Diplomacy – Page 12

September 25, 2011

Al-Kibar Redux

There’s nothing more I really care to say about what we should have done about the North Korean-built nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar in Syria, which Israel destroyed in a September 2009 air strike. This was a matter of some temporary inconvenience to Chris Hill’s efforts (abetted by the President and Secretary of State) to sell us a shiny, pre-owned agreed framework, complete with rust-proofing and warranty. Recently, however, Dick Cheney’s memoir has revived that debate. Michael Anton, writing in The...

Axis of Evil/Diplomacy/Missiles/Proliferation/U.S. Politics/WMD

September 13, 2011

It’s Kyl

Looks like my question has been answered: The U.S. State Department is trying to persuade a senior Republican senator to lift a hold on the confirmation of Sung Kim, the nominee to become a new ambassador to South Korea, congressional sources said Monday. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), assistant minority leader in the Senate, has been blocking the confirmation process for more than a month, according to the sources. He is known as a staunch conservative on foreign policy. [….] “Sen. Kyl...

Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

August 12, 2011

Who’s Borking Sung Kim?

So months after Chris Hill protege Sung Kim was nominated to be our Ambassador to South Korea, I’d assumed that he must have been confirmed in the dark of some night when I was too busy to read my news aggregators. Not so: The official confirmation for the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea designate, Sung Kim, is unexpectedly being delayed although it seemed a mere formality. Apparently some senators are stalling because they worry about the direction of the...

Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

July 6, 2011

Clinton Nominates Wendy Sherman

If Wendy Sherman is confirmed, I predict that she’ll screw up this administration’s North Korea policy — royally — but probably not until President Obama’s second term: Wendy Sherman, a former senior U.S. official on North Korea, was nominated to a lofty State Department post on Friday despite political controversy over her earlier handling of North Korea affairs. The White House announced that President Barack Obama picked her to serve as under secretary for political affairs, the No. 3 post...

Anju Links/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

June 14, 2011

Another North Korean Vessel Intercepted, Turned Around

In an incident reminiscent of the Kang Nam I incident, a U.S. Navy ship has forced another suspected North Korean arms ship to turn around at sea, rather than face the risk of being searched in port. David Sanger of the New York Times reports: The most recent episode began after American officials tracked a North Korean cargo ship, the M/V Light, that was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments. Suspecting that it was carrying missile components,...

"United" Nations/Anju Links/Sanctions/U.S. Military

June 11, 2011

IAEA report concludes that North Korea aided Syria in nuclear proliferation

Recently, a friend provided me a bootleg copy (thanks) of an International Atomic Energy Agency report implicating North Korea and its Syrian client in violating IAEA safeguards by developing a clandestine nuclear weapons capability. The IAEA doesn’t appear to have released the report publicly; it appears to have been leaked. With that said, it’s really nothing we haven’t known since the spring of 2008, when congressional pressure finally forced Chris Hill to lift his embargo on all information related to...

"United" Nations/Axis of Evil/Proliferation/WMD

June 6, 2011

Sung Kim Through the Retrospectoscope

The announcement that Sung Kim will be our new U.S. Ambassador to South Korea suggests continuity if a comparison of his background to Kathleen Stephens’s tells us anything. Like Stephens, Kim is a protege of Chris Hill* and comes from the State Department’s Korea Desk, which has long favored appeasement, agreed frameworks, and a peace treaty with North Korea, and had previously been caught trying to water down language in the State Department’s annual human rights report. My own fears...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea

May 16, 2011

U.N. Report Implicates China in N. Korea-Iran Missile Transfers; China Tries to Block Said Report

If Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are an Axis of Evil, then China must be the Limited-Slip Differential of the Axis of Evil: North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday. The report said the illicit technology transfers had “trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.” That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. [Reuters] China...

"United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Proliferation/WMD

February 17, 2011

Open Sources: Two Thumbs Up for P.J. Crowley

The week’s most interesting North Korea rumor relates to Kim Jong Chol, who was recently spotted at a Clapton concert in Singapore, occupying a seat whose price could have fed every homeless orphan in Chongjin for a month: Japan’s Fuji TV caught up with Jong-chol at an Eric Clapton concert in Germany in June 2006. The broadcaster reported that he appeared to suffer from a condition where his body secreted abnormally large amounts of female hormones, causing his physique and...

