advance certain policy objectives," Bush said at a White House press conference.
• Bush Says Syria Nuclear Disclosure Intended to Prod North Korea and Iran
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: April 30, 2008 WASHINGTON — President Bush said Tuesday that last week’s disclosure of what senior American officials called evidence of a nearly completed nuclear reactor in Syria was intended to warn North Korea and Iran about the dangers of spreading nuclear weapons.
  Mr. Bush also defended his administration’s decision to keep that evidence secret for more than seven months after Israeli bombers destroyed the Syrian building on Sept. 6.
• Bush: Revealing Reactor Was Meant to Pressure N. Korea
  By Michael Abramowitz Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 30, 2008; Page A15 President Bush said yesterday that his administration's disclosure of secret information last week about suspected North Korean assistance for a Syrian nuclear reactor was designed to pressure Pyongyang to come clean on its nuclear activities.
• US Retains NK on Terrorism List
  WASHINGTON -- The United States on Wednesday retained North Korea on its list of terrorism-sponsoring states, but reaffirmed in stronger language its commitment to remove the communist regime once Pyongyang fulfills its denuclearization obligations, Yonhap news agency reported. [Agreement071003] [Renege]
• Korea, U.S. reaffirm 6PT will continue
  South Korean and U.S. envoys reaffirmed Monday the six-party talks on Korea's denuclearization will continue despite the latest allegations that Pyongyang transferred nuclear technology to Syria.   "We discussed various aspects of the six-party process... what we would expect to see as we continue on this process," Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state, said after meeting his South Korean counterpart, Kim Sook.

• Indian rocket launches 10 satellites in rare space feat
  BANGALORE, India (AFP) — An Indian rocket blasted off and successfully launched a cluster of 10 satellites in a single mission Monday, marking a milestone for the country's 45-year-old space programme
  India started its space programme in 1963, and has since developed and put several of its own satellites into space. It has also designed and built launch rockets to reduce dependence on overseas space agencies.
• U.S. charges of Syria-North Korea nuclear link: Why now?
  28/04/2008 08:00:00 PM GMT Why did the U.S. disclose its allegations of a clandestine Syrian nuclear project now? Was this an effort to further isolate Syria or was it aimed at bringing more pressure on North Korea?
  By Amina Anderson
  Iraq all over again? U.S. briefings about alleged weapons of mass destruction programmes definitely bring bad memories after the U.S. experience in Iraq. The whole world remembers the time in February 2003 when then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell briefed the United Nations about Iraq’s alleged WMD to make a case for war. The briefing turned out to be misleading. No such weapons were ever found in Iraq. The ten-minute video released by the Bush administration in an effort to prove Syria-North Korea nuclear connection could also be deemed misleading. It uses still images which, it is claimed, were taken inside the facility during its construction. But there is no independent way to verify this claim. There are also no signs of the elements needed for a bomb-making programme - a plant to separate out the plutonium and a factory to actually assemble a weapon. If, as the Americans claim, the reactor was close to completion, where would its uranium fuel have come from?
  Last September's Israeli air strike "hit a military site under construction, not a nuclear site as Israel and America claimed," Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told the Qatari daily Al-Watan on Sunday. "Does it make sense that we would build a nuclear facility in the desert and not protect it with anti-aircraft defences? A nuclear site exposed to (spy) satellites, in the heart of Syria and in an open space?,” he asked.
  Why now?
  Some analysts say that the U.S. decision to disclose its information could be the result of internal conflict between competing currents within the Bush Administration. In this case, the Syria-North Korea nuclear allegations are a victory of the more hawkish voices, who fear that President Bush might be going soft as he approaches the end of his presidential term. [Dissension] [Syria] [Evidence] [Agreement071003]
• The neoconning of a nation
  Vice-President, shilling troupe of retired generals, deliver fantastic tales for their cause
  By Eric Margolis
  PARIS -- U.S. intelligence released a dramatic video last Thursday, supposedly taken by an Israeli spy, that purportedly showed North Korean technicians helping build a nuclear reactor in Syria.
  Vice-President Dick Cheney and fellow neocons forced the CIA to release the James Bondish video in an effort to sabotage an impending six-nation agreement to end North Korea's nuclear program. They bitterly oppose the deal for being too soft on Pyongyang. Neocons long have worried the possibility of North Korea selling nuclear technology to Arab states posed a potential threat to Israel. This mysterious imbroglio also is being used by Israel's rightwing Likud Party, a close ally of U.S. neocons, to attack political rival Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his Kadima Party.
  Cheney and fellow militarists are pushing hard for attacks on Syria, Lebanon and Iran before President George W. Bush leaves office. Neocons have flocked to Sen. John McCain's banner -- in spite of Hillary Clinton's vow to "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. They believe U.S. attacks on Arab states and/or Iran would prove decisive in winning the presidency for McCain this November. A U.S. attack on Syria could well be the first step of a broader air war against Lebanon and Iran.
  Meanwhile, Cheney and allies in Congress and the media are also using the Syrian reactor hubbub to undermine efforts by the U.S. state department, a primary hate object for neocons, to implement the nuclear weapons freeze with North Korea. State department boss Condoleezza Rice has run for cover, leaving her chief negotiator with North Korea to twist in the wind.
  As the latest furor builds over the nefarious North Korean, we should remember that this scare story comes from the same Washington fib factory that manufactured all the alarms and "evidence" about Saddam Hussein's non-existent weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida. [Syria] [Evidence] [Disinformation]
• U.S. Downplaying Syria Connection
    The White House's recent release of evidence for the North Korea-Syria nuclear connection is likely to have no serious effects on ongoing nuclear talks with Pyongyang. The North has made no formal response to the White House move, and Washington has since hinted that the future is more important than the past. In an interview with a Japanese TV on Saturday, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said, "It is the judgment of the United States that there is not an ongoing cooperation with Syria in this area." He suggested that North Korea's cooperation with Syria will not pose a problem if North Korea gives a full account of its nuclear programs, presumably next month. [Syria] [Dissension]
• Enigmatic nuclear connections
  Jungsoo Jang, Executive editor [Column] Talks on the North Korean nuclear issue have taken a difficult turn. After it looked for a while as if there would be a breakthrough, following a tentative agreement made in Singapore between North Korea and the United States, there are signs that U.S. hard-liners who once sought the North Korean government’s collapse have been gaining the upper hand in U.S. policy toward Pyongyang as of late. The White House’s announcement that it has confirmed nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Syria can be seen as a part of that. The fact that the announcement came from the White House, while the State Department, the main channel for North Korea policy, has been left by the wayside, suggests there is change on the way in America’s approach toward the nuclear talks, since the White House made the unusual move of making direct allegations about connections between Pyongyang and Damascus.   If you want to understand what’s behind what’s happening, you need to look at the complicated Middle East peace process.
  It needs to be remembered that the accusations about a connection between Pyongyang and Damascus came right when serious progress was being made on peace between Israel and Syria, and right after the tentative agreement between the United States and North Korea was reached in Singapore.   It was immediately after an agreement was reached at the six-party talks in 2005 that elements associated with Cheney in the U.S. Treasury Department froze North Korean money in Macao’s Banco Delta Asia, and the agreement fell apart. [Agreement071003] [Dissension]
• Road to Denuclearization
  It's Time to Minimize Fallout of NK-Syria Nuke Connection
  Six-nation efforts for North Korea's denuclearization are likely to take a new twist as the United States disclosed evidence that North Korea helped Syria build a nuclear reactor that was destroyed by an Israeli air raid last September
• April 23, 2008, 9:37 am C.I.A. to Detail North Korean Nuclear Aid to Syria
  By Mike Nizza
  A satellite image released in January showing a disputed Syrian site that Israeli and American analysts judged to be a partially built nuclear reactor. Some details of
• U.S. says Syria ‘must come clean’ about nukes
  Syrians reject claims that N. Korea was helping it build reactor
  AP WASHINGTON - The White House said Thursday that North Korea did secret work on a nuclear reactor with Syria, calling it "a dangerous and potentially destabilizing development for the world" and raising doubts about Pyongyang's intention to carry through with a promised disclosure of its nuclear activities. [Media] [Syria] [Evidence]
• Belated Disclosure
  The Bush administration releases evidence regarding Syria's nuclear reactor, eight months after it was destroyed.
  Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page B06 THE FACT that Israel bombed a secret Syrian nuclear reactor built with the help of North Korea was widely if unofficially reported within days of the strike last September. But the Bush administration's decision to go public with the considerable evidence it had about the reactor has placed that extraordinary event in a new political context. The disclosure, which administration officials said they initially withheld because of fears of triggering hostilities between Israel and Syria, was nevertheless overdue. As a member of the U.N. Security Council, the United States is obligated to report evidence that other states are violating international law against nuclear proliferation. [Syria] [Evidence] [Spin] [Double standards] [Legality]
• Skepticism toward Bush claims about Syria and North Korea
  Many media accounts simply repeat uncritically the rather dubious accusations of the administration.
  Glenn Greenwald
  Apr. 25, 2008 | (updated below - Update II) There are multiple reasons why substantial skepticism is warranted concerning the Bush administration's claims that the structure which Israeli jets destroyed inside Syria last September was a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the aid of North Korea. Such skepticism, however, is difficult to find in most (though not all) American press accounts, which do little other than repeat Government claims without challenge. This Associated Press article, for instance, is 32 paragraphs long, yet it contains little other than unchallenged assertions by the Bush administration, using the now-familiar media conventions for disseminating government claims -- i.e., quoting administration accusations without challenge and then granting completely unwarranted anonymity to "intelligence officials" to echo those accusations: [Media] [Syria][Evidence]
• Release of video footage endangers N. Korea denuclearization efforts
  Six-party talks could be derailed amid larger Middle East political concerns
  » The photo compares the nuclear reactor in Syria, on the left, to the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. WASHINGTON - Following the U.S. government’s release of video footage linking North Korea and Syria on April 24 (EDT), attention is inevitably being focused on the direction of the next round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.   After a temporary agreement was reached in Singapore between North Korea and the United States, the outlook for the talks had been positive and Washington was reportedly moving to lower the bar for Pyongyang on two key allegations, uranium enrichment and nuclear cooperation with Syria. A visit to North Korea on April 22-24 by U.S. government officials, including Sung Kim, the director of the Korean affairs office at the U.S. State Department, was known to have been successful. However, there is the possibility that the tide is changing due to resistance from the U.S. Congress, which stems from the purported allegation of nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Syria. [Syria]  
• Pyongyang accused of nuclear aid
  South Korea says U.S. allegations will not harm 6-party negotiations April 26, 2008 These two satellite images made available by DigitalGlobe show a suspected nuclear facility site in Syria before and after a Sept. 6, 2007 Israeli airstrike. [AP] Though the United States has officially charged North Korea with having aided a secret Syrian nuclear program, South Korean officials yesterday dismissed concerns that the issue will further derail nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang.
• The curious Syrian nuclear affair
  Published: April 25 2008 21:50 | Last updated: April 25 2008 21:50 Just over five years ago, a US secretary of state, Colin Powell, made more than two dozen claims to the United Nations Security Council about Iraq’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. In the build-up to war, many found it a compelling performance. But all Mr Powell’s assertions were subsequently shown to be without foundation. He might as well have shown the world a video game. Not long after that, Israel started hawking "evidence" uncovered by its spies that Saddam Hussein had moved his WMD to Syria. It got some takers – but nothing more has been heard of this chimera. Central Intelligence Agency presentation to the US Congress – making the case that North Korea supplied Syria with a nuclear reactor able to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons – was also compelling. It would also appear to justify retroactively the Israeli air strike on the site in Syria’s eastern desert last September. But given the US and Israel’s recent record in these matters, it could also be just another dog and pony show. Taken purely on its own terms, the US claim raises many questions. Where was Damascus going to get the fissile fuel for this alleged reactor? Where was the plutonium separator, or reprocessing facility for spent fuel? Where is the evidence for a weaponisation programme? Why, moreover, did the US (and Israeli air force) bypass the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog? None of this means we should believe the Syrians. They have said little more than Israel – which refuses to comment – beyond claiming the site was a military depot. Bashar al-Assad’s regime is not trustworthy. Damascus has a long history of pursuing its aims through violent surrogates such as Hizbollah and Hamas, and of murdering its opponents, especially in Lebanon. Its usual defence – "do you think we would be that stupid?" – can only be answered in the affirmative after the government sanctioned a recruiting station for volunteer fighters in Iraq just yards away from the US embassy in Damascus in 2003. But that does not mean these specific allegations are true. This affair is very odd. The CIA’s decision to go public now backs Pyongyang into a corner at a critical moment in the six-power talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament – leading some to detect the hand of Bush administration hawks such as Dick Cheney. But it also follows the assassination in Damascus of top Hizbollah (and Iranian) operative Imad Mugnhiyeh. The air strike and the hit could also be interpreted as warnings to Iran to cease its regional meddling and nuclear ambitions – and maybe scare Damascus off its alliance with Tehran. One video show in Washington does not shine a light through the regional murk. But it should remind us there is too much dry tinder out there for anyone to be careless with matches. [Syria] [Evidence]
• Accusing N. Korea May Stall Nuclear Pact
  Both Nations Cite Progress, but Allegations About Aid to Syria Chill Lawmakers By Glenn Kessler and Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, April 26, 2008; Page A12
  The Bush administration gambled this week that its detailed accounting of North Korean assistance to a Syrian nuclear program would help pave the way for a nuclear disarmament agreement with Pyongyang, but the allegations so angered Republican lawmakers that support for a deal may be seriously weakened.
  At a news conference yesterday, Moustapha said the U.S. claims have no credibility at home or abroad. "This administration has a proven record of falsifying and fabricating stories about WMDs. They have done this before, they have done this yesterday, and they will continue to do this in the future," he said. The facility was an vacant military building at the time of the Israeli airstrike and was not a secret from anyone, he said. "Every commercial satellite service available on Earth was able to provide photos of this so-called secret Syrian site for the past five, six years. I think something is very absurd and preposterous in the whole story."
• Yielding To N. Korea Too Often
  By Winston Lord and Leslie H. Gelb Saturday, April 26, 2008; Page A17
  The Bush administration gives plausible reasons for a bad nuclear deal with North Korea. The proposed deal would lift key U.S. legal sanctions against the North while Pyongyang shelves many of the commitments it made in a prior agreement. The United States would stomach North Korea's latest evasions because, for all of its risks, the deal at hand offers some movement on the most immediate problem, reducing North Korea's plutonium capabilities, and it keeps the door open to diplomatic solutions to eliminate Pyongyang's nuclear weapons.
  This is the legacy Bush should bequeath to his successor. Winston Lord was ambassador to China under President Ronald Reagan and assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific under President Bill Clinton. Leslie H. Gelb was assistant secretary of state for politico-military affairs under President Jimmy Carter and is a board senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.     [Syria] [Dissension] [US NK policy]
• IAEA to probe Syria atomic plant report
  Mark Heinrich , Reuters Published: Friday, April 25, 2008 VIENNA - The U.N. nuclear watchdog pledged on Friday to investigate whether Syria secretly built an atomic reactor with North Korean help but criticised the United States for delaying the release of intelligence. The United States revealed its intelligence material on Thursday about the suspected Syrian atomic plant, saying it was "nearing operational capability" a month before Israeli warplanes bombed it on Sept. 6. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, lambasted Israel for the air strike, saying his inspectors should have been able to verify beforehand whether undeclared nuclear activity had been going on. This undated image released by the U.S. Government shows a steel liner in place for a concrete reactor vessel before concrete was poured at the suspected Syrian nuclear reactor site in Syria. The White House on April 24, 2008 broke its official silence on the mysterious September 6, 2007 Israeli air strike. "We are convinced, based on a variety of information, that North Korea assisted Syria's covert nuclear activities," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said in a statement. The statement came “In light of (this, I) view the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the non-proliferation regime," he said. ElBaradei said the U.S. allegations against Syria, which denied the U.S. charges and accused Washington of involvement in the Israeli air attack, would be investigated with due vigour. "The Agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information," he said in a statement. [Syria] [Evidence] [IAEA]
• IAEA chief blasts U.S. for delay on Syria intelligence
  (CNN) -- The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency criticized the United States on Friday for not sharing intelligence sooner about a facility in Syria that Israel bombed last September.
  working reactor would make Syria the first Arab nation with nuclear capability and potentially would put nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime that the United States accuses of committing human rights abuses and supporting international terror groups [Media] [IAEA] [Double standards]
• US envoy Hill says NKorea, Syria not cooperating now
  TOKYO (AFP) — US chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said North Korea and Syria were no longer cooperating in nuclear work despite the US administration's allegations of help on a secret reactor. President George W. Bush's administration went public Thursday with video they said showed that a nuclear reactor in Syria built with North Korea for military purposes was nearing completion when Israel destroyed it in September. The US accusations came a day after North Korea sounded upbeat after a long stalemate in implementing a six-nation deal negotiated by Hill on ending the communist state's nuclear drive. Hill, speaking Thursday in New Haven, Connecticut, suggested that such North Korean activities with Syria were in the past. "It is the judgement of the United States that there is not an ongoing cooperation with Syria in this area," Hill told reporters in footage broadcast Friday on Japanese television. "We will deal with this issue as we do with many other issues in the six parties," Hill said. US lawmakers after being briefed on the administration's allegations said that developments could wreck the six-nation deal, hailed last year as a breakthrough by the Bush administration. US media have suggested the timing of the Syria allegations could be an effort by conservatives within the Bush administration unhappy with Hill to bring down the deal which they see as too weak.
  Hill said there was no connection between the delisting issue and the allegations of cooperation with Syria. "The criteria for the delisting is quite a separate matter," Hill said. [Syria] [Dissension] [Terrorism List]
• FAQ: What did Israel bomb?
  The Guardian, Friday April 25 2008 Do the new US pictures prove Syria was building a nuclear reactor?
  Not definitively. The new pictures do strengthen the impression that a reactor was being built before the Israeli air raid last September, but there remain questions about the provenance of the pictures and the timing of their publication, with the experience of Iraq in mind. Analysts at the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, question why there is no sign of security measures around the site, and say the building does not seem high enough for a reactor.
  Is there anything significant about the timing of the release of the new pictures? Yes, it comes at a very sensitive moment in negotiations over the North Korean nuclear programme, which could take Pyongyang off the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Some analysts have suggested the release of the pictures could be an attempt by Washington hawks led by Dick Cheney to derail that deal.
• Statement by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei
  Press Release 2008/06 25 April 2008 | The IAEA Secretariat was provided with information by the United States on 24 April claiming that the installation destroyed by Israel in Syria last September was a nuclear reactor. According to this information, the reactor was not yet operational and no nuclear material had been introduced into it. The Agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information. Syria has an obligation under its safeguards agreement with the IAEA to report the planning and construction of any nuclear facility to the Agency. The Director General deplores the fact that this information was not provided to the Agency in a timely manner, in accordance with the Agency's responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to enable it to verify its veracity and establish the facts. Under the NPT, the Agency has a responsibility to verify any proliferation allegations in a non-nuclear weapon State party to the NPT and to report its findings to the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council, as required. In light of the above, the Director General views the unilateral use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at the heart of the non-proliferation regime. [Syria] [Evidence] [IAEA]
• Interview: Seymour Hersh
  By Sarah Brown
  Seymour Hersh, one of the world's best known investigative journalists, has turned his attention to the mysterious and controversial bombing of a Syrian facility by Israel last year. In a new article for the New Yorker magazine, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, best known for his work exposing the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the horrific mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, says evidence indicates the bombing was a warning to Syria and its allies, including Iran. Al Jazeera spoke to him about the bombing, why he feels the media failed on the story, and what it means for the Middle East. [Syria] [Evidence] [Nuclear]
• U.S. to Release Video 'Proving' Syria Connection
  U.S. intelligence authorities will on Thursday release video footage they say is evidence that North Korea assisted Syria in building a nuclear reactor. Intelligence officers are also to brief the House and Senate intelligence, armed services and foreign relations committees on suspected nuclear transactions between North Korea and Syria.
