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Category: Diplomacy

August 4, 2009

The Bag Man: Bill Clinton in Pyongyang

[Update:  More here, at The New Ledger.  I suspect we’ve come to a fork in the road.  One way brings us to Agreed Framework III, and the other clears a major obstacle toward intensifying sanctions, and an adult response to a crisis that talks without clear benchmarks and objectives have only exacerbated.  Place your own bets.] Former President Clinton is in Pyongyang to ask for the freedom of Laura Ling and Euna Lee. As I’ve said before, it hardly matters...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Ling/Lee Incident/Terrorism (NK)
August 3, 2009

Obama Persuades Liberals that John Bolton Was Right About North Korea

At the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford Professor Joel Brinkley argues the President Obama is “wasting his time” trying to improve relations with North Korea: In the months since Obama took office, North Korea has test fired long-range missiles, threatened and belittled South Korea and conducted a nuclear test – even as Washington let Pyongyang know that it wanted to improve relations. Finally, it appears, the administration has had enough. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, attending the July 23 meeting...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
August 2, 2009

Kim Kye-Gwan Purged?

Writing in the Asia Times, Don Kirk passes along reports that Kim Kye Gwan, the man who tricked Chris Hill into Agreed Framework II and a host of unilateral concessions that followed it, has been purged. He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he’s dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education. Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in...

Categories Diplomacy/Kremlinology
July 31, 2009

Ban Ki-moon to Save the Day?

Last night the Facebook page for Laura Ling and Euna Lee posted an an Agence France-Presse article stating that U.N. head Ban Ki-moon has “launched an initiative to secure the release of two US journalists detained in North Korea but would not disclose details.” Call me cynical, but if he can actually free these two reporters, it will somewhat restore my lost faith in the ability of Ban – and the U.N. for that matter. Although I must admit, crazier...

Categories "United" Nations/Ling/Lee Incident
July 27, 2009

Yachting the River Styx and the Lies of Christine Ahn

Several of you e-mailed me about the story of the luxury yachts that North Korea had attempted to purchase from the Italian manufacturer Azimuth-Benetti.  I started a post and didn’t finish it, partially because that post became something long-winded, disjointed, and unpublishable.  Meanwhile, a few more details have trickled in about the boats and the purchase.  Contrary to doubts expressed in earlier reports, Italian authorities have concluded that the boats were indeed for His Withering Majesty, although you have to...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions
July 24, 2009

Why My Diplomacy Is Smarter Than Your Diplomacy

You remember what diplomacy was like in the days before it was smart, right? When diplomats let slip undiplomatic truths about Kim Jong Il being a “tyrannical dictator” who subjected his people to a “hellish nightmare?” When Presidents “loathed” their adversaries instead of sitting down and sharing a bong with them? Thank goodness change has come! It says a lot about the North Koreans that they can’t just rise above this and hold the high ground. So does this mean...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
July 22, 2009

John Kerry Tries, Fails to Stop Amendment Calling for N. Korea to be Re-Listed as Terror Sponsor (Update: Dems Defeat Amendment, 54-43)

Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends…. Now the president must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term. —...

Categories Appeasement/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts).  Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits.  The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years.  I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 15, 2009

Gary Samore on North Korea Policy

In addition to his comments on North Korea’s HEU program, Gary Samore talked about President Obama’s North Korea policy.  As someone who found Bush’s North Korea policy to be incoherent and disappointing, but who didn’t have high expectations for Samore’s boss, either, I could not be more pleased to read things like this: I think we have to create, in the case of both North Korea and Iran, a narrative by which, if the big powers work together, and if...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Sanctions/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
July 14, 2009

On Second Thought, Let’s Not Talk to Our Enemies Without Preconditions!

As someone who openly seeks the violent overthrow of the regime by cultivating and arming an internal opposition, I never thought I’d see the day when the Obama Administration moved to in a diplomatic direction at least as extreme as mine, and possibly more so: American diplomatic efforts on North Korea are coming under fire within the Obama administration from officials who consider talks futile and instead want to focus on halting the regime’s trade in nuclear weapons and missile...

Categories Diplomacy/Uncategorized/Washington Views
July 14, 2009

The HEU Debate Is Officially Over

From December 2002 until March 2009, it was the shared narrative of the shrill left, mainstream Democrats, and much of the spin circus in tow behind them that Kim Jong Il’s successful development of nuclear weapons was really George W. Bush’s fault.  This narrative held as infallible dogma that Agreed Framework I was successfully containing Kim Jong Il’s nuclear programs until Bush showed up to wreck it with suspect claims about WMD programs — specifically, the accusation that North Korea...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
July 7, 2009

Fireworks

Not that I paid much attention, but North Korea did in fact live up to expectations that it would test missiles on the 4th of July.  So often, our media get excited about the testing of anti-ship missiles which probably aren’t nuclear capable and probably couldn’t do much damage to ground targets in Japan or South Korea.  This time, however, the North fired off seven short-range missiles.  They were SCUD-C’s or Nodong’s, which could do serious damage to a South...

Categories "United" Nations/Missiles
July 1, 2009

Robert King to Be Next NK Human Rights Special Envoy? (Updated)

So says a reader I trust.  The little I know is that he was a staffer who worked for Rep. Tom Lantos, meaning he probably knows plenty about foreign policy and shares his former boss’s interest in human rights, but may not have much specific Asia expertise.  Here’s a photo of him. There are three things that I like about King without knowing anything else.  First, he’s not a State Department insider.  Second, he’s not the same person who will...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 30, 2009

Kang Nam I Turns Around, Heads North

U.S. officials said Tuesday that a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back in the direction it came from, after being tracked for more than a week by American Navy vessels on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons. The move keeps the U.S. and the rest of the international community guessing: Where is the Kana Nam going? Does its cargo include materials banned by a new U.N. anti-proliferation resolution?  [AP, Pauline Jelinek] The ship apparently turned around last...

Categories "United" Nations/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 29, 2009

Obama Forms Team Plan B

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is forming an inter-agency team, much like the Illicit Activities Initiative that David Asher headed in G.W. Bush’s first term, to coordinate sanctions against North Korea: The White House is forming an interagency team to coordinate sanctions efforts against North Korea with other nations, senior administration officials said yesterday.  The team will be led by Philip S. Goldberg, a former ambassador to Bolivia who is slated to leave for China in the...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views