Wobble Watch

President George Bush has told the Treasury Department, which has been handling financial sanctions regarding North Korea, to cooperate with the State Department regarding the six-party talks, sources in Washington said.  Nevertheless, the cooperation comes with a catch. Washington has said the Treasury Department should cooperate only when Pyongyang promises at the next round of the six-party talks to take measures to “disable” its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.  [link]

Later, the article specifies that “disable” means something irreversible that falls short of “dismantlement,” the “D” in “CVID.”  Pyongyang wants us to settle for IAEA inspections, which would assuredly be as meaningless and inconsequential as they’ve recently proven to be in Iran.  Brian Lee co-reported the story, which makes this pretty much the gold standard of Korean journalism.  So consider my skepticism about this statement a reflection solely on our own government:

Washington is keen not to repeat the mistakes of the Clinton administration, which brokered the Agreed Framework in 1994.

If you say so. 

Meanwhile, Treasury’s Daniel Glaser is meeting with the North Koreans to discuss the investigation and the PATRIOT 311 designation on Banco Delta Asia.  State and Treasury seem to have been living in  separate universes in their North Korea policies, and as bungled as that sounds, Treasury’s dry and businesslike approach to its concerns is a thing to behold.  I’d love to see that approach continue, if only as a controlled diplomatic experiment.