• North Korea and Syria, by Victor Cha
  In the coming days, there is an entirely real possibility that the White House will notify the U.S. Congress of its intention to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, opening a path toward eventual diplomatic normalization with a country that the U.S. has technically been at war with since 1950. [Syria]
• North Korea ‘helped’ Syria build N-plant
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington
  Published: April 24 2008 15:36 | Last updated: April 24 2008 15:36     North Korea helped Syria construct a nuclear reactor that was "within weeks of completion" when Israel destroyed the facility in September, the Bush administration said on Thursday.
  The White House said Syria had been building a covert nuclear reactor with North Korean help, and called on Damascus to "come clean before the world regarding its illicit nuclear activities". Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the US, called the charges "fantasy", saying the Bush administration had a "record about fabricating stories about other countries’ WMDs [weapons of mass destruction]". The White House has maintained a shroud of secrecy since Israel struck the facility, which Syria codenamed "al-Kibar", last September. The Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday briefed Congress on the mysterious incident. Speaking before the CIA briefed Congress, a senior US official told the Financial Times that North Korea and Syria started discussing the project in 1997, and that construction of the facility began in 2003. He said the intelligence provided an "eye-popping, comprehensive briefing that will demonstrate how close Syria came to having a nuclear weapons capability". The CIA briefing contains a video that brings together a compilation of still images, including satellite imagery, ground imagery, and photographs taken inside the facility. One photograph shows a North Korean nuclear scientist Chon Chibu standing beside his Syrian counterpart. Mr Chon, who worked at North Korea’s Yongbyon plutonium reactor, has previously dealt with US officials. While the date of the photography was unclear, the official said a car in the background suggested it was sometime after mid-2005
• US claims North Korea helped build Syria reactor plant· Damascus dismisses video of unit bombed by Israel
  · Congress told site was set up to produce plutonium Ewen MacAskill in Washington The Guardian, Friday April 25 2008 The mystery over the Israeli bombing of Syrian territory last year took a new twist yesterday when US intelligence agencies showed a video claiming to prove that the target was a covert nuclear plant being built with North Korean help. The White House described the alleged reactor as "a dangerous and potentially destabilising development for the region and the world".  
  The video, made public last night after Congress had been briefed, is a collection of material from various sources, in addition to Israeli intelligence. There is no tape from inside the alleged reactor, only two still photographs, apparently taken by a human hand on the ground rather than a drone or satellite. This was supported by satellite pictures and graphs. The pictures taken on the ground show an apparently empty brown-grey, solid building, but nothing that seems to indicate it is being used for nuclear purposes. In the video, which shows the site before and after the bombing, the CIA claims that the alleged reactor is similar to one in Yongbyon, 55 miles north of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
  In releasing the video, the Bush administration is taking the risk that the North Korea regime may use it as an excuse to walk out of US-North Korean negotiations about dismantling its nuclear programme, but is banking on any such walkout as being only temporary. [Syria] [Evidence] [Inversion]
• N. Korea says progress made in talks with U.S.
  North Korea said Thursday its latest nuclear talks with the United States in Pyongyang produced progress, hinting that it will provide a long-awaited declaration of its atomic weapons program in the near future.   The North's positive tone came hours after a U.S. delegation of diplomats and nuclear experts ended its three-day trip aimed at finalizing the terms of Pyongyang's long-delayed declaration of its nuclear holdings.
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Pyongyang Visit by U.S. Nuclear Experts Delegation
  Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA Thursday as regards the Pyongyang visit by a delegation of U.S. nuclear experts: There took place here from April 22 to 24 negotiations between officials concerned of the DPRK and a delegation of U.S. nuclear experts made up of officials of the State Department and White House and experts of the Defense Department and Energy Department. Technical matters for winding up the implementation of the October 3 agreement including the contents of the nuclear declaration were discussed there. The negotiations proceeded in a sincere and constructive manner and progress was made there.
• U.S. accuses North Korea, Syria of constructing nuclear reactor
  By Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 WASHINGTON — The United States on Thursday accused North Korea of helping Syria to secretly build a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons and released top-secret photographic intelligence that U.S. officials called conclusive proof of the allegation.  
  Senior U.S. intelligence officials conceded Thursday in a briefing for journalists that followed presentations to select members of Congress that they lacked "clinical evidence" that Syria has an active nuclear weapons program. One critical missing piece of proof is evidence of a reprocessing plant that Syria would need to extract plutonium from used uranium fuel rods, which would have powered the suspect reactor but were never loaded, they said. They insisted, however, that the facility had no other purpose but to produce plutonium for warheads, saying that the intelligence showed that the suspect reactor was a copy of a 1950s British design that North Korea built at Pyongyang to supply plutonium for its small nuclear arsenal.
  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was among those opposing the release, said the official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal administration disputes. "I don't think she saw the value of it" in pushing diplomacy to end North Korea's nuclear programs or advancing U.S. goals in the Middle East, he said. Vice President Dick Cheney, many U.S. government officials dealing with nonproliferation and the U.S. intelligence community reportedly favored releasing the materials [Syria] [Dissension]
• Government Releases Images of Syrian Reactor
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: April 25, 2008 WASHINGTON — The Bush administration released detailed photographic images on Thursday to support its assertion that the building in Syria that Israel destroyed in an airstrike last year was a nuclear reactor constructed with years of help from North Korea.
• Editorial North Korea Redux
  Published: April 25, 2008 It is more than a little suspicious that the ever-secretive Bush administration has suddenly decided to go public with what it knows about North Korea’s nuclear connection with Syria. After seven months of refusing to acknowledge Israel’s air strike last Sept. 6 on a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor, the intelligence community has now provided Congress with video images showing North Koreans inside the secret facility.   [Syria] [Agreement071003] [Dissension]
• U.S. Details Reactor in Syria
  Americans Push Damascus, N. Korea To Admit Collusion
  Video CIA Report on Syrian Nuclear Reactor A video presentation released Thursday shows a secret Syrian nuclear reactor that U.S. intelligence believes was expected to make fuel for nuclear weapons and was within weeks or months of being fully operational when it was destroyed in September by an Israeli air strike.
  By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 25, 2008; Page A12 The Bush administration charged Thursday that a secret Syrian nuclear reactor was within weeks or months of completion before Israel bombed it on Sept. 6 and demanded that North Korea and Syria publicly acknowledge their collusion on a facility that could have produced plutonium for a nuclear weapon.
• How to Make Deals with Devils
  By Leslie H. Gelb Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page B3 "I have been charged by the president with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with," Vice President Cheney reportedly declared in a White House meeting on North Korea in December 2003. "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it." Cheney's call to battle resounded last week as the Bush administration slammed former president Jimmy Carter for talking to Hamas, the extremist Palestinian group that now runs the Gaza Strip, and began to have its own second thoughts about closing a new nuclear deal with North Korea.
• CIA photo
  This undated image released Thursday April 24, 2008 by the Central Intelligence Agency shows an overhead view of a Syrian nuclear reactor. The White House released photos Thursday showing a strong resemblance between specific features of the plant and one near Yongbyon in North Korea. (AP Photo/CIA) [Disinformation] [Syria] [evidence]
• CIA to describe North Korea-Syria nuclear ties
  Officials will tell Congress members this week that North Korea was helping Syria build a reactor last year when it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike, a U.S. official says. By Paul Richter and Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers April 23, 2008 WASHINGTON -- CIA officials will tell Congress on Thursday that North Korea had been helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, a U.S. official said, a disclosure that could touch off new resistance to the administration's plan to ease sanctions on Pyongyang. The CIA officials will tell lawmakers that they believe the reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons but was destroyed before it could do so, the U.S. official said, apparently referring to a suspicious installation in Syria that was bombed last year by Israeli warplanes.
• Syria Update III: New information about Al Kibar reactor site
  David Albright and Paul Brannan
  April 24, 2008 Today, the United States is releasing new information which provides dramatic confirmation that the Syrian site attacked by Israel on September 6, 2007 was a nuclear reactor. The information, including images taken inside the reactor building before it was attacked, also indicates that North Korea helped to build the reactor, which resembles closely the one at the Yongbyon nuclear center in North Korea. ISIS first identified the site in a series of reports beginning October 24, 2007 and continuing on the 25th and 26th., which showed the razing of the site following Israel’s attack. Commercial satellite imagery of the site is available in these reports and subsequent ones.
  First, the United States does not have any indication of how Syria would fuel this reactor, and no information that North Korea had already, or intended to provide the reactor’s fuel. This type of reactor requires a large supply of uranium fuel. The lack of any identified source of this fuel raises questions about when the reactor could have operated, despite evidence that it was nearing completion at the time of the attack. Second, the United States and Israel have not identified any Syrian plutonium separation or nuclear weaponization facilities. The absence of such facilities gives little confidence that the reactor was part of an active nuclear weapons program. The apparent absence of fuel, whether imported or indigenously produced, also lowers confidence that Syria has an active nuclear weapons program.
• A Strike in the Dark
  What did Israel bomb in Syria?
  by Seymour M. Hersh February 11, 2008 Israel and the U.S. have avoided comment on press reports about a nuclear facility.
  Keywords Syria; Israel; Secret Bombings; Nuclear Reactors; North Korea; Israeli Intelligence; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Sometime after midnight on September 6, 2007, at least four low-flying Israeli Air Force fighters crossed into Syrian airspace and carried out a secret bombing mission on the banks of the Euphrates River, about ninety miles north of the Iraq border. The seemingly unprovoked bombing, which came after months of heightened tension between Israel and Syria over military exercises and troop buildups by both sides along the Golan Heights, was, by almost any definition, an act of war
  However, in three months of reporting for this article, I was repeatedly told by current and former intelligence, diplomatic, and congressional officials that they were not aware of any solid evidence of ongoing nuclear-weapons programs in Syria. It is possible that Israel conveyed intelligence directly to senior members of the Bush Administration, without it being vetted by intelligence agencies. (This process, known as “stovepiping,” overwhelmed U.S. intelligence before the war in Iraq.) But Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations group responsible for monitoring compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, said, “Our experts who have carefully analyzed the satellite imagery say it is unlikely that this building was a nuclear facility.” Joseph Cirincione, the director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C., think tank, told me, “Syria does not have the technical, industrial, or financial ability to support a nuclear-weapons program. I’ve been following this issue for fifteen years, and every once in a while a suspicion arises and we investigate and there’s nothing. There was and is no nuclear-weapons threat from Syria. This is all political.” Cirincione castigated the press corps for its handling of the story. “I think some of our best journalists were used,” he said.
  There is evidence that the preëmptive raid on Syria was also meant as a warning about—and a model for—a preëmptive attack on Iran
• The North Korea-Syria Nexus: Congress Needs to Ask Tough Questions
  By Amanda Rios | April 21, 2008
  There’s a good chance that the House Intelligence Committee this week will hold closed-door hearings on Syria, at which time committee members would hear the Bush administration’s account of nuclear ties between North Korea and Syria, and also about Israel’s mysterious air strike against Syria last September. Several media outlets have reported that U.S. officials believe the Syrian facility had some potential to produce material for nuclear weapons—even though nuclear experts have called the Syrian program “rudimentary” and “nowhere near a program for nuclear weapons.”
• We Got Tubed—Again
  By Joseph Cirincione
  Posted March 2007 The Bush administration didn’t just hype flawed intelligence on Iraq. It got North Korea wrong, too. Now Kim Jong Il has the bomb—and the last laugh. What once appeared the exception now seems the rule. Officials in U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration are gingerly walking back from claims that North Korea was secretly building a factory to enrich uranium for dozens of atomic bombs. The intelligence, officials now say, was not as solid as they originally trumpeted. It does not seem that the North Korean program is as large or as advanced as claimed or that the country’s leaders are as set on building weapons as officials depicted.
  If this sounds familiar, it should. The original claims came during the same period officials were hyping stories of Iraq’s weapons. Once again, the claims involve aluminum tubes. Once again, there was cherry-picking and exaggeration of intelligence. Once again, the policy shaped the intelligence, with enormous national security costs. The story of Iraq is well known; that unnecessary war has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars, and an immeasurable loss of legitimacy. This time, the administration’s decision to tear up a successful agreement—using a dubious intelligence “finding” as an excuse—propelled the tiny, isolated country to subsequently build and test nuclear weapons, threatening to trigger a new wave of proliferation. [HEU] [Evidence] [Disinformation] [Backdown]
• Why should US be trusted on North Korea - Syria claims?
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 24, 2008 Filed at 5:34 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration's release of a dossier on illicit nuclear cooperation between U.S. adversaries North Korea and Syria comes at a critical time in U.S. nuclear diplomacy and feeds into U.S. foreign policy aims. Some questions and answers, beginning with one that recalls the administration's public certainty that Saddam Hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq:
  Q. Why should the world believe the White House? A: The Bush administration has a spotty record when it comes to keeping tabs on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs inside closed nations. In this case, it is laying out evidence both to Congress and to the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, which will be asked to investigate.
  What evidence did the United States present to members of Congress? A: CIA Director Michael Hayden, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley showed lawmakers a narrated video presentation that included still photographs of a facility and equipment in eastern Syria that bear a strong resemblance in design to North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant.
  Q: What does the release of information mean for the negotiations with North Korea? A: Some believe it will give weight to opponents of the process, notably neoconservatives aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney, by laying out a pattern of bad North Korean behavior and adding to the case that Pyongyang cannot be trusted [Syria] [Evidence]
• Text of White House statement on NKorea - Syria
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 24, 2008 Filed at 6:17 p.m. ET
  Statement issued Thursday by White House press secretary Dana Perino on North Korea and Syria: Today, administration officials have briefed select congressional committees on an issue of great international concern. Until Sept. 6, 2007, the Syrian regime was building a covert nuclear reactor in its eastern desert capable of producing plutonium. We are convinced, based on a variety of information,that North Korea assisted Syrias covert nuclear activities. [Syria] [Evidence]
• Some quotes on alleged North Korean nuclear aid to Syria
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 24, 2008 Filed at 8:24 p.m. ET Some quotes on the Syrian nuclear reactor allegedly built with North Korean help and the briefing to lawmakers on Thursday about the reactor.
  ''We said it many times in the past. There were no Syrian-North Korean cooperation whatsoever in Syria, and we deny these rumors, and this is what I can say with this regard. ... Syria has joined the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and puts all its facilities under the safeguards agreements of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). Only exception in the area is Israel. Israel has eight nuclear reactors on a piece of land not exceeding the size of 15,000 square kilometers. Israel has between 200 and 300 nuclear warheads. Israel is benefiting from the whole Western experience and assistance with this regard.'' -- Syria's United Nations Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari. [Syria] [Evidence]
• CIA report of Syrian Nuclear Facility
  video
• N. Koreans Photographed at Syrian Reactor
  Images Played a Role in Israeli Raid
  By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 24, 2008; 8:02 PM U.S. intelligence officials concluded that a secret Syrian nuclear reactor was expected to make fuel for nuclear weapons and was within weeks or months of being fully operational when it was destroyed in September by an Israeli air strike, officials said today. "The reactor would have been capable of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons, was not configured to produce electricity and was ill suited for research," concluded an intelligence document released today. The assessments released to reporters followed similar briefings to members of Congress today about photographs taken inside the secret Syrian facility. U.S. officials said the photographs had convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal. [Syria] [Evidence]
• N. Koreans Taped At Syrian Reactor
  Video Played a Role in Israeli Raid
  By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, April 24, 2008; Page A01 A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today. The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington.  
  Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha yesterday angrily denounced the U.S. and Israeli assertions. "If they show a video, remember that the U.S. went to the U.N. Security Council and displayed evidence and images about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I hope the American people will not be as gullible this time around," he said.
• Video Links North Koreans to Reactor, U.S. Says
  By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON — After seven months of near-total secrecy, the White House is preparing to make public on Thursday video evidence of North Koreans working at a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor just before it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last September. Until now, the administration has refused to discuss the video or the attack, other than in a highly classified briefing for a few allies and crucial members of Congress.
  The timing of the administration’s decision to declassify information about the Syrian project has raised widespread suspicions, especially in the State Department, that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration hawks were hoping that releasing the information might undermine a potential deal with North Korea that would take it off an American list of state sponsors of terrorism.
  In a presentation on Thursday to crucial members of Congress, and then in a presentation to reporters, American intelligence officials are expected to show images from a video, believed to have been obtained through Israeli intelligence services. The video, which Mr. Hill has shown to senior South Korean officials, shows Korean faces among the workers at the Syrian plant.
  Mr. Hill’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, has not voiced strong support for Mr. Hill’s effort to coax the North Koreans along, granting them rewards for steps along the way to compliance with a deal that calls, ultimately, for the country to give up its weapons. Ms. Rice has been a strong critic of the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the Clinton administration, complaining that it was “front loaded” with rewards for the North. That is exactly what critics say she and Mr. Hill have done in the most recent agreement. But Mr. Hill has argued in private that the Syrian episode and the uranium enrichment are side shows, and that the critical issue is stopping North Korea from producing more plutonium and giving up what it has. But his State Department colleagues say that he has been told not to defend the deal, or even explain it. “He’s feeling pretty abandoned by Rice and Bush,” one of his colleagues said Wednesday. Mr. Hill did not respond to messages. [Dissension] [Syria] [Evidence] [US NK policy] [Cheney]
• U.S. thinks North Korea aided Syria on plutonium program
  Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:43pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is expected to tell U.S. lawmakers on Thursday that it believes North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear program, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. "The sense is that the Syrians, with the help of the North Koreans, were attempting to build an undeclared facility that could indeed produce plutonium," said the official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter [Syria] [Evidence]
• U.S. to brief on alleged N.Korea-Syria nuclear link
  By Arshad Mohammed Reuters Tuesday, April 22, 2008; 6:21 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration plans to brief U.S. lawmakers behind closed doors on Thursday about North Korea's suspected nuclear cooperation with Syria, congressional sources said on Tuesday. The White House has said little in public about the issue since Israel conducted a mysterious September 6 air strike inside Syria that U.S. media reports said was directed at a nuclear site that may have been built with North Korean assistance [Syria] [Declaration]
• Pakistan tests long-range ballistic missile
  Reuters Saturday, April 19, 2008; 1:40 AM ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan successfully test fired a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile on Saturday, the military said, in the first missile test under a new government installed last month. "The missile Hatf-VI (Shaheen-2) has a range of 2000 km (1,200 miles) and can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads," the military said in a statement. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani watched the test of the surface-to-surface missile and congratulated engineers and scientists for achieving an "important milestone" in Pakistan's quest for sustaining strategic balance in South Asia, it said. Nuclear-armed Pakistan and India routinely carry out missile tests despite a peace process they launched in early 2004.[Double standards]
• U.S. could drop North Korea sanctions before verification
  Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:15pm EDT . By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that verifying any North Korean nuclear declaration would take time and suggested Washington may drop some sanctions on Pyongyang before this is complete. Separately, a senior U.S. official said an American team would visit North Korea next week to discuss how to verify the "complete and correct" accounting of its nuclear programs that Pyongyang was due to deliver by December 31. North Korea's failure to produce the declaration has bogged down a 2005 multilateral deal under which the poor, communist state committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and programs in exchange for diplomatic and economic incentives. [Media] [Declaration] [JS050919] [Inversion]
• US softens demands on North Korea
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Sunday Apr 13 2008 16:20 North Korea will no longer have to provide a complete declaration of its nuclear activities, under a tentative deal reached with the US towards easing nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula.
