Search Results for: "agreed framework iii"

August 31, 2015

Agreed Framework III Watch: Syd Seiler steps down

Yonhap is reporting that Syd Seiler, the State Department’s Special Envoy to the long-defunct six-party denuclearization talks, has stepped down and returned to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The move was unexpected enough that an e-mail from a Yonhap reporter to Seiler bounced back, with an out-of-office message saying that Seiler was “moving on to [his] next assignment.” A diplomatic insider in Washington said, “The departure of one of the most trustworthy experts on North Korea...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
February 18, 2012

Agreed Framework III Watch

Whenever I mention Glyn Davies, I like to remind readers of the time he tried to pressure a State Department colleague into airbrushing a report on North Korea’s human rights atrocities for “the cause” of Agreed Framework II. Davies is about to fly to Beijing for talks with North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan next week, and Kim wouldn’t have booked his ticket if he didn’t see a payday at the end of the journey. There isn’t a doubt in...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
January 19, 2012

Agreed Framework III Watch

There isn’t much to say about this that I haven’t already said so many times that I’m tired of saying it: North Korea on Wednesday signaled a willingness to freeze its uranium enrichment program in exchange for “confidence-building” incentives from the United States such as a suspension of sanctions and a resumption of food aid. The statement, carried by North Korea’s state-run news agency and attributed to a foreign ministry spokesman, was the first sign that North Korean heir Kim...

Categories Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Six-Party Talks
August 8, 2011

Open Sources: Agreed Framework III Watch

On asylum for North Korean refugees, America leads from behind: Some 581 North Korean defectors have been given asylum in the United Kingdom, making them the largest group of all defectors in countries other than South Korea…. The U.K. was followed by Germany with 146, the Netherlands with 32, Australia and the U.S. with 25 each and Canada with 23. I suppose the State Department is worried that if we provoke Kim Jong Il, he might boycott disarmament talks, pursue...

Categories Anju Links
June 1, 2009

SecDef Gates Not Pushing for Agreed Framework III

Michael Yon traveled with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Singapore and passes along these observations: One matter that you will see in the press is that North Korea is the elephant in the room. Secretary Gates has made it clear that we have no intention of rewarding bad behavior, as we have done in the past with North Korea. Many readers seem to hold a special disdain for President Obama, and I actively campaigned for McCain, but I get the...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
August 29, 2018

The U.S.-Korea alliance is “in jeopardy” & it’s not even (mostly) Trump’s fault

MAKING THE ROUNDS IN WASHINGTON THIS WEEK IS THIS MUST-READ REPORT, in Tokyo Business Today, by Stanford Professor Daniel Sneider: “Behind The Chaos Of Washington’s Korea Policy.” The report is based on Sneider’s discussions with insiders familiar with the administration’s North Korea negotiations and policymaking, and yes, you should be worried: [T]he spoken, and unspoken, aim of most professionals implementing North Korea policy is to hold off President Trump from meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again. They worry...

Categories An Alliance?/Sanctions/Washington Views
July 19, 2016

Andrei Lankov doesn’t really know if North Korea sanctions are working

It’s no secret that I’ve been a skeptic of “engagement” with Pyongyang from the very beginning, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrei Lankov. His Korea Times columns, his book, and his other writings on social, historical, and political matters have been so useful that I often cite them, despite his unrealized predictions or the silly things he occasionally writes. His view of engagement isn’t just the conventional approach of wheeling a catapult up the DMZ and flinging bundles of unmarked...

Categories Appeasement/Sanctions
May 11, 2015

On progressive diplomacy: Friends first, frenemies second, enemies last

Aside from the vanishingly small chance of Agreed Framework III, the foundation of our North Korea policy, as set forth in a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, is multilateral economic pressure. That means that all hope of success rests on building multilateral unity before we negotiate with Pyongyang. Every time Seoul, Tokyo, or Washington is taken in by Pyongyang’s divide-and-rule tactics, there is a piecemeal relaxation of pressure by one or two of them, at the expense of one or two others....

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
January 2, 2015

President blocks all assets of the N. Korean gov’t, ruling party … maybe.

A new executive order signed by President Obama and published at around 2:00 today is either a game-changer in his North Korea policy or a wet paper tiger. On its face, the Executive Order is tough, sweeping, and potentially lethal: Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred,...

