North Korea breaks off nuclear talks

Edit to include wire story; still no link. Will update with link when available.

BEIJING (AP) - North Korea no longer has "interest or expectations" in further talks on its nuclear program, a spokesman for Pyongyang's delegation to the six-nation talks on the subject said Saturday.

"There is no need for this kind of talks," said the unidentified spokesman, who made the remarks at the airport to reporters as the delegation was leaving Beijing after the landmark three-day meeting.

The United States, North Korea, Japan, South Korea and Russian attended the discussions, which ended Friday with the goal of holding another round of talks in the near future. No date was immediately set.

"We no longer have interest or expectations either," he said. "We are left with no option as it became clear that the United States wants to disarm our nation."

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I remember someone on CNN saying that expectations were lowered so much that the Administrations said the talks would be considered a success if NK didn't walk out.

"North Korea's chief delegate, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il, suggested his country was willing to abandon a nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic aid and a treaty with the United States.

"It is not our goal to have nuclear weapons," Pyongyang's state-run news agency, KCNA, quoted Kim as saying. The three-day talks ended Friday.

Kim said North Korea could allow inspections of its nuclear facilities, stop its missile exports and tests and, finally, dismantle its nuclear program. But that would only be if the United States resumed free oil shipments, provided economic and humanitarian aid, signed a nonaggression treaty and opened diplomatic ties.

Brinkmanship and bluster have characterized North Korea's diplomacy in recent years, but they often veil its willingness to compromise."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/29/international1613EDT0667.DTL

Sorry; couldn't edit initial message (or title!) because my time expired.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3193587.stm

N Korea rejects more talks
Initial good will seems to have quickly evaporated

North Korea has said it is not interested in holding any more talks on the future of its controversial nuclear programme.

"We're no longer interested. Our expectations have diminished," said a spokesman following multilateral talks in the Chinese capital, Beijing.

Earlier, Washington said it was "pleased" at the outcome of the three-day meeting, which involved the US, North and South Korea, Russia, China and Japan.

... It is not clear if North Korea's statement following the talks represents a change of position from Pyongyang or not.

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And it's staring us in the face: the non-aggression pact.

BushCo won't sign one.

They refuse to promise not to attack North Korea!

Remind me, again, why these guys aren't in front of a war crimes tribunal?

(Good news from the heartland, though: a friend of mine spoke with an ultra-religious Christian fundie, who, after they spoke about the Patriot Act, said "This is exactly how Nazi Germany started". Some hope for humanity, anyway.)

A) Do you believe the North Koreans when they say they don't have a goal of getting nukes? I sure as hell don't. So any agreement is not worth the paper it's printed on.
B) We are not really at peace with North Korea. Given that, it is unlikely any president would really sign a non-aggression pact with them. Especially since they are a freakish cult of personality nation that is abusing and starving its citizens.

BTW, before you say it, I support a peaceful regime change in NK only. Or, in the meantime, totally cutting them off.

If we could "open up" NK we would have a much better chance of compromising the regime and making certain that they weren't mass producing nukes.

Isolating them and forcing brinksmanship is a prescription for disaster.

It's not just a policy shift that needs to take place but a paradigm shift.

I agree that there is an argument to that concept. I think it is wrongheaded. Every nation has to make choices. I choose to NOT deal with corrupt dictators when we can let them alone.

That is not brinkmanship. It forces them to do nothing. How they handle lack of trade and lack of aid is their business.

to begin with? This has always puzzled me.

Why back in 1952 when I was in Korea that question often came up.

The guys would muse "What the f,,k are we doing here in Korea?

Nobody had the answer. "I Like Ike" Said he would get us out

of Korea. He did not mean that. He meant he would stop the

fighting just about where it started and the American kids

would occupy "The Hermit Kingdom" just as the USA intended

back early in the last century. What are we doing there??

Give Korea back to the Koreans. Get the Amerikans out.

IMHO.

180

over not signing a PIECE OF PAPER?

interesting...

unless that is EXACTLY what we are planning?

remember what happened last time we 'totally cutting them off'

PERL HARBOR - NEVER FORGET



NEVER AGAIN

peace

^

:scared:

i just hope we actually have some lasers or whatnot in space that can instantly take out all their nukes with all that money they been rakin in over the decades, tons of which they can't even account for... let's hope it wasn't all for bars and golf :argh:

is * still on vaykay?

peace

Clearly, S.K. will do everything in their power to prevent the outbreak of war; Seoul, the capital with ten million+ residents, would be burned to the ground in the first 24 hours. Japan could go either way on this, I think; Japanese people do not trust Koreans, especially North Koreans, so they may see this as a way to take care of an apparent long-standing threat from their neighbor to the west. If Japanese gov't party faction leaders decide that the threat of missile attacks from N.K. is credible and threatening then they will not actively promote war no matter what the Pentegon desires. With Japan on board the opinions of S.K. may be rendered irrelevant but w/o Japan the push for war is a non-starter.

Hiroshima. They will just drop THE bomb and 'poof' all done .. :( They've been wanting to toy with nukes since day one!