  The Bush administration previously insisted that the North Korean declaration contain detailed admissions. After struggling for months to persuade North Korea to provide a full declaration, however, Washington has eased its demands, according to current and former officials. Christopher Hill, the US negotiator on North Korea, has reached a tentative deal under which North Korea would "acknowledge" US concerns on uranium and proliferation to Syria in a secret side-agreement. The main public declaration would state how much plutonium North Korea had harvested for nuclear weapons. [Backdown] [Declaration]
• Republicans hit at US deal with N Korea
  By Demetri Sevastopulo and Daniel Dombey in Washington Tuesday Apr 15 2008 19:40 Senior Republicans on Tuesday criticised a tentative US deal with North Korea that would allow Pyongyang to avoid revealing the full extent of its nuclear ­programmes as part of a broader agreement towards denuclearising the Korean peninsula. Christopher Hill, the senior US envoy on North Korea, last week briefed the House on a deal that would see North Korea "acknowledge", in a secret document, US allegations about nuclear proliferation to Syria and a possible rudimentary uranium-enrichment programme. Under the deal, still being finalised, North Korea would provide a full declaration of only its plutonium programme, which produced the nuclear weapon it tested in 2006.
  The US administration has privately accused North Korea of helping Damascus construct a nuclear reactor that Israel destroyed in an air strike last September. Mr Royce said that the administration had not provided Congress with sufficient information about those ­allegations. [Syria] [Evidence] [Backdown] [Dissension] [Declaration]
• Congress to scrutinise N Korea nuclear deal
  By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Tuesday Apr 15 2008 21:55 The US administration's compromise deal with North Korea over the form of a nuclear declaration by Pyong­yang is likely to come under close scrutiny on Capitol Hill. Chris Hill, the US negotiator on North Korea, last week briefed the House foreign relations committee on the tentative deal, which would eliminate the obligation for Pyongyang to reveal the full extent of its nuclear activities and pave the way for the next stage of the six-party talks.
  [Backdown] [Declaration]
• Washington Greets Deal With N.Korea With Skepticism
  Some U.S. government officials and congressmen have expressed opposition to a tentative deal reached with North Korea in Singapore last week regarding the North’s overdue declaration of all its nuclear programs and stockpiles. One deputy secretary in the Bush administration says the Singapore deal does not clearly specify Pyongyang's proliferation record and uranium enrichment program, which have hitherto been key sticking points in the matter. [Declaration] [Dissension]
• Nuclear Deal Has Bush's Blessing
  U.S. President George W. Bush has agreed to a tentative deal reached between Washington and Pyongyang in Singapore early this month on North Korea's overdue declaration of all its nuclear programs and stockpiles, the White House said Monday.
• U.S. Wants N.Korea to Declare Nuclear Warheads
  The U.S. is asking North Korea to include a full account of the number of nuclear warheads it has produced in its declaration of nuclear programs and stockpiles. According to a South Korean government source, the U.S. has decided to allow the North to "indirectly acknowledge" its uranium enrichment program and nuclear proliferation to Syria, but the North must declare its weapons-grade plutonium. This means the U.S. wants the North to document the total amount of plutonium, the number of nuclear warheads, and the logbook of the Yongbyon atomic reactor and nuclear reprocessing facility and their operation. [Declaration] [Backdown] [Distraction]
• NY Times: 'Imperfect' N.Korea Deal May Be 'Only Choice'
  An editorial in the New York Times on Sunday said the tentative deal reached between Washington and Pyongyang in Singapore early this month on North Korea's overdue nuclear declaration "is an imperfect solution. But, presuming the deal isn't weakened even more, it may be the only choice." In the editorial entitled "Now He is Ready to Deal," the newspaper wrote, "the hard-liners are right on one thing: No commitment from North Korea should ever be taken at face value." It said that North Korea will likely never trade its nuclear capability, "even for vastly better diplomatic and economic ties with the world."
• Now He’s Ready to Deal
  Published: April 19, 2008 President Bush’s latest compromise for ending North Korea’s nuclear program is agitating critics — outside his administration and in. It is an imperfect solution. But imperfect may be all one can expect after Mr. Bush wasted so much time refusing to consider any compromise at all. [HEU] [Partisan] Agreed Framework
• US Team to Verify NK's Plutonium, Nuclear Warheads
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The United States is asking North Korea to disclose how much plutonium it has produced and how many nuclear warheads it has made, in efforts to verify the communist state's past and current nuclear activities, a diplomatic source here said Monday. Pyongyang accepted the request in principle, the source said on condition of anonymity.
  Reports said Washington was scaling back its demands about what North Korea to declare, following talks between American and North Korean nuclear envoys in Singapore earlier this month. U.S. chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, agreed on a tentative deal in which the North would ``acknowledge'' concerns about its uranium enrichment program and transfer of nuclear technology to Syria in a secret side agreement with the United States, they said. The main declaration would refer only to the acknowledged plutonium-based weapons operation, according to the reports. [Declaration] [Backdown] [Distraction]
• Bush Still Waits for North Korean Nuclear Report
  By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: April 20, 2008 President Bush and South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, said that there was a chance for progress on eliminating North Korea's nuclear arms program. [Declaration]
• U.S. Team Headed to Pyongyang in Search of 'Significant Progress'
  Sung Kim, chief Korea expert for the State Department, will lead the U.S. team to the North Korean capital. (By Ahn Young-joon -- Associated Press)
  By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Tuesday, April 22, 2008; Page A11
  SEOUL, April 21 -- For the first time since the United States eased demands on North Korea for nuclear disclosure, a U.S. delegation is headed to the communist state to try to verify the extent of its nuclear program. Led by Sung Kim, a senior State Department expert on Korea, the interagency delegation arrived here late Monday and was scheduled to drive north to Pyongyang on Tuesday across the heavily fortified border. "Everything is subject to verification," Kim told reporters after arriving here. He said that he hoped the visit would bring "significant progress" and that he expected detailed discussion of a much-delayed declaration North Korea has promised about its nuclear program. [Declaration] [Media]
• North Korean Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States
  By Steven A. Hildreth April 17th, 2008 Steven A. Hildreth, Specialist in Missile Defense and Non-Proliferation in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, writes, “Within possible range of the Taepo Dongs are U.S. military facilities in Guam (3,500 km), Okinawa, and Japan… In this configuration, it is estimated that it could deliver a 700 - 1,000 kg warhead to a range of 2,500 km, which could put Japan and Okinawa within range. For the Taepo Dong 1 to achieve greater range its payload would have to be decreased. Some analysts speculate that a reduced payload configuration could deliver a 200 kg warhead into the U.S. center and a 100 kg warhead to Washington D.C., albeit with poor accuracy." [Inversion]
• Past Deals by N. Korea May Face Less Study
  By HELENE COOPER Published: April 18, 2008
  WASHINGTON — The Bush administration appears to be preparing to back away from a demand that North Korea fully disclose all of its past nuclear weapons activities, in an attempt to preserve a nuclear agreement requiring it to disclose and dismantle the bulk of its nuclear weapons program. As described by administration officials on Thursday, the step would relax a demand for North Korea to admit fully that it supplied Syria with nuclear technology. The United States would also agree to postpone its demand that North Korea provide an immediate and full accounting of its fledgling uranium program. [Declaration] [HEU] [Backdown]
• (Waiting for) The Dawn of a New Era
  Ralph A. Cossa, Pacific Forum CSIS Brad Glosserman, Pacific Forum CSIS “It is always darkest just before the dawn of a new day” goes the old saying. Well, it looks pretty dark when it comes to U.S.-DPRK relations and the prospects for the Six-Party Talks, with no significant progress reported this quarter in the quest for a “complete and correct declaration” of North Korea’s nuclear programs and activities. Hope springs eternal, however, as both sides continued to work toward a much needed “third breakthrough” in the next quarter. [Declaration]
• U.S. lays out way to break N.Korea nuclear deadlock
  Fri Apr 11, 2008 1:20am EDT By Arshad Mohammed WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and North Korea may have found a way to break their deadlock over the long overdue North Korean declaration of its nuclear activities, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill on Thursday briefed lawmakers on a plan under which Washington would put forward its concerns about North Korea's suspected uranium enrichment program and nuclear proliferation. According to people familiar with the briefing, North Korea would then "acknowledge the U.S. concerns." This formula could provide a face-saving way for Pyongyang to produce the declaration of its atomic programs that was due by December 31, although skeptics questioned whether the United States should accept what it would yield as the "complete and correct" accounting North Korea has promised. [Declaration] [Media] [Inversion]
• Remarks Upon Departure From Six-Party Talks
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs U.S. Embassy Beijing, China April 9, 2008
• U.S. suggests handling N.K. proliferation, declaration
      A White House official indicated Thursday that North Korea's nuclear proliferation issues would be handled separately from the required declaration of the country's atomic inventory.   Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's senior director for Asia, said that the two issues are being "handled in a different manner."     A team of U.S. experts will go to Pyongyang next week to discuss related issues, he said.
• 'No Scaling Back Demands on N. Korea Nuke Report'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korean and U.S. Presidents pledged Saturday that they would not accept any temporary deal regarding North Korea's declaration on its nuclear programs. In a joint press availability at the Camp David U.S. presidential retreat in Virginia, Maryland, President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush urged North Korea to disclose a complete and verifiable list of past and current nuclear activities to meet promises made to participating nations at six-way nuclear talks. ``The burden of proof is there,'' Bush said. ``We've laid out ? they've made some promises, and we'll make a judgment as to whether they met those promises.''
  President Lee supported Bush's view, saying if North Korea's declaration or the verification is not satisfactory, it could cause ``serious problems.'' The remarks were made in response to a question about whether Washington was scaling back its demands about what North Korea has to declare following talks between American and North Korean chief nuclear negotiators in Singapore earlier this month. Reports said U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, agreed on a tentative deal in which the North would ``acknowledge'' concerns about its uranium enrichment program and transfer of nuclear technology to Syria in a secret side-agreement with the United States. The main declaration would refer only to the acknowledged plutonium-based weapons operation, they said. The U.S. President dismissed such reports ``rumors.'' [Declaration] [Dissension] [Backdown]  
• N. Korea Says It Produced 30 Kilograms of Plutonium, Japanese Daily Reports
  Reuters Monday, April 21, 2008; 2:02 AM TOKYO, April 21 - North Korea told the United States in December it has produced a total of around 30 kg (66 lbs) of plutonium, about 20 kg less than what the United States estimates, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday. The daily Tokyo Shimbun reported that North Korea's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Kye-gwan, told his U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill in North Korea last December the North had used about 18 kg of its plutonium stockpile for nuclear development and around 6 kg for its first and only underground nuclear test in October 2006.
• N.Korea Says It Has Deal With U.S.
    North Korea says it has reached agreement with the U.S. on its nuclear declaration and the political rewards it will receive from Washington. A spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry made the remarks Wednesday while briefing reporters about the results of a Tuesday meeting between the two countries’ chief negotiators to six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem in Singapore. The spokesman said the Singapore agreement "proved the effectiveness of talks" between Pyongyang and Washington. Since he spoke of an "agreement", the North and the U.S. are thought to have found common ground on North Korea’s disclosure of its nuclear activities and program, now nearly four months overdue, and the U.S.’ removal of the North from a terrorist sponsor list.
• Singapore talks bring nuclear deadlock closer to resolution
  Next round of six-party talks could take place in a month, provided U.S. and N. Korea approve recent agreements » Chief North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan arrives at Beijing International Airport for further talks with Chinese officials after meeting with his counterpart, Christopher Hill, in Singapore on April 9. The two negotiators could be close to resolving a months-long impasse over North Korea’s declaration of its nuclear programs.     "Both the United States and North Korea will want to clarify the current situation." This is a remark made by a high-ranking South Korean official close to the six-party talks aimed at dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The remark indicates that nuclear envoys from the two nations, who met on April 8 in Singapore, were unable to resolve the stalemate over the North’s declaration of its nuclear programs, which has resulted in a protracted deadlock in the six-party talks.   What are the things that both countries want to clarify at this moment? First of all, the North needs a guarantee from the United States that no further issues will be raised after agreement has been reached on its declaration of nuclear programs. Pyongyang’s worry is that even if the U.S. administration gives the guarantee, it will be anyone’s guess as to how the Congress will respond. The North also wants its name removed from the U.S. list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Meanwhile, the United States wants the North to cooperate in the process of declaring all of its nuclear activities, including the extent of its alleged uranium enrichment program and clarification of rumors that the communist country worked with Syria on nuclear development. Both countries need a powerful political guarantee from their highest ranking officials.
• Time for swift resolution of N. Korean nuclear issue
  Editorial]   It is expected that the North Korean nuclear issue will soon be resolved. Earlier this week in Singapore, chief negotiators from Pyongyang and Washington temporarily agreed to have the North submit its declaration of its nuclear programs in two separate documents, an official declaration to be made public and an unofficial one that will remain confidential, and are waiting for further instruction from their governments. There are some remaining issues that will need to be tied up, but fortunately the two nations have taken the first step toward the resolution of the problem and establishment of peace on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea has played a significant role in breaking the nuclear impasse between the North and the United States in the past, but has played the role of bystander this time around.
• North Korea announces arms deal
  April 10, 2008 North Korea said yesterday it has struck a deal with the United States to move forward with long-stalled negotiations to rid Pyongyang of its nuclear arms programs. ¡°As a result of the talks a consensus was reached on the U.S. measure to make political compensation and the [North¡¯s] nuclear declaration essential for winding up the implementation of the agreement,¡± the North¡¯s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released by the state media the Korean Central News Agency. Pyongyang, however, gave no specific details on what the compensation will be for disclosing a full list of its nuclear programs
• Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry on DPRK-U.S. Talks
  Pyongyang, April 9 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA on Wednesday as regards the DPRK-U.S. talks held in Singapore: The DPRK-U.S. talks were held in Singapore on April 8. The talks had an in-depth discussion on issues arising in implementing the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks. As a result of the talks a consensus was reached on the U.S. measure to make political compensation and the nuclear declaration essential for winding up the implementation of the agreement. The recent Singapore agreement fully proved the effectiveness of the DPRK-U.S. talks. We will follow the fulfillment of the commitments of those countries participating in the six-party talks. [Declaration] [Agreement071003]
• China: N. Korea Nuke Progress This Fall?
  SLIDESHOW Previous Next U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, second left, arrives to address the media after his meeting with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan Tuesday, April 8, 2008 in Singapore. Hill and Kim wrapped up negotiations after nearly eight hours of discussions. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) (Wong Maye-e - AP) By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN The Associated Press Wednesday, April 9, 2008; 9:00 AM BEIJING -- A breakthrough in North Korea nuclear talks may have to wait until this fall, China's top negotiator said Wednesday. Wu Dawei said the six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program were experiencing ups and downs. "We are gradually overcoming these ups and downs," Wu told reporters. Asked how long that would take, Wu replied, "Around the autumn." Progress in the talks has sputtered over North Korea's pledge to provide a full inventory of its nuclear activities and facilities. While Pyongyang insists it provided a list in November, the United States says it was incomplete
• U.S., N.Korea ‘Agree’ on Nuke Declaration
  The U.S. and North Korea on Tuesday reached tentative agreement on the declaration of the North's nuclear programs, an issue that has been shelved for more than three months. The top nuclear negotiators of the two countries were meeting in Singapore. If the two governments approve the deal, six-nation nuclear talks, which have been suspended since October, will likely resume in early May. Then the participating nations can begin discussions on verifying the accuracy of the declaration and the dismantlement of North Korean nuclear facilities.
  Hill and Kim met in Geneva last month and nearly reached a full agreement, but the North Korean envoy failed to get his government's approval at the last minute. At issue were North Korea's suspected uranium enrichment program -- an alternative to plutonium-based weapons production, and the transfer of nuclear technology and material to other countries. The North refused to admit to either, but sources indicated they have found a compromise under which Pyongyang would not deny the allegations. In their meeting, the two sides reportedly agreed on wording in the declaration, which will not be released to the public, regarding suspicions about the North's uranium enrichment program and transfer of nuclear technology to Syria. A diplomatic source said, "The wording in the declaration will probably persuade the U.S. Congress." [HEU] [Agreement070213] [Declaration]
• Progress Cited in Korea Nuclear Talks Impasse
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: April 9, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea and the United States made significant progress on Tuesday toward ending an impasse in talks aimed at revealing the full scale of the North’s nuclear weapons programs and dismantling them, top negotiators from both countries said.  
  North Korea has repeatedly denied having a uranium-enrichment program or providing nuclear expertise or materials to Syria. But Mr. Hill has been trying to get North Korea to at least acknowledge such the validity of such suspicions, according to officials in Seoul, who spoke on the condition of anonymity given the delicacy of the talks.   [Media] [HEU] [Declaration]
• US Yet to React Officially to NK Meeting
  WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice withheld formal reaction Tuesday to the latest nuclear talks with North Korea, saying she needs to assess what has been and remains to be done. The secretary said she has received only a preliminary report from Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state and top U.S. nuclear envoy, and would be speaking to him again later in the day.
• US: N. Korea Nuke Talks Must Be Resolved
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 8, 2008 Filed at 3:52 a.m. ET SINGAPORE (AP) -- The U.S. nuclear negotiator warned that time was running out Tuesday as he opened a new round of talks with his North Korean counterpart to resolve a deadlock over the communist nation's nuclear program
• Hill 'Hopeful' for Nuke Talks in S'pore
  The U.S. chief negotiator to six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear problem, Christopher Hill, arrived in Singapore Monday for talks with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan. The issue is North Korea’s refusal to produce a full declaration of nuclear activities and programs three months past the deadline. "We have had that problem in the last few months and we have done some work on this," Hill said. "We hope that some of this work will pay off."
• N. Korea having tantrums, so progress in talks may be near
  By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Monday, April 7, 2008 email | print tool nameclose tool goes here BEIJING — North Korea's huffing and puffing has grown louder in recent weeks, and in the strange world of Pyongyang diplomacy that might be a good sign. The bigger the fit, the more it's possible that a concession is near, experts said. In recent days, North Korea has fired short-range missiles into the sea, threatened to reduce South Korea to "ashes" and railed that Washington is lying about Pyongyang's alleged transfers of nuclear technology to Syria. On Tuesday, U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill will meet his North Korea counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Singapore for the latest talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program. North Korea has delayed delivering a declaration of all its nuclear activities, defying a December deadline and dimming prospects for the talks. Experts said it was a common tactic for North Korea to increase the bluster, even escalating tensions into full-blown crises, just before making concessions in talks. "One past pattern in North Korean negotiating behavior has involved an increase in public rhetoric or criticism of other parties as a way of masking a concession to internal audiences," said Scott Snyder, a senior associate at the Asia Foundation, which works to promote law and good governance in the region. [Media] [Inversion]
• U.S., N. Korea ‘to Fine-Tune Wording on Syria Connection’
  The U.S. and North Korea will talk about the North’s nuclear program in Singapore on Tuesday. The U.S.’ chief negotiator to six-nation talks on issue, Christopher Hill, will meet with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan to discuss the full declaration of nuclear activities and programs, which the North has delayed for more than three months.
• Israel concerned N. Korean nuclear know-how, material has reached Iran
  By Barak Ravid The United States and Israel seek to pressure North Korea to cease its nuclear cooperation with Iran, which is one of the motives behind their agreement to disclose details on the air-force strike in Syria last September. According to foreign press reports, the strike targeted a nuclear installation built with North Korean assistance. According to information obtained by Washington and Jerusalem, North Korea transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid Tehran's secret nuclear arms program. [Disinformation]
• (Maybe) denuclearizing North Korea
  By Axel Berkofsky for ISN Security Watch (19/03/08) Talking to North Korea about its nuclear program, alleged nuclear proliferation activities and missiles sales to fellow rogue states has never been easy.
• U.S. ‘Called N.Korea’s Bluff Over Syria’
  The U.S. in recent bilateral talks reportedly gave Pyongyang a list of North Korean officials involved in the supply of nuclear technology to Syria, a suspicion the North denies. A high-level diplomatic source on Monday said that the U.S. obtained the list of officials including nuclear engineers, who were involved in the supply of nuclear technology to Syria, through various intelligence networks. This persuaded the U.S. that the North Korea-Syrian nuclear connection did exist.
• N. Korea, U.S. set for crucial nuke talks in Singapore
  SEOUL, April 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and the United States will hold talks this week on efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis in a meeting crucial to President Bush's goal of leaving a major foreign policy legacy before his term expires. The talks to be held in Singapore on Tuesday between U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill and his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, raise hopes that the six-way talks on the nuclear crisis will soon be restarted after several months of hiatus.
