Lee, Obama Still Talking Tough, North Korea Still Not Back on the Terror List
This week’s visit to Washington by South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has produced some nice, tough-sounding words that may or may not come to fruition, and which probably won’t mean a thing a year from now:
Obama said a nuclear armed North Korea poses “a grave threat” to the world and said “we are going to break” the pattern of North Korea being rewarded for threatening actions. Lee thanked the United States for its “selfless sacrifice” in defending his nation and said “under no circumstances” would North Korea be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.
Obama resolved not to put up with North Korea’s textbook crap, even as he extended offers of “peace and prosperity” though talks (Obama may still not realize that Kim Jong Il links his personal survival to insulating his people from the very ideas of peace and prosperity):
“I want to emphasize something President Lee said, that there has been a pattern in the past where North Korea behaves in a belligerent fashion and, if it waits long enough, it is rewarded. I think that is the pattern they have come to expect. The message we are sending them is that we are going to break that pattern,” the U.S. president said.
The South Korean president hinted that Seoul could become the first to break the pattern, noting that his country could be forced to shut down a joint industrial complex in North Korea if the communist nation continues what he called “unacceptable” demands for wage increases and fees.
“We urge North Korea not to make any unacceptable demands because we really do not know what will happen if they keep on this path,” Lee told the press conference, adding that more than 40,000 North Koreans currently working for South Korean firms will also lose jobs if the industrial park closes. [Yonhap]
With all the news coming out of Korea these days, the Christian Science Monitor is calling up the back-benchers:
He ducked a question on when a trade deal between the US and North Korea would be implemented. Obama has said it does not adequately deal with automotive trade issues between the two countries. “Once we have resolved some of the substantive issues, then there is going to be the issue of political timing,” Obama said. [CSM]
Oops.
Lee, for his part, is floating the trial balloons of holding five-party talks, minus North Korea. Lee may be thinking that this would help box the North Koreans in and pressure them to return to the talks, in which case, he underestimates China’s double dealing. And who expected the North Koreans to take all of this quietly?
North Korea warned Wednesday of a “thousand-fold” military retaliation against the U.S. and its allies if provoked, the latest threat in a drumbeat of rhetoric in defense of its rogue nuclear program. [….]
The warning of a military strike, carried by the North’s state media, came hours after President Barack Obama declared North Korea a “grave threat” to the world and pledged that recent U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced. [….]“If the U.S. and its followers infringe upon our republic’s sovereignty even a bit, our military and people will launch a one hundred- or one thousand-fold retaliation with merciless military strike,” the government-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary.
The commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, also called Obama “a hypocrite” for advocating a nuclear-free world while making “frantic efforts” to develop new nuclear weapons at home.
“The nuclear program is not the monopoly of the U.S.,” it said. [AP, Hung Jin Kim]
Yada yada. It would have been nice of them to have whispered that into Selig Harrison’s ear twenty years, two agreed frameworks, and a hundred concessions ago.
Congress tipped its hat to Lee by approving a resolution condemning North Korea’s “hostile behavior,” offering President Obama its “full support” in dealing with Pyongyang, and reaffirming the alliance with South Korea.
The resolution calls on North Korea to immediately stop “hostile rhetoric and activity” toward South Korea, and engage in what it calls mutual dialogue to enhance inter-Korean relations.
Listing a series of actions by Pyongyang in recent months and years, including nuclear weapons tests and ballistic missile launches, lawmakers said North Korea’s actions threaten peace and stability in Northeast Asia and beyond. [VOA]
In accordance with the Democratic majority’s policy of deliberate irrelevance, the sponsor of the resolution was Republican representative Peter King:
“To stand up to this really blatant aggression, I believe, by North Korea and [send] a message to Kim Jong Il — whether it is him or his son, no matter who ends up controlling and calling the shots in North Korea — that it will be met with concerted action from the U.S, and also call on countries such as China to start doing what they should be doing and to reassure our allies such as Japan and Taiwan that the U.S. will do all it can to prevent and stop North Korea from becoming a nuclear power,” he said.
Still, I should at least credit the Dems for not obstructing it:
Stating that North Korea is will not achieve a different relationship with the United States “while insulting and refusing dialogue with [South Korea],” the resolution says Pyongyang has refused proposals from Seoul for mutual dialogue, and refused to fully implement six-party agreements on denuclearization.
Democrat Eni Faleomavaega heads the House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Global Environment. “These startling events have unquestionably precipitated the necessity of unified congressional response to North Korea’s hostile acts, while also sending a message of strong solidarity and support to our close friend and ally, the Republic of Korea,” he said.
Here’s Ed Royce, one of Congress’s best informed and toughest members on North Korea:
Saying North Korea has “dropped the pretense” of being willing to negotiate away its nuclear program, Republican Representative Ed Royce asserted that a resolution recently approved by the U.N. Security Council was a “watered down response” to North Korean actions.
The United States, added Royce, must take even stronger actions to isolate the communist state and block any new proliferation activities. “Frankly, we have come to a conclusion. And the conclusion for me, and I have followed this issue for many years, is that the U.S. can achieve an awful lot by deploying measures to further undercut North Korea’s economy and to target its proliferation activities,” he said.
Lee will visit Congress this week, where I presume he’ll lobby hard for the FTA, which one senses is still South Korea’s top priority, despite North Korea’s tantrum.
Full text of the resolution here. For those of you with an interest in parsing vague language, here’s the full text of the US-ROK joint statement on the future of the alliance. The much-hoped-for mention of the nuclear umbrella is in there, and the mention of peaceful uses of nuclear energy fits with the South Koreans’ sudden new interest in having access to the full uranium fuel cycle. Hmmm.