KCNA Announces Hill’s Arrival

Pyongyang, December 3 (KCNA) — Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of State, and his party arrived here today.  [link]

That’s the entire story, not an excerpt.  Why so terse?  Maybe their friends in Seoul sent them this (ht: GI Korea):

The U.S. government decided to impose three new conditions for removing North Korea from Washington`s list of state sponsors of terrorism, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Saturday.

The new conditions are in addition to the current U.S requirement that North Korea completes the disablement of its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. According to the new demand, Pyongyang must reveal the amount of plutonium it has extracted; the details of its uranium enrichment program; and its alleged transfer of nuclear technology and materials to other countries such as Syria, the sources said.

It is now likely that North Korea will not be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism anytime soon, since it is unlikely that the country will accept all four conditions, the sources said. [Donga Ilbo]

While I don’t agree that this necessarily means that North Korea stays on the list, I do agree that it’s another hurdle for the North Koreans — as always, a self-imposed one.   Since Agreed Framework 2 was announced, I’ve recognized that the hawk’s best friend in the North Korea policy battle is Kim Jong Il himself. 

Apologies in advance for the cryptic comment to follow,  because I know a little more here than I can tell you right now:  there is significant skepticism about this deal in Congress, and because Democrats have little to lose by portraying themselves as  more hawkish than Bush,  that skepticism crosses party lines to at least some degree.  I can therefore make an educated inference that State was probably forced to add these additional conditions because of sharp questioning from Congress, particularly about Syria,  both in  public and in  private.

(By the way, if anyone can e-mail me the full text of the Ros-Lehtinen/Hoekstra op-ed, I’d be eternally grateful.)

Update:   That was quick.  My eternal gratitude to the reader who forwarded to the full text the very same morning I posted this.  Lunch is on me.