• N. Korea, U.S. set for crucial nuke talks in Singapore
  North Korea and the United States will hold talks this week on efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis in a meeting crucial to President Bush's goal of leaving a major foreign policy legacy before his term expires.
• U.S. Conservative Hard-liners' Hindrance to Six-party Talks Assailed
  Pyongyang, April 1 (KCNA) -- Bolton, known to be a most hawkish element in the U.S., in an article contributed to the recent issue of the Wall Street Journal, asked the authorities to stop the six-party talks and increase the international pressure upon the DPRK. Rodong Sinmun today in a signed commentary carried in this regard says:
• Assistant Secretary Hill Comments on the Six-Party Talks
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Seoul, South Korea April 2, 2008 View Video http://video.state.gov/?fr_story=b6df41737c3036922e0047d5308d60378968da55 In particular we need to know what the plutonium situation is, but also we know that DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) was engaged in procurements of things for uranium enrichment, so we need to know that status. We also need to know what has gone on with any foreign nuclear cooperation. And we need to know that, it is, first of all, what went on and secondly that it stopped and thirdly that it won't be done again. I've said many times that we're very concerned about time. We're very concerned that we really need this wrapped up by the end of March, and here it is already after the end of March. So we'll have to see whether we can hear anything new from the DPRK on this in the next few days.
• Chris Hill: Interview With the Associated Press
  Christopher R. Hill, Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
  Jakarta, Indonesia April 4, 2008 QUESTION: Talk to us more generally. The United States also has nuclear weapons. Has that been ever brought up in your talks? Does it make it hard for you to argue that North Korea and Iran can’t have nuclear weapons while the United States has so many? ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I mean -- Frankly, you cannot begin to talk about the differences in the history and the country. So, no, in answer to you, it does not come up. What does come up from time as the North Koreans say, “Well, country X has nuclear weapons, why can’t we?” Well, the fact is, if you look at you look at Northeast Asia, if you look at the Korean Peninsula, you can pretty quickly -- I think within a few seconds, frankly -- understand why it’s very dangerous, very destabilizing for North Korea to be holding on the nuclear weapons. So, what of the thinking that country X or country Y or country Z has nuclear weapons, and why can’t they? The fact of the matter is, it’s very destabilizing, and frankly it is hurting North Korea profoundly. And I hope that they will come to understand that and give this thing up and get on with life. QUESTION: But the United States would never give up theirs. Why is that? ASSISTANT SECRETARY HILL: Well, I think it’s a broad question. But the whole issue of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the role of a nuclear states under Article VI to begin a process of reducing arsenals, this is something we actually worked on with the Soviet Union and then with the Russians. So, you know, there has been some build-down in arsenals, and I am sure in the future as we continue to work with other nuclear states, there’ll also be build-down. But I would really caution you in thinking this is somehow related to the fact that we have a country, North Korea, that has a myriad of problems and yet here they are trying to develop nuclear weapons. Released on April 2, 2008 [Double standards]
• Renewed urgency to rein in North Korea
  By Donald Kirk SEOUL - The United States ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow, corrected himself at once in remarks at a glittering dinner this week attended by some of the South's leading business people and diplomats. "If," he began, "no, when," he interjected hastily, "the efforts of [US nuclear envoy] Chris Hill finally bear fruit," the newly opened Korea Center of the Asia Society in New York "will be one of the ties that helps to bring it about". Vershbow was talking about the prospects for persuading North Korea finally to come up with a complete list of its nuclear inventory and get on with the next phase of disabling and dismantling its entire nuclear program.
• Stalemate at Six Party Talks, North Koreans Test Lee’s Policies Toward the North
  by Scott Rembrant (sr@keia.org) Six Party Talks: Following eight hours of bilateral meetings with DPRK Vice Minister Kim Gye-gwan in Geneva on March 13 and 14, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters, "It is pretty critical to get moving on this now. We are 10 weeks late already." The bilateral meetings were meant to broker a "complete and correct declaration" that satisfies U.S. demands for an accounting of past and current uranium enrichment and proliferation activities. Analysts speculate that the United States proposed that Pyongyang make a "complete and correct" public declaration regarding plutonium production, weapons, and programs at the Six Party Talks, while inking a secret side agreement with the United States declaring its past proliferation and uranium enrichment activities.

• DPRK Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Blasts U.S. Delaying Tactics in Solution of Nuclear Issue
  Pyongyang, March 28 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs released the following statement Friday blaming the U.S. for the deadlocked implementation of the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks: The implementation of the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks is at a deadlock due to the behavior of the U.S. The U.S. has not fulfilled its commitments as regards the lifting of the sanctions within the agreed period but insisted on its unreasonable demands concerning the nuclear declaration, thus throwing hurdles in the way of settling the issue. As clarified in the statement issued by the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 4, the DPRK worked out a report on the nuclear declaration and informed the U.S. side of this in November last year. And when the U.S. proposed to have a further discussion on the content of the report with the DPRK, the latter has shown so far such magnanimity as responding to such negotiations. Simple is the reason why the DPRK responded to the negotiations on the issue of the nuclear declaration. The Bush administration was so absurd as to raise the issue of "suspected uranium enrichment" in 2002, scuttling the DPRK-U.S. dialogue and straining the situation to an extreme pitch of tension. This pushed the DPRK to its access to nuclear weapons in the end. The DPRK rendered necessary sincere help in clarifying the issue raised by the U.S. side, taking into consideration the face of the Bush administration which was to blame for the former's access to nuclear weapons. When the U.S. side claimed that the issue of "suspected uranium enrichment" can be solved if the DPRK tells about whereabouts of the imported aluminum tubes, the DPRK took such a measure as an exception as allowing U.S. experts to see even sensitive military objects and providing them with samples. And when the U.S. side was the first to raise the issue of the "suspected nuclear cooperation with Syria," it asked the DPRK to reconfirm its commitment not to proliferate the nuclear technology as the relevant object of Syria was destroyed by the bombing of Israel, making it unnecessary to clarify it any longer. This "suspicion", too, had nothing to do with the DPRK. But it was so broadminded as to meet this request as a part of its sincere efforts to help implement the October 3 agreement. The DPRK has sincerely taken part in the negotiations taking the face of the U.S. side into consideration. However, the further the negotiations went on, the greater disappointment the attitude of the Bush administration brought to the DPRK. The U.S. side is playing a poor trick to brand the DPRK as a criminal at any cost in order to save its face. The DPRK can never fall victim to the Bush administration's move to justify its wrong assertion. Explicitly speaking, the DPRK has never enriched uranium nor rendered nuclear cooperation to any other country. It has never dreamed of such things. Such things will not happen in the future, too. Should the U.S. delay the settlement of the nuclear issue, persistently trying to cook up fictions, it will seriously affect the disabling of nuclear facilities which has been under way so far with a great deal of effort.
• N. Korea’s missile launch heightens tensions
  U.S. delays could ‘gravely affect’ disablement, N. Korea says
  Geopolitical tension on the Korean Peninsula increased significantly when North Korea test-fired several short-range missiles into the waters off its west coast on March 28, hours after it issued a statement denying allegations about a uranium enrichment program and nuclear cooperation with Syria, key sticking points in the six-party negotiations aimed at finding a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear standoff. The North’s actions came one day after it expelled 11 South Korean government officials from an inter-Korean economic cooperation office in the joint industrial complex of the North’s border city of Gaeseong (Kaesong). The "stern demonstrations" by North Korea were seen by experts as an orchestrated scheme to raise the stakes ahead of the April 9 National Assembly election in South Korea and a summit meeting on April 18 between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush. In less than two days, the strain in inter-Korean relations heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula and among the related nations.  
• The messages behind the missile test
  [Analysis] N. Korea’s actions reveal the importance of timing and intention » Former President Roh Moo-hyun visited the Gaeseong Industrial Complex at the conclusion of the inter-Korean summit in October 2007.   Pyongyang test-fired several short-range missiles off the western coast on March 28 following the expulsion of 11 South Korean officials from the Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex on the previous day. These measures, combined with a statement issued by the North Korean Foreign Ministry prior to the missile launch regarding its nuclear programs, have multiple purposes.   Above all, the North could not have chosen more perfect timing for its actions. By test-firing the missiles and issuing the statement as South Korea’s Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hwan was wrapping up the final day of a diplomatic visit to both China and the United States, North Korea has sent a clear message. The launch also comes just as President Lee Myung-bak has begun to implement his new unification policy and line up his staff.
• North Korea Test-Fires Missiles In Ongoing Show of Truculence
  A South Korean man in a traditional dress walks by displays of North Korea's Scud-B missile, center in green, and other South Korean missiles at Korea War Memorial Museum in Seoul, South Korea. North Korea has test-fired several short-range missiles off its western coast, a news report said Friday. (Lee Jin-man - AP) By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, March 29, 2008; Page A09 TOKYO, March 28 -- North Korea test-fired a volley of missiles into the sea Friday and warned that it may stop disabling its nuclear facilities unless the United States drops its demands for more details about the North's nuclear arsenal. The missile launch and the combative warning -- which accused the Bush administration of "persistently trying to cook up fictions" -- came one day after the North expelled 11 South Korean officials from an industrial park north of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas. South Korea downplayed the missile firings, characterizing them as part of a routine military exercise [Media]
• Tokyo Missile Defense Now Complete
  By MARI YAMAGUCHI The Associated Press Saturday, March 29, 2008; 3:22 AM TOKYO -- Japan installed the final piece of a missile defense system for Tokyo on Saturday, a day after North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles. Air Self-Defense Forces personnel set up a land-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile intercepter system at the Kasumigaura base in Ibaraki prefecture (state), just northeast of Tokyo, regional defense official Keisuke Tanaka said.   [Media] [Missile defense] [Japanese remilitarisation]
• NKorea Blasts US Delays in Nuke Dispute
  Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:53 PM EDTworld-news, united-states, nuclear, north-korea, koreasAssociated Press North Korean soldiers look at southern side at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, South Korea, Wednesday, March 26, 2008. South Korea's foreign minister said Tuesday he would discuss how to revive stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later this week. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon) North Korea blamed the United States for the deadlock in their nuclear negotiations, warning Friday that the Americans' attitude could "gravely" affect ongoing disablement of its atomic facilities. The North's Foreign Ministry said the communist nation had done its best to clear U.S. suspicions that it pursued a uranium-based atomic bomb program and also transferred nuclear technology to Syria, but Washington was sticking to its "wrong" claims. "The United States is clinging to shabby magic to make us a criminal in order to save face," the ministry said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency. "If the United States keeps delaying the resolution of the nuclear issue ... it could gravely affect disablement of nuclear facilities," it said. [Agreement070213] [Renege]
• N.K. test-fires missiles into West Sea: sources
  North Korea threatened Friday to slow down the process for disablement of its key nuclear facilities unless the U.S. drops its "unjust" demand for Pyongyang to clear up suspicions over its suspected uranium enrichment program.   "If the U.S. keeps insisting what does not exist exists and delays the settlement of the nuclear issue, it would have a serious impact on the disablement of nuclear facilities," an unidentified spokesman for the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency.
• Letter from Foreign Minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Secretary General of the United Nations
  In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful
    Excellency, In view of the unlawful engagement of the Security Council in the issue of the peaceful nuclear activities of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the illegal measures taken in this regard, I would like to draw your Excellency’s attention to the following observations with respect to this process and the adopted Security Council resolutions, including the recent one (1803) as well as the damages inflicted on the Islamic Republic of Iran as a result of malicious steps taken by  few countries during the last five years:
• US warns North Korean politics could scuttle nuclear deal
  Agence France-Presse - 3/26/2008 1:39 AM GMT The United States warned Tuesday that internal politics in North Korea could scuttle a deal in which the hardline communist state would have to end its nuclear weapons drive. Christopher Hill, the chief US envoy to the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear arms pursuit, said Pyongyang had informed Washington on a number of occasions that it wanted to reach the deal before President George W. Bush left office in January 2009. "But the question is whether they are prepared to follow through," he said at a Washington forum of the Atlantic Council of the United States. "North Korea is a country that has a very vertically oriented governing structure to be sure -- but this is on live TV, I think, so I have to be a little diplomatic about that -- but at the same time it is place for politics," Hill said, referring to the numerous broadcasting networks covering the event. "And so I think it is fair to say that there are people in North Korea who really are not with the program here, really rather continue to be producing this plutonium for whatever reason," he said. [Victim] [Dissension]
• Koreas open working-group meeting on energy aid
  South Korea and North Korea began talks on ways of providing the North with energy and other economic aid Thursday as scheduled, officials said, despite reports of strained inter-Korean ties after the South's conservative government took office a month ago.
• Kim's Realm Shows Signs Of a Rift
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 27, 2008; Page A11 North Korean military and industrial officials are "extremely unhappy" with the unprecedented access that U.S. diplomats were given to a missile factory last year, suggesting a split within the North Korean government about a pending deal to abandon its nuclear weapons, according to reports for Congress prepared by a staff member and a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory who recently traveled to Pyongyang. Keith Luse, an aide to Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), and Siegfried S. Hecker, a former Los Alamos director now at Stanford University, spent four days in North Korea last month as negotiations remained stalled on whether North Korea would submit a complete declaration of its nuclear programs, as called for in the six-nation deal reached in February 2007. North Korea maintains that it fully disclosed its nuclear activities last year, but it has slowed its disabling of a nuclear facility because the other parties have fallen behind in providing promised fuel oil. The other countries, led by the United States, said technical glitches led to the delivery delays but said North Korea has failed to disclose its interest in uranium enrichment and whether it cooperated with Syria in an alleged nuclear program destroyed by Israeli fighters last September. The declaration was due Dec. 31. [Dissension] [Victim] [Agreement070213] [Backdown]
• Report of Visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK). Pyongyang and the Nuclear Center at Yongbyon, Feb. 12 - 16, 2008.
  Prof. Siegfried S. Hecker, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
  My visit was sponsored by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. I was accompanied by W. Keith Luse, staff member for Senator Richard Lugar, and Joel S. Wit, former State Department official. This was my fifth visit to the DPRK, and the third to Yongbyon. Discussions in Pyongyang were held with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At Yongbyon, we were hosted by officials from the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and officials from the General Department of Atomic Energy. This report is confined to the nuclear issues. I also met with officials from the Ministry of Public Health and the Ministry of Education to explore cooperation in those areas. Executive Summary: - Our visit leads me to conclude that the DPRK leadership has made the decision to permanently shut down plutonium production if the United States and the other four parties live up to their Oct. 3, 2007 commitments.
  - MFA officials also stated that they view the uranium enrichment issue settled. They explained that the extraordinary access U.S. specialists were given to the aluminum tubes in question at a missile factory demonstrates that the DPRK has no such program. They dismissed allegations that they received centrifuges from Pakistan. They also denied nuclear cooperation with Syria and other countries. When pressed on this issue, they reiterated that they stand by their Oct. 3 commitment not to transfer nuclear materials, technology or know-how to other countries.
  With regard to uranium enrichment, MFA officials told us that they have resolved this issue with the Americans. They gave U.S. experts access to the aluminum tubes in question at a missile factory and demonstrated that these were not used for enrichment purposes. In response to my question about reports of A.Q. Kahn having sold them centrifuges, they said “that’s your story.” I told them that, in fact, it was Pakistani President Musharraf’s story since he stated this in his recent book. They responded that they have no uranium enrichment connections to Pakistan. We were told that DPRK military and industrial officials were extremely unhappy with the access the Americans were granted and with the fact that they were given samples of the aluminum tubes in question. When I asked to visit this factory, I was told that neither I, nor anyone else, will get access again. Clearly, they were unhappy with the consequences of having giving the U.S. access and samples
  It is very likely that the DPRK had a uranium enrichment research effort, but unlikely that it came close to commercial scale. Therefore, the United States should continue to press for a “complete and correct” declaration, but not allow this to impede completing the disablement and moving on to dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear complex.
• Summary statement by Dr. Siegfried S. Hecker about visit to DPRK (North Korea), Feb. 12. – 16, 2008.
  The delegation consisted of: Prof. Siegfried S. Hecker, Co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. Mr. Joel Wit, former State Department official. Mr. W. Keith Luse, Staffer for Senator Richard Lugar, U.S. Senate.
  Siegfried S. Hecker statement: 1) We visited the Yongbyon Nuclear Center on Feb. 14 to assess the disablement actions in the Oct. 3 six-party agreement. The Yongbyon nuclear facilities are shut down and are being monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The disablement actions at the three key nuclear facilities are almost complete. I judge these to be serious actions that will require significant time and effort to restart the facilities.
  DPRK has slowed the rate of removing spent fuel rods because it is waiting for the other five parties to catch up with their compensating measures (such as the rate of delivery of heavy fuel oil). We found the level of cooperation between the DPRK nuclear specialists and the U.S. team that is supervising the disablement to be excellent. [Agreemeent070213]
• Photos from Hecker, Wit, Luse visit
  
• Statement of Christopher R. Hill to Senate Foreign Relations Committee
  Statement of Christopher R. Hill Assistant Secretary of State Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee February 6, 2008 Status of the Six-Party Talks for the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula While we have had discussions of a declaration with the DPRK, the DPRK did not meet the December 31, 2007 deadline for this commitment, and we have still not received such a declaration. [Agreement070213] [HEU] [Disinformation]
• Nuclear is UK's new North Sea oil – minister
  Hutton claims expansion could be worth £20bn and bring 100,000 jobs Andrew Sparrow and Patrick Wintour The Guardian, Wednesday March 26 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Guardian on Wednesday March 26 2008 on p1 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 00:04 on March 26 2008.  Photograph: Charles O'Rear/Corbis A government minister will call today for a huge expansion of Britain's nuclear power in what he predicts could be a £20bn economic bonanza that will create 100,000 new jobs and benefit the economy as much as North Sea oil. In an ambitious speech that will alarm the anti-nuclear lobby, John Hutton, the business secretary, will argue that the UK's nuclear programme should go beyond replacing the existing stock of 23 reactors, which provide 20% of the country's energy. Instead nuclear should contribute "a significantly higher proportion" of the nation's energy needs in the years ahead, and Britain should aim to become a world leader in the development of nuclear power technology. [Nuclear energy]
• Possibilities for a Nuclear-Free World
  Lawrence S. Wittner and Jayantha Dhanapala
  Introduction In the following opinion piece, which appeared in the March 20, 2008 issue of the Asahi Shimbun, Jayantha Dhanapala—the distinguished former Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations—not only makes the case for a nuclear-free world, but argues that it is a viable possibility. In Dhanapala's view, the campaign to abolish nuclear weapons has acquired significant momentum thanks to the initiative of four former senior U.S. government officials: George Shultz (Ronald Reagan's secretary of state), Henry Kissinger (Richard Nixon's secretary of state), William Perry (Bill Clinton's secretary of defense), and Sam Nunn (former chair of the senate armed services committee). In January 2007 and, again, in January 2008, they published powerful opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal that outlined the need for a nuclear-free world, as well as steps in that direction. Since that time, Dhanapala notes, there has been important follow-up to this initiative by other former national security officials and nuclear experts. As none of these former U.S. government officials showed much interest in the idea of abolishing nuclear weapons in the past, how should we account for their newfound zeal? Part of the answer seems to lie in their fear that terrorists will acquire and use nuclear weapons. [nuclear weapons] [Terrorism] [US military dominance]
• India successfully test-fires Agni-I
  Sunday, 23 March , 2008, 11:39 Last Updated: Sunday, 23 March , 2008, 12:32 Balasore (Orissa): India today successfully test-fired its nuclear-capable surface-to-surface Agni-1 missile from the Wheelers Island, a defence base in the Bay of Bengal on Orissa coast. “It was the second user's trial of this sophisticated missile,” officials associated with the trial said. The last trial was conducted on October 5, 2007 from the same launch site. [Double standards]
• France Adds Nuclear Sub and Vows to Cut Warheads
  By STEVEN ERLANGER Published: March 22, 2008 PARIS — Dedicating France’s fourth nuclear-armed submarine, President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday defended his country’s arsenal as vital to deter a range of new threats, including the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran with intercontinental missiles. “The security of Europe is at stake,” he said, conflating the Continent’s interests with those of France. [Double standards] [Nuclear weapons]
• US envoy suggests split over N Korea
  By Daniel Dombey in Washington
  Published: February 6 2008 22:06 | Last updated: February 6 2008 22:06
  The US administration is divided over whether its attempt to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons is paying off, Christopher Hill, the US official responsible for negotiations with Pyongyang, suggested on Wednesday. But in testimony before the Senate, Mr Hill issued a stout defence of the six party talks that seek to convince North Korea to denuclearise, despite missed deadlines in recent weeks. The Bush administration had hoped for a breakthrough on North Korea to cap its foreign policy record in its final year in office but the pace of progress has become a hot topic in Washington. North Korea has failed to provide a complete declaration of its nuclear activities to the US’s satisfaction, despite a December 31 deadline, and has also slowed down work “disabling” its Yongbyon reactor, which has produced plutonium for its nuclear bombs. While acknowledging the other major parts of disablement had been completed, Mr Hill said shifts at Yongbyon to remove spent fuel rods had come down from three a day to one. He linked this to a dispute over fuel oil, noting the US and other countries have so far delivered only a fifth of the 1m tons promised.