Anju Links/Diplomacy

December 20, 2010

It’s Still “Business as Usual” Until Kaesong Closes

Hmmm: The government on Monday banned citizens from going to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea, site of an inter-Korean reconciliation project, as tension on the peninsula remains taut. The Ministry of Unification, citing “security concerns” for South Koreans working there, said it would monitor the situation and decide on a day-to-day basis whether to recommence travel to the complex or other parts of the North. “If the situation gets any worse, the ban could be extended,” an official...

Appeasement/NK Economics

December 18, 2010

So, how exactly has Bill Richardson’s visit reduced tensions again? (Bumped)

North Korea has welcomed the has-been politician by reaffirming that it will never give up its nukes, preparing to test one, threatening to use others, and inspecting a military unit. Who feels safer already? Update: “North Korea Threatens More Attacks.” Huzzah for Kim Jong Bill! Update 2: It may be the worst photoshop ever, but I couldn’t help re-using it. Update 3, Dec 18: So, if Richardson is merely a private citizen who isn’t there to negotiate anything, and if...

Appeasement/Diplomacy

December 13, 2010

Richard Holbrooke, R.I.P.

Breaking news this hour is that Richard Holbrooke, our uber-ambassador to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. I remember laying awake half the night at the Exercise Barracks at Yongsan Garrison, reading his Bosnia memoir, “To End a War,” and gaining an appreciation for the superiority of Holbrooke’s brand of diplomacy as compared to Warren Christopher’s. By the end of the book, Holbrooke had become an advocate of pax Americana, and a skeptic of European diplomacy. His direct and forceful diplomacy...

Diplomacy

December 3, 2010

Huzzah, I’m finally a moderate!

Not being a frequent reader of Foreign Policy, I don’t know much about the leanings of the particular bloggers there, although most would call that publication a stalwart of the “realist” view that had so recently become fashionable in Washington, before Al Qaeda in Iraq was squeezed down to a small nub of its former self, and before it became evident that North Korea, Iran, and China weren’t prospective negotiating partners after all. This week, we read one FP contributor...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/Yeonpyeong Attack

December 1, 2010

It’s (long past) time to close Kaesong.

So a week after the shelling of Yeonpyeong, the Washington Post leads me to believe that a lot of South Koreans who had been inclined to overlook previous North Korean outrages are really outraged this time. The Post’s correspondent thinks that the South’s infamous generation gap as to perceptions about North Korea has closed significantly in the last week. That’s good if it lasts, and if it translates into a policy that puts us on the path to strangling and...

Appeasement/Yeonpyeong Attack

November 12, 2010

Obama: Bush Wimped Out on Kim Jong Il

Just how weak does your diplomacy have to be for Barack Obama, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, to call you out for it? I do not mean to imply that the answer to this question is an obvious one. I ask it because of this statement by President Obama, at a joint news conference with President Lee Myung Bak, after this Veterans’ Day speech at my former duty station: After delivering his remarks, Obama met with South Korean...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics

November 7, 2010

The Reaper Comes for Cho Myong Rok

Top North Korean military official Jo Myong Rok, a longtime confidant of leader Kim Jong Il who traveled to Washington in 2000 on a then-unprecedented goodwill mission, has died. He was 82. Jo, who was vice marshal of the Korean People’s Army and held the No. 2 post on the powerful National Defense Commission behind Kim, died Saturday of heart disease, the official Korean Central News Agency reported from Pyongyang. [AP, Hyun Jin Kim] Other experienced Asia hands will tell...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Media Criticism/Six-Party Talks

October 30, 2010

Ban Ki Moon calls on everyone (except Kim Jong Il) to cover North Korea’s grocery bils.

As I noted the other day, North Korea has announced its traditional million-ton food production shortfall for this year. True to form, its government has found a uniquely obnoxious way to address this that has nothing to do with increasing domestic food production or diverting foreign exchange toward the purchase of food: North Korea demanded massive food aid from South Korea in return for concessions over a reunion programme for separated families, a Seoul official said. The demand for 500,000...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid

August 19, 2010

Good Riddance, Chris Hill

Regular readers already know that Christopher Hill is one of the few career civil servants I write about here whom I loathe almost unreservedly. The first job of an American diplomat is to represent American interests and values. Hill did neither. In his parting remarks before heading off into obscurity — if history is kind to him — Hill encapsulates in one statement what made him the best diplomat North Korea ever had: “We know the Iraqis don’t have nuclear...

Appeasement/Six-Party Talks

Category: Diplomacy