Categories Anju Links
November 13, 2014

Must read: RFK Center calls for a “rights up front” policy toward N. Korea

The report, by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, along with the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea,* calls on the U.S. to defer its pursuit of Agreed Framework III, and instead confront the very reason why Pyongyang shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, and why diplomacy with it will continue to fail: Only when North Korea begins to develop a record of improvement on human rights can it engage with the U.S. on other issues, including security, the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
November 12, 2014

Claudia Rosett hopes the Obama Administration won’t screw up Iran …

policy with a bad deal the same way the Clinton and Bush Administrations screwed up North Korea policy with their own bad deals. Rosett isn’t the only one making the comparison: “Like North Korea in the 1990s, Iran will use a weak deal as cover to get nuclear weapons,” said Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, a prominent skeptic of the negotiations. [CNN] The historical record yields little cause for optimism, and the common thread that runs through much of that record is Wendy...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
May 16, 2014

Nuclear blackmail watch

As Pyongyang may be about to nuke off, and then again may not be, Glyn Davies is pleading for Agreed Framework III. A U.S. envoy on Tuesday suggested Washington could accept “reversible steps” from North Korea on denuclearization in order to jump-start frozen negotiations. “What they do, quite frankly, in the initial stages would be perfectly reversible steps that they would take, declaratory steps,” said Glyn Davies, the Obama administration’s special envoy for North Korea policy. He emphasized, however, that Pyongyang could only...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
March 7, 2014

Look how fast Treasury can freeze assets when it wants to

Yesterday, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) released this advisory to banks around the world to be on the lookout for deceptive financial practices designed to move the ill-gotten wealth of 18 former Ukrainian officials, including Viktor Yanukovich. The chilling effect of this will likely be that banks around the world refuse to move large sums of money for mysterious figures linked to these 18 people, for fear of losing their access to the financial system. Although the advisory says...

Categories Sanctions
October 30, 2013

Open Sources, October 30, 2013

~ 1 ~ AGREED FRAMEWORK III WATCH: Yesterday, I fisked Ambs. Bosworth and Gallucci for calling for talks with North Korea despite the concession by one of them (Bosworth) that a deal could never be verified, and despite North Korea’s repeated statements that they would never disarm. As if on cue, the North Koreans have said it again! SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) — North Korea said Wednesday that its nuclear weapons program is not a bargaining tool and slammed South...

Categories Anju Links
October 29, 2013

Bosworth and Gallucci: Let’s pay Kim Jong Un to pretend to disarm, and we can pretend to believe him.

Writing with Robert Gallucci in The New York Times, Stephen Bosworth writes that the North Koreans, contrary to countless public and private statements that its nukes are non-negotiable, are ready to enter disarmament negotiations in good faith, and that we should give them shiny objects for doing that: The North Koreans — who are longtime participants in government-to-government talks and well plugged-in to their country’s leadership — stated that if dialogue were to resume, their nuclear weapons program would be on the negotiating table. They...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
October 17, 2013

Open Sources, October 17, 2013

PEACE IN OUR TIME, Part 1: South Korea says that the North is ready for another nuke test any old time, and reveals that at the height of Sunshine and Agreed Framework II, the North was building missile silos: Several South Korean government sources confirmed yesterday that the North has numerous underground missile launch facilities around 2,000 meters (2,190 yards) south of Mount Paektu. The silos, they said, were constructed in the mid-2000s and were determined to have been completed...

Categories Anju Links
October 14, 2013

Open Sources, October 14, 2013

IT’S CALLED AN ARMISTICE, STUPID. We learned today that our Secretary of State has been busy begging North Korea for Agreed Framework III, offering them a “Non-Aggression Pact” if they give up their nukes. Where to begin with this? First, the North Koreans reacted to that idea about as favorably as I did. Second, would this be like the non-aggression pact that North Korea signed in 1953, only to violate in 1968, 2002, 2010–and most of the years before and since–and...

Categories Anju Links
September 14, 2013

Open Sources, September 14, 2013

~          1          ~ MADE IN NORTH KOREA: NK News has done us a service by identifying a factory in North Korea that’s making Land’s End clothing, which the Chinese subcontractor then sells as “Made in China.” I suspect there’s more of this going on than we know. Land’s End ought to terminate all relationships with the Chinese supplier.  If it doesn’t, it implies tolerance of illegal violations of North Korea sanctions, and immoral exploitation...

Categories Anju Links