  The US and Pyongyang were still in dispute over uranium enrichment – an alternative path to weapons grade material. But Mr Hill indicated any enrichment programme may now have been abandoned, revealing that some of the aluminium tubes that would be essential for an enrichment programme had now been used by North Korea for other weapons programmes. [Dissension] [Agreement070213] [Renege] [US NK policy] [HEU] [Evidence]
• North rejects U.S. offer as hopes for talks fade
  March 21, 2008 WASHINGTON North Korea continued to insist during talks in Geneva last week that it doesn't have any highly enriched uranium and that it didn't export any nuclear materials to Syria, according to several sources in Washington who declined to be named.
  Christopher Hill, Washington's special envoy to the nuclear talks, suggested to his North Korean counterpart, Kim Gye-gwan, that North Korea confidentially declare its highly enriched uranium program, the sources said, while openly declaring less controversial issues such as its level of plutonium. But Kim refused to do so, the sources said.
  "We did not have, we don't have and we will not have [them] ", Kim told reporters in Geneva last week, referring to the alleged secret uranium enrichment program and connections to a nuclear program in Syria. Because the talks between the two key members of the six-party talks ended with little progress, prospects to revive the fading nuclear discussions are dimming. [HEU] [Media]
• Top negotiators meet to overcome nuclear deadlock
  Dual declaration, one public and one confidential, may allow Pyongyang to come clean on its nuclear programs Washington and Pyongyang are scheduled to meet on March 13 in Geneva to try to make progress on the North Korean nuclear issue, which has stalled in recent months due to disagreements over North Korea’s uranium enrichment program, or UEP, and delivery of energy aid.   The United States reportedly hopes to break the deadlock with a new plan to allow both nations express their respective positions. The plan involves the creation of two documents made via confidential minutes that will be taken at the meeting, which is scheduled to last for two days. One of these documents is to be an official agreement made by the United States and North Korea, the other will be a more detailed, but confidential, document kept between the two nations.   North Korea has not admitted to having pursued a uranium enrichment program, and the resolution is aimed at clarifying North Korea’s position, while satisfying the U.S. demand for a full declaration from the North. [HEU]
• Idling on North Korea
  [Editorial] Nuclear negotiators Kim Kye-gwan, of North Korea, and Christopher Hill, of the United States, meet in Geneva today to find a way to get the impasse over Pyongyang declaring its nuclear capabilities out of the way. Those who are part of these negotiations are feeling considerable tension, because if they are unable to find points of compromise this time around as well, it will be hard to move to the disablement step of the process during the Bush administration’s final term. Depending on how things go, the very framework of the six-party talks could be at risk.
• U.S. Flexibility on North Korea Deal Has Limits: Envoy
  By REUTERS Published: March 12, 2008 Filed at 5:40 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States insists on receiving a "complete and correct" North Korean disclosure of its nuclear activities under a disarmament-for-aid pact but can be flexible on the form of that statement, the U.S. envoy to atomic talks with Pyongyang said on Wednesday. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill will meet his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-Gwan on Geneva on Thursday to discuss a 2005 deal under which Pyongyang agreed to abandon its nuclear programs.
• North Korea Now: Will the Clock Be Turned Back?
  By Georgy Toloraya
  Policy Forum Online 08-021A: March 13th, 2008 Georgy Toloraya, Visiting Fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institute, writes, "If the hard-line approach persists on both sides, the future is predictable. It would likely be a repetition of the past: after a series of mutual steps increasing tensions and driving relations into yet another dead-end, the opponents (probably with a changed administration on the U.S. side) will get back to discussing the same issues from square one, again discovering there is no alternative to engagement and small-step tactics leading to gradual solutions, one by one." [Agreement070213] [HEU] [Admission]
• US firm, CEO admit weapon, nuclear-linked export violations
  WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US company and the Indian head of an international firm have admitted to violating laws on export of weapons technology and nuclear power testing equipment to India, the US Justice Department said Thursday. Decade-long US sanctions over illegal Indian nuclear tests prohibit US-based companies from exporting certain goods and services to India. Parthasarathy Sudarshan, the Indian CEO of Cirrus Electronics with offices in the United States, Singapore and India, pleaded guilty in Washington Thursday to a charge of shipping restricted weapons technology to the Indian government. He admitted exporting controlled microprocessors and electronic components to Indian state entities involved in developing ballistic missiles, space launch vehicles and fighter jets. [Proliferation] [India confrontation]
• US Awaiting North Korea's Nuclear List
  By FOSTER KLUG WASHINGTON (AP) — North Korea is not prepared to hand over a promised list detailing all its nuclear efforts, the chief U.S. negotiator for disarmament talks said Wednesday. The communist nation must act soon if international talks are to move ahead on efforts to rid the North of nuclear weapons by year's end, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters. "There's a great deal on the table that is in their interest, but they have to understand that we cannot, at the end of the day, permit them to hold on to nuclear material," Hill said. "I've said it to them 50 times, and I'll be happy to say it another 50 times." Hill said he is trying to make North Korea understand that negotiators cannot accept a declaration that does not address U.S. claims of a secret uranium enrichment program and past nuclear proliferation. "It is not politically sustainable," said Hill, who met last week with his North Korean counterpart, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan. North Korea denies it ran a secret uranium program. [HEU] [media] [Disinformation]
• The Weakest Link,
  by Victor Cha
    A coalition is only as strong as its weakest link. The multilateral six-party talks aimed at getting Kim Jong-il to give up his nuclear weapons permanently and verifiably appear to be in trouble. There was demonstrable progress in 2007 with two agreements that achieved the reintroduction of international inspectors into North Korea for the first time since 2002, and the implementation of a process to disable or render inoperable the North's bomb-making capabilities. Pyongyang has undercut this momentum with its refusal to provide a "correct and complete" declaration of all of its nuclear weapons, programs, and related activities by the December 31, 2007 deadline. Without this declaration, the six parties cannot move to the third and final phase of the negotiations in 2008 which entails hammering out an agreement on the dismantlement and removal of the weapons and materials.
• Idling on North Korea
  [Editorial] Nuclear negotiators Kim Kye-gwan, of North Korea, and Christopher Hill, of the United States, meet in Geneva today to find a way to get the impasse over Pyongyang declaring its nuclear capabilities out of the way. Those who are part of these negotiations are feeling considerable tension, because if they are unable to find points of compromise this time around as well, it will be hard to move to the disablement step of the process during the Bush administration’s final term. Depending on how things go, the very framework of the six-party talks could be at risk.
• Geneva DPRK-U.S. Talks Held
  Pyongyang, March 18 (KCNA) -- The DPRK-U.S. talks took place in Geneva on March 13 and 14. The talks had an in-depth discussion on the differences that exist between the two countries as regards the implementation of the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks. Both sides agreed to sit face to face with each other and continue the discussion to seek ways of solving the problems arising in implementing the above-said agreement in the future, too.
• Pakistani Says He Saw North Korean Nuclear Devices
  By DAVID E. SANGER
  Published: April 13, 2004 Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who sold nuclear technology around the world, has told his interrogators that during a trip to North Korea five years ago he was taken to a secret underground nuclear plant and shown what he described as three nuclear devices, according to Asian and American officials who have been briefed by the Pakistanis. [Evidence] [Disinformation] [Pakistan]
• The North Korean Uranium Challenge
  By DAVID E. SANGER
  Published: May 24, 2004 The discovery that North Korea may have supplied uranium to Libya poses an immediate challenge to the White House: while President Bush is preoccupied on the other side of the world, an economically desperate nation may be engaging in exactly the kind of nuclear proliferation that the president says he went to war in Iraq to halt. Yet to listen to many in the White House, concern about North Korea's nuclear program brings little of the urgency that surrounded the decision 14 months ago to oust Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Bush has been asked about North Korea in recent months, he has emphasized his patience. He does not refer to the intelligence estimates that North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons, or to the debate within the American intelligence community about whether North Korea has spent the past 18 months building more. [Disinformation] HEU] [Proliferation]
• U.S., N. Korea to Work Toward Ending Weapons Impasse
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, March 12, 2008; Page A08 Top U.S. and North Korean diplomats will gather in Geneva tomorrow amid signs that the two sides, with the help of China, have structured a diplomatic framework that could resolve an impasse that has blocked a deal to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programs. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, will meet with North Korean counterpart Kim Gye Gwan for one or two days. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We're focused on trying to move the process forward." Under an agreement reached in February 2007, North Korea was to have declared all of its nuclear programs and materials by the end of the year. Pyongyang admitted to possessing 30 to 40 kilograms of plutonium, U.S. officials said, but balked at providing full details about a suspected uranium enrichment program and about whether it had cooperated with Syria in an alleged nuclear program destroyed by Israeli fighters last September.
• Disunited Nations: A Nuclear Falling Out
  By Bob Rigg
  Former senior editor, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Former chair, NZ National Consultative Committee on Disarmament
  Our world does not remotely resemble that of 1945. But the antediluvian decision making structure of the UN, which locates almost all real power in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and its five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States – is unchanged. ….
  Israel, which went nuclear four decades ago, now possesses about 200 nuclear warheads, more than India and Pakistan combined. Regional Arab states have for decades been whistling into the wind for Israel to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and to subject its illegally acquired nuclear capability to the IAEA’s inspection and verification regime. The nuclear club simply looked the other way, as it has done recently with India and Pakistan, which are also outside the NPT. One rule applies to the political friends of the US, while another applies to its perceived enemies, such as North Korea and Iran. This major political inconsistency is tearing a gaping hole in the fabric of the treaty. [NPT] [Double Standards]
• The losers' game
  Diplomatic manoeuvres to force Iran to prove a negative about its halted nuclear weapons programme ... now where have I seen that before? Scott Ritter March 6, 2008 10:30 PM | Printable version With all the courage of conviction that comes from being anonymously sourced, a "senior British diplomat" has cast doubt on the veracity of a recent US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003. This unnamed official was backed up by Simon Smith, the British representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who noted that a recent briefing given by the IAEA had raised doubts about Iran's claims that it never had a nuclear weapons programme
  I have seen this game played before: as a chief inspector with the United Nations in Iraq, I participated in similar efforts to construct briefings composed of fragmentary sourcing of questionable quality. The end product, comprising visually-pleasing organisations charts, communications diagrams and procurement records, was used to brief the security council members in an effort to strengthen their resolve to confront a recalcitrant Iraq. These briefings generated the myth of a retained Iraqi WMD capability, which lived on until proven false in the aftermath of the US-British invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Iraq had been placed in the impossible position of having to prove a negative, a doomed process which led to war. I am fearful that the EU-3 is repeating this same process, demanding Iran refute something that doesn't exist except in the overactive imaginations of diplomats pre-programmed to accept at face value anything negative about Iran, regardless of its veracity. The implications of such a morally and intellectually shallow posture could very well be disastrous. [Evidence] [Disinformation]
• India softpedals on nuclear deal as left adamant
  Fri Mar 7, 2008 9:45pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] 1 of 1Full SizeNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's coalition government has virtually ruled out signing a controversial nuclear deal with the United States without the support of its communist allies, sparking fresh uncertainty about the fate of the pact. The communists oppose what they see as a strategic alliance with the U.S., and have threatened to withdraw vital support from the ruling coalition if it moves ahead with the deal. [Nuclear deal]
• Nuclear States’ Double Standards
  By Valerie Epps From time to time, the world community becomes concerned that a country, or other entity, not currently possessing nuclear weapons, might be on the road to acquiring them. First it was Iraq, then it was Iran or al-Qaida. Recently, the discussion has shifted to trying to persuade the North Koreans to abandon further development of nuclear weapons. Most people are rightly convinced that the fewer nuclear weapons there are, and the fewer people with access to such weapons, the better off we all are. But there is something decidedly odd about the structure of the legal argument about the right to possess nuclear weapons. [Double standards] [NPT]
• India aspires for atomic weapons-free world: Ansari
  NEW DELHI: India aspires for a non-violent, atomic weapons-free world and believes that the international community should conclude “universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable prohibitions on nuclear weapons” leading to their complete elimination, Vice-President Hamid Ansari said here on Sunday
  He said India, which first proposed the principles for a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1965, refused to sign the NPT when it became clear that instead of addressing the objective of universal and comprehensive non-proliferation, the treaty only “legitimised the continuing possession and multiplication of nuclear stockpiles by those few States possessing them.” [Double standards] [NPT]
• Hutton’s nuclear future for UK power
  By Jean Eaglesham Chief Political Correspondent Published: March 5 2008 21:55 | Last updated: March 5 2008 21:55 The UK’s reliance on nuclear power will increase "significantly" over the next two decades, the business secretary said on Wednesday as he set out an expansive vision of the country’s atomic future. John Hutton told the Financial Times he expected the new generation of nuclear power stations the government wants to see built to supply much more of the country’s electricity than the 19 per cent the existing ones deliver.
• N.Korea Remains on U.S. Terror Sponsor List
  North Korea remains on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism for now. In a briefing Monday, State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said, "The report that will be released this month covers last year. So I don't think -- since North Korea was not removed from the terrorism list last year -- a report covering last year probably won't have anything new for you in that regard." The U.S. State Department in March every year releases a country report on global terrorism and state sponsors of terrorism in the previous year. The U.S. had considered striking North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism early this year. But North Korea has missed a deadline to make a full declaration of its nuclear programs and stockpiles, as agreed on in six-nation talks. [Terrorism list] [Renege]
• N.K claims 'no hurry' to break deadlock, blames U.S.
  By Shim Sun-ah SEOUL, March 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Wednesday it does not care about the U.S. presidential election and is "in no hurry" to resolve the dispute over its nuclear programs while the current U.S. administration is in office. Rodong Shinmun, organ of the North's ruling Korean Workers' Party, made the comment in an article titled "Hawkish policies will not work on us." "The U.S. implemented zero percent its commitment in six-party agreements to remove the DPRK from its list of terrorism-sponsoring countries and sanctions imposed under the Trading with the Enemy Acts," the daily said in a commentary. DPRK stands for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
  "Reality is like this. For what reason should we hurry up while the 'action-for-action' principle is not kept?" asked the commentary, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
  The six-party talks are now at a deadlock over Pyongyang's alleged provision of a full list of its nuclear programs. Under the terms of the six-party deal, the North was to have disabled all its nuclear facilities and declared all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007, in exchange for energy and political rewards. Washington also promised to take North Korea off the U.S. terrorism blacklist and remove economic sanctions as the denuclearization process moves forward. North Korea began disabling its key nuclear complex in Yongbyon in November, but slowed the disablement process earlier this year, accusing the U.S. and the four other members of the talks of failing to honor their pledges. Pyongyang claims it provided a full list of its nuclear programs in November but Washington insists it cannot remove the North from the list until it provides a full and accurate declaration of its nuclear programs. Angry hardline U.S. politicians have urged the Bush administration to call an end to six-party dialogue and employ a stronger policy toward North Korea, blaming the communist country's "delaying tactics" for the current impasse. Experts have called on Pyongyang to move quickly to resolve the nuclear dispute while President Bush is in office because he is keen to make progress in the denuclearization talks to offset his troubles in Iraq. They also say a McCain administration would likely take a much harder line on North Korea, while a Democratic party president may find his options limited by Republican opponents in the U.S. Congress. "We don't care who will become the next U.S. president," said Rodong Shinmun. "It's absurd and false that the U.S. hardline conservatives mislead public opinion to make it look as if we anticipate something from the next U.S. president." The North warned the U.S. will face an "ultra hawkish countermeasure" and the six-party efforts on the nuclear programs will come to nothing if Washington takes a tough policy against the communist state. sshim@yna.co.kr [Agreement070213] [Media]
• NKorea Dashes Hopes of Quick Disarmament
  U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill speaks during a news conference in Hanoi,Vietnam, Monday, March 3, 2008. The top American negotiator for the stalled six-nation talks on North Korean disarmament stopped Vietnam during his trips to Asia. (AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki) (Chitose Suzuki - AP) By BURT HERMAN The Associated Press Monday, March 3, 2008; 12:03 PM SEOUL, South Korea -- Less than a week after a soaring symphony raised hopes of detente on the Korean peninsula, North Korea leveled its latest tirade Monday against the U.S. military presence in South Korea to dash expectations of quick progress in its nuclear standoff. In a further setback, the main U.S. negotiator to the long-running arms talks with the North headed home Monday after lingering in the region for days following the New York Philharmonic's historic performance in Pyongyang last week _ and failing to win a meeting with his North Korean counterpart. U.S. officials had warned the goodwill generated by the emotional concert would be meaningless without the North fulfilling its requirements under an international accord reached last year. In exchange, the North is to receive aid and political concessions, including removal from U.S. terrorism and sanctions blacklists. [Inversion] [Media]
• Doors Still Closed in North Korea Same Day as Historic Concert, Officials Stayed Mum on Arms
  By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, March 1, 2008; Page A12 TOKYO, Feb. 29 -- Hours before the New York Philharmonic played a historic concert in North Korea, senior officials told a visiting U.S. contingent that they would prefer not to account for weapons-grade enriched uranium that the United States believes the government of Kim Jong Il has produced. At a lunch Tuesday in Pyongyang, the capital, the North Koreans also said they would prefer not to talk about alleged sales of nuclear material and technology to other countries, Evans Revere, a former U.S. diplomat, said Friday in Tokyo. North Korea wants those issues "set aside" for now while the United States fulfills commitments it made last year to provide the country with energy assistance and to lift diplomatic sanctions, he said. [Agreement070213] [HEU]
• Flogging a Dead Agreement
  Ninan Koshy | February 29, 2008
  The Indian government suddenly finds itself under intense and mounting U.S. pressure to complete a nuclear agreement during the present U.S. administration. “We don’t have all the time in the world,” Nicholas Burns bluntly said this month. One of the chief architects of the agreement and the U.S. undersecretary for political affairs, Burns was referring to the India-specific agreements with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and change of rules at the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG) that are necessary for the export of nuclear plants and equipment to India. He reminded the Indians that “this is an election year” in the USA and hoped “very much that this process can now be completed.” David C. Mulford, U.S. ambassador in New Delhi, similarly pressed for the conclusion of the agreement during the Bush administration. He suggested that it is almost “now or never” for New Delhi to get behind such a deal before non-proliferation groups force additional conditionalities. U.S. proponents of the deal conspicuously mention the U.S. nuclear industry’s prospects for trade with India. According to the Indian daily Telegraph reporting from Washington, “The administration’s deal makers with India have been gripped by a sudden sense of desperation that their calendar for orders worth billions of dollars in nuclear plants may be altered by the compulsions of domestic politics in India.” All this pressure coming from Washington, however, speaks more to desperation than anticipation of victory. The U.S.-India nuclear deal is likely on its last legs. [Nuclear deal] [NPT] [Double standards]
• UN Voting on Nuclear Disarmament Shows Abysmal US Record
  By David Krieger
  Each year the United Nations considers resolutions that seek to limit, control or eliminate the dangers that nuclear weapons pose to the inhabitants of the planet. In general, these resolutions can be described as nuclear disarmament measures.* In 2007, in the 62nd General Assembly of the United Nations, 20 resolutions on nuclear disarmament were considered. Of these, five were not voted upon. Of the 15 resolutions that were voted upon by the UN General Assembly in 2007, only one country in the world, the United States, had a record of opposing all of them. [Double standards] [UNUS]
• Iran can't shake the sanctions shackle
  By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
  The United States' push for a new round of United Nations sanctions on Iran has met a formidable obstacle in the form of a new Iran report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it is clear by now that the sooner the UN Security Council washes its hands of the Iran nuclear dossier, the better. The report by the director general of the IAEA, Mohammad ElBaradei, has been hailed by Iran as a "victory" since it confirms the satisfactory resolution of all the thorny "outstanding questions", including those on procurement activities, sources of contamination, Polonium-210, Gechine Mine, etc - "the one major exception" being "alleged weaponization studies". But, the nuclear agency, which has had extensive access to Iran's nuclear facilities, some on short notice - such as nine "unannounced" visits at Iran's uranium enrichment sites - in the same breath throws doubt on those "alleged studies" by categorically stating that it does not "have credible information in this regard". Nor has the agency "detected the use of material in connection with the alleged studies" - which Iran has categorically denied as "false and fabricated". Thus the question: Why should the IAEA attach so much importance to dubious information thrown at it by US intelligence that has all the markings of systematic disinformation? The IAEA said it had confronted Iran with Western intelligence reports of work linked to making atomic bombs. In a tone reminiscent of the Iraq fiasco, when Saddam Hussein was pressed to "prove the negative" over alleged weapons of mass destruction, ElBaradei's report sets the bar artificially very high by stating that for the agency to have confidence about Iran's nuclear program, it should "be able to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally importantly, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran". (The emphasis is the author's.) How does one prove a negative? [HEU] [Evidence] [Disinformation] [Iran]
• Australia offers India hope on uranium
  By Stephen de Tarczynski MELBOURNE - A deal for Australia to supply India with uranium could still be struck, even after Australia's recent confirmation that it will not be exporting the fuel to the sub-continent, reversing an agreement made by the previous government. Exporting uranium to India "will not occur under the new government because we have a long-standing commitment of not exporting uranium, Australian uranium, to nations who are not party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]," Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in late January during a visit to the United States.

• Britain joins U.S.-led nuclear power club
  Tue Feb 26, 2008 5:03pm By Daniel Fineren
  LONDON (Reuters) - The government has signed up to a U.S.-sponsored club of countries that want to see more nuclear power plants built globally while keeping atomic weapons in the hands of a few. [Imperialism] [Double standards]
• U.S. to ship second batch of heavy fuel oil to N. Korea: report
  2008/02/23 11:23 KST SEOUL, Feb. 23 (Yonhap) -- The United States plans to ship an additional 54,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea in early March under a six-party deal aimed at denuclearizing the communist country, a U.S.-funded radio station said Saturday. Under a 2007 accord, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia should give North Korea 1 million tons of fuel oil in return for North Korea to disable its nuclear facilities and give a full list of its nuclear programs. North Korea has so far received 146,000 tons, including 46,000 from the United States and 50,000 tons each from South Korea and China.
  North Korea is also slowing work on disabling its main nuclear reactor under the six-party deal after complaining that the promised oil shipments are way behind schedule. [Agreement070213]
• N. Korea thanks S. Korea, China for energy aid, calls for faster delivery
  BEIJING, Feb, 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea thanked South Korea and China on Friday for supplying energy-related aid under an aid-for-denuclearization deal, but also called for faster assistance, a South Korean envoy said. In a working-level meeting with South Korea and China, North Korea complained that the economic and energy assistance promised to the country was not being delivered in sync with the ongoing dismantlement of its nuclear weapons program, said South Korean representative Lim Sung-nam, who is the head of the Foreign Ministry's North Korean nuclear issue bureau. [Agreement070213]
• U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD NORTH KOREA: ACHIEVING NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
  Robert P Casey Jr.
  ICAS Winter Symposium Humanity, Peace and Security February 13, 2008 1:00 PM -- 5:30 PM United States House of Representatives Rayburn Office Building Room B 318 Capitol Hill, Washington DC 20515
• Brazil, Argentina Consider Enriching Uranium Jointly
  By Andre Soliani and Eliana Raszewski
  (Update2) Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil and Argentina agreed to study the possibility of jointly enriching uranium and building a nuclear reactor that would help ward off energy shortages. ``The increasing scarcity of energy in the world'' makes developing alternative sources an urgent matter, the countries said today in a joint statement released in Buenos Aires, where Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva met his Argentine counterpart, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Enriched uranium is used as fuel for nuclear power plants, and also is a building block to creating nuclear weapons. Lula and Fernandez said they will use the uranium to generate power. Brazil plans to build as many as eight nuclear power plants by 2030. The country is also trying to develop a nuclear-powered submarine
• Dissecting the Details of Iran’s Uranium Enrichment Progress
  David Albright and Jacqueline Shire February 20th 2008
  Mahmoud Ahmadinejad What a difference a year makes. In November 2006, Iran had slightly more than 300 gas centrifuges running at its pilot uranium-enrichment plant at Natanz, approximately 200 kilometers south of Tehran. One year later, Iran has close to 3,000 centrifuges installed in a vast underground hall of the commercial-scale Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz. It has also stockpiled enough of the enrichment feedstock uranium hexafluoride to produce enriched uranium, whether for nuclear energy or for nuclear weapons, for years to come.
• Rice rules out meeting N.K. officials
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ruled out any meetings with North Korean officials during her Asia travel starting Saturday, saying it is not "useful at this time."   "Everybody knows what needs to happen," she said at a news conference Friday, referring to North Korea's obligation to disclose in full its nuclear programs as part of six-nation agreements.   She said it was a "good thing" that the New York Philharmonic would perform in Pyongyang next week, and that she hopes this will have a positive effect, but added she will not overestimate the impact.     "The North Korean regime is still the North Korean regime," she said, "and so I don't think we should get carried away with what listening to Dvorak is going to do in North Korea."
• North Korea Allows Access to Reactor
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 23, 2008 YONGBYON, North Korea (AP) — The broadcaster APTN, the international television division of The Associated Press, was permitted on Friday to visit the North Korean nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, the heart of the North’s nuclear program.
  At the site, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital, Yongbyon’s chief engineer reiterated the government’s position that it was disabling the reactor as promised in the disarmament-for-aid deal, but that it had slowed down its compliance because the other countries were not meeting their commitments. APTN showed North Korean workers in protective suits removing spent nuclear fuel from the facility’s reactor. The visit came as talks have stalled over differences on whether the North has fully declared its nuclear programs under an October deal reached with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. "It has been slowed down," said the chief engineer, Yu Sun-chol. "Especially the discharge of fuel rods from the core has been slowed down."
• N. Korea reassures U.S. of halt in uranium enrichment program
  13:50 | 20/ 02/ 2008 MOSCOW, February 20 (RIA Novosti) - North Korea has reassured the U.S. that it will not develop its uranium enrichment program or cooperate with other countries in the nuclear sector, a high-ranking U.S. official said on Wednesday. North Korea also assured the United States that it has no intentions of engaging in nuclear cooperation with other countries in the future, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said quoting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill Two weeks ago Mike McConnell, the director of the United States intelligence service, said North Korea had broken the pledge it made last year to halt all nuclear activities, adding that, "While Pyongyang denies a program of uranium enrichment and they deny their proliferation activities, we believe North Korea continues to engage in both." Hill also said that Pyongyang is ready to continue talks on its nuclear program and is ready to fulfill its obligations if the U.S. carries out its commitments in turn. Pyongyang earlier accused the U.S. of failing to strike it off the list of states sponsoring terrorism and lift related trade restrictions, Washington's obligations under the six-party deal in November 2006. Under an agreement reached last October between the United States, Japan, Russia, China, and North and South Koreas, Pyongyang was to halt its nuclear programs and provide full information on nuclear activities by the end of 2007 in exchange for economic and political concessions. However, the North missed the deadline, causing the six-way negotiations to stall. Since the October deal, South Korea, China and Russia have each supplied North Korea with 50,000 metric tons of fuel oil. [Media] [HEU]
• Nuclear Negotiators of the Two Koreas Meet
  Chief South Korean nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo met his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Beijing on Thursday. It was their first meeting since North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline to declare its nuclear programs and stockpiles, and came after they separately met with their U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill on Feb. 19 and 20.  
• Rice seeks North Korea solution before window closes
  By Arshad Mohammed Reuters Friday, February 22, 2008; 1:10 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits South Korea, China and Japan next week to seek ways to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear programs before the window closes on the Bush administration. President George W. Bush has less than a year left to wean North Korea of its nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits under a 2005 deal in which Pyongyang agreed to abandon all of its nuclear weapons and programs. Making her first visit to Northeast Asia in more than a year, Rice will attend the inauguration of South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak in Seoul on Monday and then travel to Beijing and Tokyo for consultations. U.S. officials said there were no plans for Rice to go to Pyongyang or to meet North Korean officials in Beijing.
• U.S. nuclear double standards
  By Hugh Gusterson | 21 February 2008
  My last column quoted unusually blunt remarks by Pakistani Brig. Gen. Atta M. Iqhman and his deputy Col. Bom Zhalot. They expressed concern about the inadequacy of U.S. procedures for handling nuclear weapons and condemned U.S. double standards about nuclear weapons. Attentive readers wondered why they had not heard of the Brigadier-General before and why the only source produced by a Google search on his name was my article. Does a person’s reality have to be affirmed by Google, Wikipedia, or Who's Who for his opinions to matter? Others asked if it would be possible to hear more from Atta M. Iqhman given his refreshing candor. Fortunately, I was able to win an exclusive interview with Iqhman.
• How Labour used the law to keep criticism of Israel secret
  Concern over nuclear arsenal removed from Iraq dossier Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Thursday February 21 2008
  The full extent of government anxiety about the state of British-Israel relations can be exposed for the first time today in a secret document seen by the Guardian. The document reveals how the Foreign Office successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.  
  Along with unfavourable references to the US and Japan, the reference to Israel was written in the margin by someone commenting on the opening paragraph of the Williams draft. It was written against the claim that "no other country [apart from Iraq] has flouted the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction". [Double standards] [Disinformation]
• Israel's weapons - a diplomatic no-go area
  Ian Black, Middle East editor The Guardian, Thursday February 21 2008 This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday February 21 2008 on p12 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 23:02 on February 20 2008. Nuclear weapons are seen as the last resort of Israel's security, the so-called "Samson option" to be used in desperation - like the biblical character who died with his enemies when he brought down the temple on the heads of the Philistines.
• U.S. sends positive message to N.K.
  Feb 21st, 2008 • Category: International Headline News The United States reaffirmed to North Korea that it remains committed to fulfilling its obligation to remove sanctions, and that Pyongyang will not face an “infinite” number of questions regarding its declaration list, top U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said yesterday.”We made clear that we are committed to following through on our obligations and that they should know that, as they do their obligations, we will do ours,” Hill told reporters in Seoul, after his meeting with North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Beijing on Tuesday. Adding that he believes the North Koreans understand the U.S. position, he added that neither Kim nor he himself would describe the current situation as a “stalemate.” The members of the six-party talks have been stuck in the second denuclearization phase since the 2007 year-end deadline passed, with North Korea hesitating to provide a “complete” list of its nuclear programs. Pyongyang, for its part, has been demanding a timely provision of the corresponding incentives, which include the delivery of heavy fuel oil and energy equipment, along with removal from the U.S. list of states which sponsor terrorism. “I think, from the DPRK’s point of view, they are always concerned that when they tell us something, what they tell us will always be followed by additional questions,” Hill said after talking with his South Korean counterpart, Chun Yung-woo, in the morning. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name. “I want to assure them that, yes, there will be additional questions, but not an infinite number of questions,” he said. He further explained that the questions will be those necessary to resolving the matter.
  By Lee Joo-hee Source: The Korean Herald
• Hill: North still denying enrichment of uranium
  February 21, 2008 Despite long-held suspicions by the United States, North Korea has again denied running a clandestine program to enrich uranium for weapons, a top U.S. nuclear envoy said. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Hill spoke to reporters in Beijing on Tuesday after pressing North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Gye-gwan to meet his country¡¯s side of the international agreement to own up to all its nuclear weapons programs. [HEU]
• U.S., N. Korean nuclear envoys meet in Beijing
  Hope of breakthrough on deadlock is unrealistic, source says
  BEIJING - Top U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan met in Beijing on February 19.   The meeting between the two nuclear envoys took place at a time when the six-party talks are at a standstill due to a controversy surrounding a delay in assistance promised to North Korea in return for the reclusive nation’s declaration of its nuclear arsenal, including its uranium enrichment program, or UEP. The last meeting between the two negotiators took place two and half months ago when Hill visited Pyongyang and delivered a letter from U.S. President George Bush. Immediately after arriving at an international airport in Beijing with Jung Tae-yang, vice director-general of the American bureau of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, Kim went to the North Korean Embassy in the Chinese capital city. The meeting was reported to have been coordinated in advance.
• Koreas, China to discuss energy assistance for Pyongyang
  The two Koreas and China will hold working-level talks later this week in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang to discuss the provision of energy assistance to North Korea under an aid-for-disarmament deal signed early last year, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.   The meeting on Thursday and Friday comes despite the protracted stalemate over Pyongyang's agreed-upon declaration of its nuclear stockpile.   It would mark the third session of its kind, following previous meetings held in November and December.
• News Analysis; North Korea's Confession: Why?
  By HOWARD W. FRENCH
  October 21, 2002
  When the United States announced last week that North Korean officials had acknowledged the existence of a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord, a simple question could be heard echoing around the world: What were the North Koreans thinking? With a tightly controlled, highly secretive country that is home to the world's only Communist dynasty, the temptation of outsiders to write off North Korea's leaders as crackpot Machiavellis or scarily unpredictable weirdoes is sometimes irresistible. Many close watchers of North Korean affairs, however, say that for all of the leadership's eccentricities, the decisions are seldom outright irrational. [HEU] [Admission] [Disinformation] [Bizarre]
• North Korea Denies Uranium Program: U.S. Envoy Says
  By REUTERS Published: February 20, 2008 Filed at 12:55 a.m. ET SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has again denied running a clandestine program to enrich uranium for weapons, long suspected by the United States, a top U.S. nuclear envoy said on Wednesday. U.S. envoy Christopher Hill was speaking after talks in Beijing on Tuesday, when he pressed North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan to meet his country's side of an international agreement to own up to all its nuclear weapons programs. "They continue to take what they call a principled position that they have not engaged in any uranium enrichment activity," Hill told reporters in Seoul. Pyongyang has already missed an end-2007 deadline to detail all its efforts to create an atomic arsenal under an agreement that regional powers hope will eventually lead the communist state to completely end its nuclear weapons ambitions in return for massive aid and an end to its international pariah status. "We have a situation where they have purchased some equipment and have been trying to show to us that this equipment is not being used for uranium enrichment," Hill said. "We cannot pretend that activities don't exist when we know that the activities have existed." [HEU] [Evidence]
• NKorea, US Envoys in Beijing Talks
  By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN The Associated Press Tuesday, February 19, 2008; 1:05 AM BEIJING -- A top U.S. nuclear envoy met his North Korean counterpart at Pyongyang's embassy in the Chinese capital on Tuesday as Washington sought to revive a disarmament process stalled since the end of last year. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill arrived at the vast walled compound in Beijing's diplomatic district shortly before noon (11 p.m EST) to meet Kim Kye Gwan, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.
• Surge in spending on nukes a grave error
  Frida Berrigan  —  2/09/2008 7:11 am For many Americans, nuclear weapons bring up old memories and forgotten associations -- the duck and cover drills of the 1950s, President Reagan's exhortations against the "evil empire," and the plot lines of countless straight-to-video political thrillers. It may then come as a surprise that in 2008 the United States is considering a huge new investment in nuclear weapons. The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is pushing for an estimated $150 billion to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons and a more "responsive" production network. The centerpiece of this move is called Complex Transformation, a multiyear plan to build new or upgraded facilities at each of the NNSA's eight nuclear weapons-related sites. The plan also calls for building a new nuclear weapon called the reliable replacement warhead, which would replace all deployed weapons in the U.S. arsenal.
  More importantly, the U.S. is still spending one-third more than the Cold War average on nuclear weapons.
  Is it provocative? Yes. An expanded U.S. nuclear arsenal tells the world that U.S. national security remains dependent on these devastating weapons. At the same time, Washington seeks to convince nations like Iran and North Korea not to produce them. This "do as we say, not as we do" approach encourages nuclear proliferation. If trends continue, nuclear expert Hans Blix forecasts at least a dozen new nuclear powers within 10 years.
• N.Korea ‘Slowing Disablement of Nuclear Facilities’
  North Korea has reduced the number of nuclear fuel rods being removed from the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, which is in the process of disablement, to about 30 a day, it emerged Sunday. North Korean authorities are apparently making good their ominous threat to “adjust the speed” of disablement in response to delays in the shipments of energy aid the North is to get as a reward. [Agreement070213] [Media]
• U.S.'09 Budget for NK Shifts to Denuclearization
  The U.S. budget for North Korea-related funds in fiscal year (FY) 2009 is spread out between the energy and state departments with a shift away from democratization assistance to nuclear disarmament. The budget proposed earlier this month, and to start in October this year, includes the Energy Department's request for $ 140.5 million for Nonproliferation and International Security (NIS) which covers the Next Generation Safeguards Initiative. This program is specifically aimed at disabling, dismantling and verifying North Korea's nuclear program and at stopping spread of weapons of mass destruction.
• Experts say leniency on North Korea has risks
  Reuters Monday, February 11, 2008; 8:34 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. leniency with North Korea after delays in implementing a key nuclear disarmament deal puts a carefully crafted diplomatic strategy at risk, former White House officials warned on Monday. Nearly a year after the February 13, 2007 breakthrough six-party deal reached by China, Japan, Russia, North and South Korea, and the United States, a key deadline under that deal lapsed with no consequences for Pyongyang, the experts said.
  "With North Korea, delays are inevitable, but the delays have not been met with any consequences, which is increasingly going to be a problem," said Michael Green, a Georgetown University scholar who served as top Asia expert in the White House during earlier stages in the North Korea negotiations. [Hardliners]
• What A.Q. Khan Knows
  How Pakistan's Proliferator Could Help in Pyongyang
  By Selig S. Harrison
  Thursday, January 31, 2008; Page A21 Either Kim Jong Il or Pervez Musharraf is lying about whether Pakistan's Dr. Strangelove, Abdul Qadeer Khan, gave centrifuges to North Korea for uranium enrichment. Unless the truth can be established, the hitherto-promising denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang are likely to collapse. Khan has been shielded from foreign interrogators since his arrest three years ago for running a global nuclear Wal-Mart. Musharraf wrote in his memoir, "In the Line of Fire," that the former czar of Pakistan's nuclear program provided "nearly two dozen" prototype centrifuges suitable for uranium enrichment experiments to North Korea -- a charge flatly denied by Pyongyang. "Why don't you invite A.Q. Khan to join the negotiations?" North Korea's U.N. representative, Kim Myong Gil, asked with a broad smile over lunch recently. "Where is the invoice? Give us the evidence."
  Many Pakistanis say Musharraf is stonewalling because he and some of his army generals collaborated with Khan and fear exposure. Another possible explanation is that the documentary evidence does not exist. Still another is that Musharraf changed his position on the centrifuges and invented the "facts" in his memoir to curry favor with the Bush administration; by strengthening its case against North Korea, in this view, he hoped to offset dissatisfaction in Washington with his ineffectual performance in combating al-Qaeda and the Taliban. [HEU] [Evidence] [Pakistan]  
• North Korea Says Aid Holds Up Disarmament Deal
  Published: February 16, 2008 Filed at 6:05 a.m. ET BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea appears committed to a nuclear disarmament deal but remains unwilling to complete two big steps until complaints over aid and U.S. concessions are solved, U.S. experts just back from North Korea said on Saturday. Under disarmament terms announced in October last year, North Korea was offered 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid, and the United States agreed to move to take the North from a sanctions list aimed at sponsors of terrorism. In return, North Korea agreed to "disable" its Yongbyon nuclear facility and fully declare all nuclear activities by the end of 2007. But those two steps have stalled after North Korean complaints that the energy aid and U.S. concessions were not coming soon enough. North Korean officials appeared willing to proceed with disarmament steps, but only after their own demands were met, said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University researcher who went to the North with two other U.S. experts on a non-government trip. "We found that significant hurdles actually remain before the DPRK will offer a complete declaration of its nuclear program," Hecker told reporters after arriving in Beijing. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK, is the North's official name. "We were told (by North Korean officials) the DPRK is looking forward to having these obligations met as quickly as possible so they can move to the next stage." said Hecker. [Agreement070213] [Media]  
• N. Korea Slowing Disarmament, U.S. Nuclear Delegation Reports
  North Cites Delays on Energy Aid, Delisting as Terrorism Sponsor
  By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, February 17, 2008; Page A21 BEIJING, Feb. 16 -- North Korea has slowed nuclear disarmament to a snail's pace because it has received only part of the energy aid it was promised in return and does not believe it has made progress toward being removed from the U.S. state terrorism list, a delegation of U.S. experts reported Saturday. The experts said they had broad access to North Korean nuclear facilities and held discussions with senior Foreign Ministry officials in Pyongyang, the capital, during their four-day private visit to the isolated nation. Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford University professor and former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, said he and his colleagues -- Joel Witt, a former diplomat associated with the National Academy of Sciences, and W. Keith Luse, an assistant to Sen. Richard L. Lugar (R-Ind.) -- were told that North Korea remains committed to a landmark Oct. 3 agreement. Under terms of that pact, it promised to carry out a staged disarmament that includes, as a first step, disabling the plutonium processing plant at Yongbyon that is its main source of nuclear weapons material.  [Agreement070213] [Media]

• KEPCO Eyes 1st Atomic Power Plant in Turkey
  By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with ENKA, the largest construction firm in Turkey, in a move to win an order to build a nuclear power plant there, according to the South Korean state-run firm.
• Statement to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva
  Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
  Geneva (Switzerland) 23 January 2008 I welcome this opportunity to address the opening of the Conference on Disarmament’s 2008 session. I am here to spotlight the priorities of disarmament and non-proliferation –- and to underscore my conviction that this institution can advance both goals. Today I am going to speak about what is at stake for this body. The Conference on Disarmament has accomplished a great deal -– but its successes are distant memories. [NPT]
• Russia makes last fuel oil shipment to N. Korea
  MOSCOW. Jan 23 (Interfax) - Russia has fulfilled its obligation to provide fuel oil to North Korea. The last shipment was made on January 22, the press service of Rosneft, the oil company responsible for supplies to North Korea, told the Oil News Agency. "Yesterday, the last shipment of fuel oil was unloaded from our tanker," the company said. [Agreement071003]
• The Next Nuclear Agreement with North Korea: Prospects and Pitfalls
  By David C. Kang
  January 17th, 2008 David C. Kang, Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, writes, “Although the past year has seen substantial progress in capping and ultimately eliminating North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, there remain many obstacles that could derail the progress made so far, and slow or even halt continued improvement in relations. The reciprocal actions laid out in the February 13, 2007 agreement are genuinely the first step in a long process for all countries involved in the negotiations, and sustained U.S. attention at the policymaking, executive, and legislative levels will be critical for the process to continue in a manner which enhances U.S. interests.” [Agreement070213]
• US denies N Korean charges on denuclearization
  WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States on Tuesday denied charges it was failing to live up to its part of six-country deal aimed at North Korea's denuclearization. "The US has met and is meeting its commitments," Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, told reporters when asked to comment on the charges.
  "We also agreed to advance the process of terminating an application of the Trading with the Enemy Act to North Korea," Gallegos added. "Criteria for removing a country's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and lifting the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act are set forth in US law," he said. "US action related to the terrorism designation and the Trading with the Enemy Act application are dependent on North Korea's fulfillment of the requirements of US law and its progress on addressing concerns on a nuclear issue and meeting its denuclearization commitments," he said [Agreement070213] [Terrorism List] [Disinformation]
• NK Must Denuke to Get Off Terrorism List
  WASHINGTON _ The White House said Wednesday that North Korea will not be taken off the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states until it has fully disclosed its nuclear programs. "Right now we are waiting on North Korea to release or to give to us their complete and accurate declaration of all of their nuclear activities, including proliferation activities," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We don't have that yet from them. Therefore, there's not any movement on any of the other parts of the agreement."
  "I would say it's definitely not imminent," Perino said of prospects of North Korea's removal. Dell Dailey, a coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, told reporters on Tuesday that North Korea seems to have met the legal criteria required to go off the annually announced list of countries the U.S. suspects of supporting terrorism. Pyongyang was designated soon after its agents blew up a South Korean passenger jet in 1987, killing all 115 people aboard. Legal requirements include not having been involved in any activities or support of terrorist acts for the past six months and a pledge not to do so in the future. "It appears that North Korea has complied with those criteria," Dailey had said. [Agreement070213] [Terrorism List] [Legality]
• Analysis: Nuclear Deals Elusive
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 24, 2008 Filed at 3:15 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's campaign to contain the spread of nuclear weapons before leaving the White House is lumbering along to a potentially disappointing conclusion. Iran is not cowed by a series of U.N. and other sanctions resolutions. North Korea is dragging its feet on an agreement to deliver a list of all its nuclear programs. The White House and its diplomats are soldiering on, but reaching agreement in Bush's final year is problematic. Lately, there have been scant signs of progress. ''It is clear to everyone that the Bush strategy has failed,'' says Joseph Cirincione, a nuclear expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. ''The only question is whether he can adjust quickly enough to salvage something from this mess.'' Cirincione, in an interview Wednesday, said North Korea is ''our best hope -- provided Bush sticks with negotiations.''
  On North Korea, however, O'Hanlon said Bush's record is not very good. The diplomacy that produced last year's agreement could have succeeded four or five years ago and, among other things, forestalled North Korea's nuclear weapons test in 2006 and a quadrupling of its weapons arsenal, he said. So on North Korea I would grade him ''in the realm of a D,'' he said. [Agreement070213]
• Rice Rebukes Bush Envoy Who Criticized Policy on North Korea
  By HELENE COOPER Published: January 23, 2008 WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a rare public rebuke, has upbraided a White House envoy who criticized United States diplomacy toward North Korea that is aimed at coaxing the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons. Ms. Rice said the official, Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush’s special envoy on North Korean human rights, was not speaking for the administration when he told an audience at the American Enterprise Institute last week that the United States “should consider a new approach to North Korea” because the current approach was unlikely to resolve the issue before the end of Mr. Bush’s term in a year. Speaking to reporters aboard her flight to Berlin on Monday, Ms. Rice sharply disagreed, and said Mr. Lefkowitz should stick to human rights and leave the talks over the North’s nuclear policy to her, Mr. Bush and the other nations involved: Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. “He’s the human rights envoy,” Ms. Rice said. “That’s what he knows. That’s what he does. He doesn’t work on the six-party talks. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks.”
  The dispute comes at a time when nuclear talks have stalled, with North Korea missing a year-end deadline to disclose all of its nuclear programs. A debate within the administration has fractured along familiar lines, with hard-line national security hawks in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and at the White House arguing for a more confrontational approach with the North. On the other side, Mr. Bush’s lead North Korea nuclear negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, backed by Ms. Rice, has argued that the United States should continue a more restrained approach, one that was widely credited with bringing about an agreement last year intended to eventually lead to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. [Dissension]
• Slowly, but Surely, Pyongyang Is Moving
  By David Albright and Jacqueline Shire
  Thursday, January 24, 2008; Page A19 The optimism with which the October agreement with North Korea was welcomed has faded amid accusations that the North again is not keeping its commitments. First came word that "disablement" of nuclear facilities was slowing. Then there was the missed Dec. 31 deadline for North Korea to declare the full scope of its nuclear program, including its plutonium stockpile and uranium enrichment activities. And earlier in the fall, North Korea was accused of helping Syria construct a nuclear facility in its desert, reportedly a reactor.
  Disablement of the five-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon slowed in part because the United States decided that unloading the irradiated fuel rods as fast as North Korea proposed could needlessly risk exposing the North Korean workers to excessive radiation. North Korea is unloading the rods and making steady progress on the other aspects of disablement at the Yongbyon site. Could it be happening faster? Probably, and North Korea would point out that promised shipments of heavy fuel oil are also slow in coming. North Korea's nuclear declaration was to be received by Dec. 31. On Jan. 2, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States was still "waiting to hear" from the North. Pyongyang responded that the United States had its declaration. After some tail-chasing, it emerged that North Korea had quietly shared an initial declaration with the United States in November.
  What about any enriched uranium? There is no question that North Korea has committed to providing the other nations in the six-party discussions with information about its uranium enrichment efforts and should be held to that commitment. But we should not lose sight of an uncomfortable fact -- that U.S. policymakers misread (at best) or hyped information that North Korea had a large-scale uranium enrichment program. There is ample evidence that North Korea acquired components for a centrifuge-enrichment program, but few now believe the North produced highly enriched uranium or developed its enrichment capabilities in the manner once claimed by the United States. The success or failure of this latest agreement with North Korea must not hinge on the uranium issue. [Agreement070213] [HEU]
• NKorea Media: US Not Meeting Commitments
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 22, 2008 Filed at 1:03 a.m. ET SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea accused the United States on Tuesday of failing to meet its commitments toward the communist nation, blaming Washington for the slow progress in a nuclear disarmament deal. The North's Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary that the U.S. failed to fulfill its promise to remove Pyongyang from U.S. terrorism and trade blacklists by the end of 2007 under a six-nation agreement that calls for the North's nuclear disarmament in exchange for aid and concessions. ''Under this situation, it is pretty evident that we cannot carry out our commitments unilaterally,'' the commentary said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency. ''If the U.S. truly intends to move the Korean peninsula denuclearization forward, all it should do is be sincere about its own commitments.'' The North has repeatedly cited U.S. delays as the reason it has failed to meet its own requirements in the February nuclear deal, which included disabling nuclear facilities and providing list of all its nuclear programs by the end of last year. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul could not immediately be reached for comment. North Korea claims it gave the U.S. a complete list of its nuclear programs in November. Washington says Pyongyang never produced a ''complete and correct'' nuclear programs list. [Media]
• U.S. Sees Stalling by North Korea on Nuclear Pact
  By HELENE COOPER Published: January 19, 2008 WASHINGTON — A debate is under way within the Bush administration over how long it can exercise patience with North Korea without jeopardizing the fulfillment of a nuclear agreement that President Bush has claimed as a foreign policy victory. With North Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out Mr. Bush’s time in office before making any more concessions, administration officials are grappling with how the United States should react. The debate has fractured along familiar lines, with a handful of national security hawks in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and at the State Department arguing for a more confrontational approach with Pyongyang. On the other side, Mr. Bush’s lead North Korea nuclear negotiator, Christopher R. Hill, has argued that the United States should continue a more restrained approach, one that is widely credited with bringing about an agreement last year that is intended eventually to lead to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula [Media] [Dissension]
• Toward a Nuclear-Free World
  By GEORGE P. SHULTZ, WILLIAM J. PERRY, HENRY A. KISSINGER and SAM NUNN
  January 15, 2008; Page A13
  The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands. The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate to the danger. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous. One year ago, in an essay in this paper, we called for a global effort to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to the world. The interest, momentum and growing political space that has been created to address these issues over the past year has been extraordinary, with strong positive responses from people all over the world.
• North Korea's True Colors
  By JOHN BOLTON
  January 11, 2008; Page A11 There's more positive news from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea: Its leaders have refused to make any further disclosure concerning its nuclear programs. How is this umpteenth violation of the Feb. 13, 2006, agreement in the Six-Party Talks positive? Because at a critical moment on a gravely important issue, North Korea has again shown its true colors, thus providing the United States an opportunity to extricate itself from this unwise and dangerous deal. [Agreement070213]
• Russia to supply 50,000 tons of fuel oil to N.Korea Jan. 20-21
  MOSCOW, January 11 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will supply 50,000 tons of fuel oil to North Korea on January 20-21 in line with a six-nation deal to resolve the country's nuclear problem, a deputy foreign minister said on Friday. "I think we will complete the delivery on January 20-21," Alexander Losyukov said after talks in Moscow with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who arrived in Moscow for consultations with Russia, one of the countries involved in the talks on Pyongyang's denuclearization.
• A Look Back Reveals Forward Thinking
  By Walter Pincus Monday, January 14, 2008; Page A19 Insights still worth pondering today are contained in a 33-year-old top-secret Special National Intelligence Estimate called "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons." The 50-page assessment was released in declassified form by the CIA last week with some 40 others in response to Freedom of Information Act requests. The Aug. 23, 1974, document contained some fairly accurate findings and predictions. It reported that Israel "has produced nuclear weapons," and that India, which had conducted "peaceful" nuclear weapons tests, would probably "proceed to fabricate weapons covertly." It added: "An Indian decision to proceed with an overt weapons program on any scale will be one factor inclining some other countries to follow suit."
  One analysis that contained disagreements among intelligence agencies is worth noting, in light of today's situation in Asia. The CIA, the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Army's intelligence arm all believed that Japan "would not embark on a program of nuclear weapons development in the absence of a major adverse shift in great power relationships which presented Japan with a clear cut threat to its security." On the other hand, the heads of Air Force and Navy intelligence, both of which had bases in Japan, said there was "a strong chance that Japan's leaders will conclude that they must have nuclear weapons if they are to achieve their national objectives in the developing Asian power balance." They thought such a decision could be made by Tokyo "in the early 1980s." Japanese leaders didn't make that move at the time, but those concerns of three decades ago have been raised more recently as North Korea has moved toward developing nuclear weapons. [Japanese remilitarisation] [Nuclearisation]
• U.S. Nuclear Envoy Puts Gentle Pressure on North Korea
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: January 11, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea — The United States urged North Korea on Thursday to rethink its position and give a “complete and correct” accounting of its nuclear weapons programs before a new conservative South Korean president takes office in late February, perhaps with more sticks than carrots for the North.
• CIA: We said back in 1974 that Israel had nuclear weapons
  By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Israel, CIA, nuclear weapons The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled." Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries.
• UK gives go-ahead to nuclear energy
  By Jim Pickard, Political Correspondent Published: January 10 2008 13:23 | Last updated: January 10 2008 13:23 A new wave of nuclear power stations was given the green light on Thursday by the government as it said they would be a “safe and affordable” way to secure future energy supplies. John Hutton, business secretary, said in a statement said that allowing more nuclear reactors would help to reduce Britain’s carbon emissions at a time of growing uncertainty about energy supplies
• Hill: North should declare programs by Feb. 25
  January 11, 2008 The United States wants North Korea to provide a complete declaration of its nuclear programs before South Korea’s new president is inaugurated next month, the top U.S. nuclear envoy said yesterday. The date marks a new deadline for the North after it failed to complete the declaration to Washington’s satisfaction by the end of last year.
  The U.S. envoy said he has emphasized to the North Koreans that Washington will live up to its promises under an aid-for-disarmament deal if the communist regime keeps its pledge to provide the declaration. “I tried to emphasize to the North Koreans that if we get through the declaration, we’ll do what we are supposed to do,” Hill said. North Korea was promised the equivalent of 1 million tons of oil and political concessions at international disarmament talks in return for disabling and declaring its nuclear programs. The U.S. has also said it would remove the North from terrorism and sanctions blacklists. [Sequencing] [Agreement071003]
• North Korea still wants nuclear deal: U.S. envoy
  By Jon Herskovitz Reuters Wednesday, January 9, 2008; 4:59 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea is still committed to an international disarmament-for-aid deal, a U.S. nuclear envoy said on Wednesday, urging patience even though the reclusive state missed a deadline to list its nuclear arms program. Under a deal it reached with regional powers, North Korea was supposed to provide by the end of 2007 an inventory of its fissile material and nuclear weaponry and answer U.S. suspicions it had a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons. "We are not that far apart. I don't think it is something we want to walk away from nor does the DPRK (North Korea) want to walk away from this," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul. "We didn't meet the timeframe. We ought to be a little patient on this." [Agreement071003]
• Hill upbeat on nukes despite delay
  January 09, 2008 U.S. envoy Christopher Hill on his arrival in Seoul. [AP] The chief U.S. nuclear envoy yesterday urged North Korea to provide a “correct and complete” declaration of its nuclear program, saying “better late than never.” The remark by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill comes as North Korea insists it submitted a full list of its nuclear programs in November under an October multilateral deal. It denounced the United States and other parties for their failure to provide energy and other aid and to remove the North from the U.S. list of terrorism sponsoring states. Hill said, however, he was relatively satisfied with the pace of disablement of the North’s main plutonium-producing facilities.
• Hill Plays Dual Roles in Seoul
  US nuclear envoy in Seoul: Christopher Hill, U.S. chief negotiator for the six-party talks, answers reporters’ questions upon arrival at Gimpo Airport, Seoul, Tuesday. / Yonhap By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter The top U.S. nuclear envoy Tuesday urged North Korea to completely declare all its nuclear weapons programs even though the Stalinist country failed to meet a 2007 deadline. ``A key issue is the DPRK's requirement to give us a correct and complete declaration. It is pretty clear that they are not ready to do that,'' Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul. He further said that he is not too much concerned about the country being late as long as North Korea submits a correct list of nuclear programs. Pyongyang was supposed to submit a full list of its nuclear weapons programs and disable its key nuclear facilities by the end of 2007 under an agreement reached in the six-party talks. But it failed to meet the deadline even though in return it was to receive economic aid and political concessions such as the normalization of relations with the United States. [Media]
• For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets
  From The Sunday Times January 6, 2008 A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets. Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office. She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey. Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions. Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan. [Corruption] [Proliferation]
• U.S. Should Focus More on N.Korean Plutonium
  In a statement issued by a foreign ministry spokesman, North Korea, which missed the end-2007 deadline to declare all of its nuclear weapons and materials, claims it did prepare a list of items to declare and notified the U.S. in November of last year. Since the U.S. says it has received no such notice from the communist country (sic), the comments sound like North Korea's way of saying it has no intention of declaring its nuclear weapons and materials. Yet North Korea did not harshly criticize the U.S. or present new demands. The basic reason the North Korean nuclear situation has reached a stalemate is because North Korea has failed to declare its nuclear weapons and materials.
  But it will be realistically impossible for the North to produce a nuclear bomb with enriched uranium because it does not have enough electricity to do so. It is also doubtful that North Korea would feel the need to proceed with the uranium enrichment program since it is believed to have already processed quite a large amount of plutonium and produced nuclear bombs using it. This problem surrounding uranium has come to the surface and has been exaggerated due to differences in opinion between hawks and doves within the U.S. government, and now it seems that the issue may have degenerated into a war of justification between the two countries. [Media] [HEU]
• U.S., N.Korea in Fresh Standoff Over Nukes
  Breaking a long silence, North Korea on Friday called on the U.S. to strike it from the blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, saying it had already declared its nuclear programs and stockpiles in November. But the U.S. said the North “needs to get about the business of completing this declaration" after the Dec. 31, 2007 deadline passed without action. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Saturday said that the U.S. had not seen the “full and complete declaration" North Korea undertook to make under a six-nation agreement. "We want to see this as soon as possible,” he added. According to diplomatic sources, the declaration made in November falls far short of the standards set by the U.S. based on its own intelligence data. On a uranium enrichment program the U.S. alleges the North has, Pyongyang says it did import aluminum tubes as alleged, but not to enrich uranium. There is no mention of North Korea’s suspected transfer of nuclear materials to Syria.
• Nuclear Credulity
  By Carolyn Leddy
  Sunday, January 6, 2008; Page B07 Paying off terrorists doesn't work; it only encourages more terrorism. The same is true with nuclear proliferators. They tend to take the bribe and hide the program, and the next thing you know, they're testing nuclear weapons. That was why so many nonproliferation experts welcomed the Bush administration's repudiation of the 1994 "agreed framework" with North Korea. It is also why, after nearly five years of working on nonproliferation issues in the Bush administration, I chose to leave government. Dec. 31 was the deadline for North Korea to disable its Yongbyon nuclear facility and to provide a full declaration of all its nuclear programs and facilities. A muted news release from the State Department lamented the missed deadline as "unfortunate." White House statements were similarly tepid. [Dissension]
• How Not to Handle Nuclear Security
  Zia Mian | December 14, 2007
  Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org The United States recently admitted that since the attacks of September 11, 2001, it has been helping Pakistan secure its nuclear weapons and the materials used to make them. Pakistan has welcomed this assistance. A former Pakistani general who was involved in the nuclear weapons complex has said that “We want to learn from the West's best practices.” But the U.S. track record for securing its own nuclear weapons, nuclear materials and weapons information isn’t encouraging, to say the least.
  These switches were introduced in 1962 by Robert McNamara when he was Secretary of Defense to ensure control over the use of U.S. nuclear weapons. According to Bruce Blair, a former missile launch control officer, Strategic Air Command, which was responsible for the nuclear-armed missiles and bombers, installed the switches but set the combinations of all the locks to a string of zeros. The codes for launching U.S. nuclear missiles apparently stayed set at OOOOOOOO until the late 1970s. The reason? Strategic Air Command did not want there to be any problems or delays in launching the nuclear missiles because of the need to put in a more complex set of numbers. Robert McNamara apparently did not know that the locks he had ordered to be installed on nuclear weapons were largely worthless, and that the military with direct control of the weapons were evading official instructions for securing nuclear missiles. McNamara only learned of this from Bruce Blair in January 2004.
• U.S. says N.K. yet to provide full declaration of nuclear programs
  North Korea has yet to provide a full declaration of its nuclear programs despite its reference to having done so in November, the White House said Friday. "Unfortunately, we have not yet received a complete and correct declaration, and we urge North Korea to deliver one soon so that we can all get the benefits offered in the six-party process," spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters. At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack also he U.S. was "still waiting" for the declaration and expects it to include the controversial uranium weapons program. The North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), quoting an unnamed foreign ministry official, said Pyongyang had drawn up the declaration in November and "notified" the United States of it. The report said North Korea also had additional consultations with Washington. [HEU]
• DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesman on Issue of Implementation of October 3 Agreement
  Pyongyang, January 4 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK released the following statement Friday as regards the delay in the implementation of the October 3 agreement made at the six-party talks: It is beyond Dec. 31, 2007, the deadline set in the Oct. 3 agreement. It is regrettable that points agreed there remain unimplemented except the disablement of the DPRK's nuclear facilities. The disablement started early in November last year and all the operations were completed within the "technologically possible scope" as of Dec. 31. At present, the unloading of spent fuel rods scheduled to be completed in about 100 days is underway as the last process. However, the delivery of heavy fuel oil and energy-related equipment and materials to the DPRK, commitments of other participating nations, has not been done even 50 per cent. The schedule for the monthly delivery of heavy fuel oil as well as the delivery of energy-related equipment and materials and relevant technical processes are being steadily delayed. The U.S. has not honored its commitments to cross the DPRK off the list of "sponsors of terrorism" and stop applying the "Trading with the Enemy Act" against it. Looking back on what has been done, one may say that the DPRK is going ahead of others in fulfilling its commitment. As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, the DPRK has done what it should do. The DPRK worked out a report on the nuclear declaration in November last year and notified the U.S. side of its contents. It had a sufficient consultation with the U.S. side after receiving a request from it to have further discussion on the contents of the report. When the U.S. side raised "suspicion" about uranium enrichment, the DPRK allowed it to visit some military facilities in which imported aluminum tubes were used as an exception and offered its samples as requested by it, clarifying with sincerity that the controversial aluminum tubes had nothing to do with the uranium enrichment. As far as the fiction about nuclear cooperation with Syria is concerned, the DPRK stipulated in the October 3 agreement that "it does not transfer nuclear weapons, technology and knowledge". This is our answer to this question. This was also done in line with the prior discussion with the U.S. side. All facts go to clearly show what is the reason behind the delayed process of the implementation of the October 3 agreement. Consistent in all agreements reached at the six-party talks including the September 19 joint statement is the principle of "action for action". Now that other participating nations delay the fulfillment of their commitments, the DPRK is compelled to adjust the tempo of the disablement of some nuclear facilities on the principle of "action for action." The DPRK still hopes that the October 3 agreement can be smoothly implemented should all the participating nations make concerted sincere efforts on the principle of simultaneous action.
• U.S. Hardliners' Pressure upon DPRK to Dismantle Its Nuclear Weapons First under Fire
  Pyongyang, January 4 (KCNA) -- Some hardliners in the U.S. are becoming increasingly vociferous about the need for the U.S. not to move before the DPRK completely dismantles its nuclear weapons and to adjust the tempo of the improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations depending on the solution to the "abduction issue" raised by Japan. In other words, they are again demanding the DPRK dismantle its nuclear weapons first. The method of settling the pending issues between the DPRK and the U.S. claimed by the U.S. hardliners may serve the purpose of satisfying their self-respect, but it will result in nothing but completely scuttling the process for the denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula and driving the bilateral relations to the lowest ebb. Minju Joson Friday warns the U.S. of this in a signed commentary. It goes on: The DPRK has honored its commitments under the October 3 agreement as it is evidenced by its embarkation upon the phase of disablement in the wake of freezing of nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon under an agreement reached at the six-party talks. Recently the DPRK was compelled to take a measure to slow down the disablement operation due to the delay made by those countries concerned with the six-party talks in honoring the commitments they are obliged to do on the principle of "action for action" in step with its process of disablement. All facts go to prove that whether the goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is attained or not entirely depends on whether the countries concerned including the U.S. honor their commitments or not. This notwithstanding, the U.S. hardliners are insisting the DPRK dismantle its nuclear weapons first. This cannot be construed otherwise than a deliberate move to scuttle the process for the denuclearization of the peninsula. The U.S. hardliners had better behave themselves, bearing deep in mind what a dear price they will have to pay for their thoughtless behavior at this sensitive time. An opportunity is not always available. [Sequencing]
• U.S. Measure for "Nuclear Reduction" Termed Hypocritical
  Pyongyang, January 4 (KCNA) -- The U.S. is now busy publicizing the measure for massive "nuclear weapons reduction" but this is nothing but a trite trick to hoodwink the world public opinion, observes Rodong Sinmun Friday in a signed commentary. A spokesman for the White House, announcing the plan for the reduction of facilities related to the nuclear weapons, raved that nuclear weapons serve as key deterrent to cope with worldwide potential threat and there will remain nukes for the security of Americans, the commentary notes, and goes on: It is preposterous, indeed, for the U.S. bellicose forces to describe their moves to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons as a measure for "ensuring security" of its allies. It is the invariable policy and ambition of the U.S. imperialists to threaten, blackmail and contain other countries with nukes and put the world under their control.
• NK Threatens to Boost War Deterrence
  North Korea threatened Friday to bolster its "war deterrence" days after missing a year-end deadline for declaring all its nuclear weapons programs under an international deal. The Rodong Shinmun, the organ of the North Korean Workers' Party, also accused the United States of using a "trick" to step up the development of new types of nuclear weapons. "Our people have already been building up our defense capability, having an insight into the criminal nature of U.S. imperialists," the newspaper said in a commentary carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
• North Korea Says It Has Said Enough
  By CHOE SANG-HUN and STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: January 5, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea —North Korea said Friday that it had prepared a nuclear declaration in November and given it to the United States.
  Friday’s statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry — carried by the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s mouthpiece to the outside world — was the country’s first official pronouncement after it missed a Dec. 31 deadline to disable its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and, according to other nations involved in six party talks, failed to provide a full list of its nuclear activities, including weapons, facilities and fissile material.
  The statement said that North Korea had already conducted “enough discussions” with the United States officials after they demanded more negotiations on its draft declaration. Using the abbreviation of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Foreign Ministry said, “As far as the nuclear declaration on which wrong opinion is being built up by some quarters is concerned, the D.P.R.K. has done what it should do.”
• N. Korea nuclear talks face obstacle: S. Korean Foreign Minister
  North Korea continues to deny that it has a uranium-based nuclear program, creating a major obstacle to international efforts for the North's denuclearization, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said Thursday. Song's remarks came as North Korea is getting ready to submit a list of all of its nuclear programs by year's end under an aid-for-denuclearization deal that involves the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia.
• Is the North Korean Nuclear Crisis Flaring Up Again?
  The Dec. 31 deadline has passed for North Korea to disable its nuclear facilities and declare all of its nuclear programs and stockpiles. From the start, the accuracy and sincerity of the declaration was expected to serve as a litmus test for the six-nation agreement, but not many experts predicted that there would be none at all. It’s not that there were no signs -- North Korea has always denied the existence of a uranium enrichment program, and recently, there have been reports that it is even unwilling to properly declare the amount of plutonium it has produced. North Korea has said it has no choice but to “control” the speed of its nuclear disablement, due to the delay in economic compensation from the countries in the six-party dialogue. It was a “disablement” in wording only, but actually meant a pseudo-disablement that could return the facilities to functioning mode again in less than a year. Now North Korea is saying it is not willing to do even that. Not even a personal letter from U.S. President George W. Bush was able to change its attitude. At the core of this situation is North Korea’s true intention. Is it willing to tear up the entire six-country agreement or is it simply stalling at every stage to get the most compensation? This is the key question. There are views that Pyongyang is unhappy with the time Washington has been taking in striking North Korea from its list of terror-supporting nations and the Trading With the Enemy Act. [Agreement070213] [Media] [Blame]
• N.Korea Mulling Delay in Nuclear Disablement
  North Korea is mulling a delay to the disablement of its key nuclear facilities because heavy fuel oil it has been promised as a reward is late, Japan’s Kyodo News reports from Pyongyang. Hyon Hak-bong, the deputy director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s American affairs bureau, said Wednesday his country is considering “inevitably adjusting the speed of nuclear disablement” due to a delay in the provision of energy promised under six-nation denuclearization agreements.
• North Korea misses nuclear deadline
  By Song Jung-a in Seoul Published: January 1 2008 04:16 | Last updated: January 1 2008 08:22 North Korea missed an end of year deadline on Tuesday to declare details of its nuclear programmes, casting a shadow over diplomatic efforts to fulfil a denuclearisation pact on schedule. Under a multinational deal reached in February, North Korea agreed that by the end of 2007 it would disable and then dismantle its main Yongbyon reactor, and present a list of all its nuclear programmes in return for economic aid and political concessions. Experts said the reason for the delay appeared to be related to a dispute over Pyongyang's alleged uranium enrichment activities. Washington suspects that North Korea runs an extensive programme of uranium enrichment, apart from its plutonium-based nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Pyongyang has denied such activities. South Korea’s foreign minister said last week that more consultations were needed on the issue. Some experts said the delay might have been caused in part by North Korea’s dissatisfaction with the delivery of energy aid and a lack of progress in the US plan to take Pyongyang off a list of terror-sponsoring states. [Agreement070213] [Media]
• N. Korea nuclear talks face obstacle: S. Korean Foreign Minister
  North Korea continues to deny that it has a uranium-based nuclear program, creating a major obstacle to international efforts for the North's denuclearization, Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said Thursday. Song's remarks came as North Korea is getting ready to submit a list of all of its nuclear programs by year's end under an aid-for-denuclearization deal that involves the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia. The United States has complained that the draft list prepared by North Korea is missing its long-suspected uranium enrichment program, which triggered the ongoing nuclear crisis in late 2002. [HEU]
• N. Korea likely to miss year-end deadline to disclose nuclear programs: officials
  North Korea will likely miss a Dec. 31 deadline to disclose its nuclear programs as the United States refuses to accept a draft list presented by the North that does not address its uranium-based weapons program, officials here said Wednesday The deadlock comes amid South Korean officials eager to complete the declaration phase before the launch in February of the incoming Lee Myung-bak administration which has pledged to be less generous to North Korea.
• Rice urges North Korea's nuclear disclosure, does not rule out P'yang visit
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday pressed North Korea to give full disclosure of its nuclear programs and held out a possibility of her own visit to Pyongyang, saying the U.S. doesn't have "permanent enemies." "I sincerely hope it will be the end of the year," she said in a press conference about North Korea's declaration of its nuclear stockpile. But she indicated some flexibility on the deadline, saying "the key here is to get the process right."
• South Korea Says North Is Likely to Miss Deadline
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: December 28, 2007 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is likely to miss a year-end deadline to declare all of its nuclear activities and disable its main nuclear site, the South Korean foreign minister said Thursday. The comment by the foreign minister, Song Min-soon, came a day after North Korea warned that it would slow work to disable its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, the capital, because of delays in deliveries of aid. Delays are a regular feature of carrying out any deal with North Korea but the latest setback will create fresh doubt about a deal previously seen as one of the few diplomatic successes of the Bush administration. [Agreement070213] [Media]
• Benazir Bhutto, 54, Weathered Political Storm
  Obituary
  JOHN F. BURNS Published: December 28, 2007 Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated at age 54 on Thursday in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, spent three decades navigating the turbulent and often violent world of Pakistani politics, becoming in 1988 the first woman to be democratically elected to lead a modern Muslim country.
  In an interview two years ago for a documentary produced by The New York Times and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she said she also did not know, when in office, that A. Q. Khan, the head of the Pakistani nuclear program, was selling nuclear technology to other states, including Libya and North Korea. But according to accounts given by Dr. Khan’s associates, Ms. Bhutto, after visits to North Korea in the 1990s, returned to Islamabad with North Korean missile designs intended to be mated to the Pakistani bomb.
• N.Korea Hints at Halt in Nuclear Disablement
  North Korea has warned it could halt the process of disabling its nuclear facilities until it gets energy aid it feels entitled to as a reward, casting a pall over the future prospects of six-nation denuclearization talks. Hyon Hak-bong, deputy director of the U.S. affairs bureau at the North Korean Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday said the other nations in the six-party talks “are dragging their feet on their fulfillment of economic compensation duties. We have no choice but to control the pace of the disablement of nuclear facilities." It was the first mention of such “pace control” for political rather than technical reasons. And indeed, the energy aid is late. Under a Feb. 13 denuclearization deal, the five other participating nations promised the North 450,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and energy aid equivalent to 500,000 tons of heavy oil in return for the disablement. So far, 150,000 tons of heavy oil has been delivered: from South Korea in late July, from China in late September, and from the U.S. in late October. But Russia has yet to deliver its November shipment of 50,000 tons of heavy oil worth about W23 billion (US$1=W940), and the only delivery of the economic aid “equivalent” was 5,010 tons of steel products worth W10 billion shipped from South Korea on Dec. 16. A South Korean official said Pyongyang seems “disgruntled” with the delay. But in an economy-energy working-group meeting under the six-party talks in October, North Korea said it could be “flexible” even if compensation procedures take longer than the denuclearization process. The South Korean government has never been told by the U.S. technical team, which is at Yongbyon to oversee the disablement of nuclear facilities there, that there is any problem in the process. Hyon’s statement therefore probably sends a different message. Chun Sung-hoon, a researcher with the Korea Institute for National Unification, speculated it expresses Pyongyang's dissatisfaction with the fact that the U.S. is making no progress in striking North Korea from its blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism and lifting sanctions under the Trade with the Enemy Act, as it has also promised. [Agreement070213]
• A New Crisis Over N.Korea's Nuclear Program?
  South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said Thursday the dismantlement process of North Korea’s nuclear program has reached a junction “between smooth and bumpy roads”, with little progress being made at the stage where Pyongyang must declare all its nuclear programs and stockpiles. U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill, just back from North Korea, said there were clear differences in opinion between Washington and Pyongyang over the declaration of nuclear materials. Hill added resuming six-nation talks this year would be difficult. According to the Feb. 13 six-party agreement and the Geneva Accord signed by Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea has until the end of this year to declare fully how much plutonium it possesses, how much of it has been used and where, and how much is left. North Korea must also declare by that deadline the entire truth behind its alleged uranium enrichment plan. North Korea’s willingness to give up its nuclear weapons program is expected to be proven during the declaration stage. But apparently Pyongyang is getting cold feet. [Agreement070213]
• U.S. Senate Against Striking N.Korea From Terror List
  Before it strikes North Korea from a list of "state sponsors of terrorism," the U.S. administration must ensure that North Korea does not transfer nuclear materials and missiles to foreign countries, a draft resolution submitted to the U.S. Senate demands. Four senators -- Republicans Sam Brownback, Chuck Grassley and Jon Kyl and independent Joseph Lieberman on Tuesday submitted the draft resolution. It urges the government to insist that North Korea resolves the issue of Japanese victims of abductions and shut down the Central Committee Bureau 39 of the Korean Workers' Party, an agency known to be in charge of printing counterfeit U.S. dollars and laundering money, before it strikes the North off the list. [Agreement070213] [Terrorism List]
• N.Korea Likely to Miss Critical Deadline
  North Korea is likely to miss an agreed deadline to declare all its nuclear programs and stockpiles and disable nuclear facilities by the end of this year. A South Korean government official on Tuesday said, "There is no sign yet that North Korea has decided to make an accurate declaration. It’s improbable that the North will declare its nuclear programs by the end of the year, with only a week remaining before the New Year." It is unclear whether the North is positively refusing to make a full declaration of all materials and programs under a Feb. 13 six-nation agreement or whether it is stalling to get a bigger compensation package from the U.S. A positive refusal would derail the entire framework. Under the Feb. 13 denuclearization deal, the U.S. agreed to strike the North from a blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism and lift sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act provided the North disables its nuclear facilities and makes a full declaration to the IAEA. [Agreement070213]
• Ex-Foreign Minister Gloomy on N.Korean Nuke Issue
  Yoon Young-kwan, the first foreign minister of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, on Thursday offered a gloomy prognosis for North Korea’s progress in ending its nuclear ambitions. Yoon, a professor at Seoul National University, said it “seems highly likely that North Korea will remain uncooperative about its nuclear problem for about a year to a year and a half." In a keynote speech for the fifth Korea Peace Forum hosted by the Korea Peace Institute, which he leads, Yoon said, "North Korea is well aware that the current U.S. government is desperately trying to land a diplomatic achievement. So it will probably try to get as much as possible (from the U.S.) and maintain a lack of nuclear transparency as leverage in talks." Yoon predicted Pyongyang will drag its feet before declaring all its nuclear programs, facilities and stockpiles under a Feb. 13 agreement, which it has pledged to do before the end of the year, and instead wait until a new government is inaugurated in the U.S. in 2009. “The North will probably delay a full declaration … or try to patch things up for the moment, while attempting to get itself removed from the U.S. blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism,” Yoon said. [Agreement070213] [Terrorism List]
• North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: Latest Developments
  By Mary Beth Dunham Nikitin
  December 20, 2007 Mary Beth Dunham Nikitin, Analyst in WMD Nonproliferation at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, writes, “Congress will have a clear role in considering U.S. funding for the disablement and decommissioning of North Korea’s nuclear facilities, as well as other inducements for cooperation as agreed in the Six Party talks. For example, the President has submitted a request to Congress for $106 million “to provide Heavy Fuel Oil or an equivalent value of other assistance to North Korea on an ‘action-for action’ basis in support of the Six Party Talks in return for actions taken by North Korea on denuclearization” as part of the 2008 War Funding Request.”