Topic awaiting preservation: N.Korea pulls out of non proliferation treaty

ok i know this has been glanced on in the whats happening in n.korea thread, but this one is more of a who is more of a threat thread....


THE SEEMINGLY conflicting reports followed diplomatic signals of a possible drop in tensions between North Korea and the United States.
?The government of the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea in a statement today declared its withdrawal from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its total freedom from the binding force of the safeguards accord with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),? said the official KCNA news agency. The withdrawal was immediate, it said.
?Though we pull out of the NPT, we have no intention to produce nuclear weapons and our nuclear activities at this stage will be confined only to peaceful purposes such as the production of electricity,? it said.
International reaction was immediate. Russia and Japan expressed concern, and France condemned the move.
?Our goal is clear: We have to make sure that North Korea will comply with its non-proliferation commitments,? French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said. ?This is a critical condition, for the security and the stability in the Korean peninsula, in the region and in the world.?
Also Friday, North Korea?s state-sponsored media warned the United States that a ?new Korean War will finally lead to the Third World War? and dared the Americans to engage it in a ?fire-to-fire standoff.? The inflammatory comments came from a newspaper article carried by KCNA.
It said U.S. efforts to have North Korea abandon its nuclear ambitions amounted to a ?strategy for domination? and said ?let us see who will win and who will be defeated in the fire-to-fire standoff.?
North Korea added that ?a new Korean War will finally lead to the Third World War. If a war breaks out on the Korean peninsula where military and strategic interests of neighboring big countries are entangled, they will be embroiled in it, like it or not.?


full story here

Jeez and we worry about iraq maybe having them, i am not saying n.korea is in the same league as iraq, but iraq doesnt have them yet, this is brinkmanship at its worst, this is fucking crazy

[This message has been edited by tomeaglescz (edited 01-10-2003).]

[This message has been edited by tomeaglescz (edited 01-10-2003).]

Yup. As I recall, I brought up the N. Korean threat earlier, in the Iraq threads...

At this point, I think N. Korea is looking for some bargaining power...and, of course, attracting huge amounts of attention to itself...

As to why, I'm not so sure...and that is worrisome. Maybe they see no other way, to try and feed their people...even though, through our eyes, what they are doing is insane.

It is certainly a danger, and a very real one...

I Hope that IS the aim, but nuclear brinkmanship at the league that N.Korea is playing, especially the part

quote:

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?let us see who will win and who will be defeated in the fire-to-fire standoff.?

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is very worrying




[This message has been edited by tomeaglescz (edited 01-10-2003).]

At this point it is rhetoric...sword-rattling, is another name for it. It's designed to grab, and keep, the focus of attention.

Well...we will see what happens. The most interesting thing is, China is keeping quiet. Now, they can least afford to have a nuclear exchange on their immediate border...so, until China actually speaks up, I wouldn't worry about it all that much...when China starts speaking about it, then I'll get worried...because then it is serious.

It is still a troublesome developement...

This is kind of being discussed in the other thread, but I'd like to emphasize something that I said over there, in relation to something WS said here:

quote:

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At this point, I think N. Korea is looking for some bargaining power...and, of course, attracting huge amounts of attention to itself...

As to why, I'm not so sure...and that is worrisome. Maybe they see no other way, to try and feed their people...even though, through our eyes, what they are doing is insane.

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The first part up there is pretty much on target. As for the second part (the why), as I said in the other thread, the primary goal of the DPRK government is to keep the Kim Dynasty (some refer to it as a "regime") in power. I know this may be hard for most people to fathom, but keeping the North Korean people fed is secondary to keeping Kim in power. If keeping the people fed contributes to the primary goal, then the people get fed. If it does not, then food gets put on the back burner--as it has so many times in the past.

I know this may seem to be a rather simplistic way of looking at things, and in reality dealing with the DPRK is not really this simple, but the answer to just about any "why" question concerning DPRK actions can be traced to the goal of keeping Kim in power.

In the end, no, this is not about keeping the North Korean people fed. If they manage to get fed in the process, hey, bonus--but in the end it's secondary. That is the cold, hard and--as WS said--insane truth.

Knowing this, we can take comfort in the fact that the DPRK will most likely never dream of initiating military action. However, as tom said, nuclear brinksmanship at this level is very worrisome, and things may not go as North Korea plans. That is my biggest worry--that things will get out of hand. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Edit: Added a link to the "other thread," just in case someone stumbles on this later on...]

[This message has been edited by Suho1004 (edited 01-10-2003).]

Thanks, Master suho...for clearing up the why. That, on the possibility of the whole thing 'spinning' out of control, is worrisome...and such things have resulted in wars, before...

You say it is about keeping the Leadership in power...and though it rings true, do you have any concrete information on this? I, for one, would be interested to read it...

Also, what kind of threats is the Leadership facing, internally? Are all the threats then from outside? Are you suggesting, that if we just stopped all economic embargos, all sanctions, and welcomed N. Korea, that it would then solve the problem? That we should do our best to allay the Leaderships fears, to 'remove' the threats to its reign? Is that a part of the 'Sunshine' policy? Could you explain the 'Sunshine' policy to me...I'm really not sure, what it is, or what it is supposed to accomplish.

Everything you ever wanted to know about North Korea...and more here. Very interesting stuff...I don't know how accurate it all is...though the BBC is normally pretty accurate.



[This message has been edited by WebShaman (edited 01-10-2003).]

ok i suppose ther is some logic to this...

If they portray the us as the big bad bullies to their people, then they may rally round their leadership. However might not the reverse also be true, that the people may eventually think hey here's a chance for change...???

what worries me, even with the test of a nuclear capable misile by india yesterday and all that worry not so long ago, not any any time has anyone recently said "OK lets see who will win"

what i think we can draw some relief from is this, The usa is taking a highly diplomatic line on this (by diplomatic i mean use of diplomacy). Why, i guess that they really think that the NK's have nukes and would probably use them in order to survive. However if this had been saddam saying this kind of thing, bombs and bullets would be flying right now....

They could have kept feeding their people (by which I mean their military) with food assisstance from other countries such as the US, if they hadn't broken the 1994 treaty to stop nuke weapons research and building programs.

Kim will continue to build vastly bigger armies and never stop making more weapons until he has enough to take the rest of Korea.

He's nuts.
That's the bottom line.

We should take our troops out of the DMZ.
South Korea didn't want us there before, they can't have us now that the heat is on.

genis, when I hear the S.Korean protests my emotional side definitely says to pull out but then when I calm down I realize how many people would be incinerated as a result... therefore not an option I'm willing to choose.

I think it's important to relieve ourselves of thinking that every hotspot situation on the geopolitical plane has to be dealt with exactly the same way. Every problem has it's own set up variables and solutions so why do we constantly hear comments about how we are or are not treating Iraq and N.Korea identically?



. . : slicePuzzle

As far as I know the SK govt is still clinging to the idea of hoisting our troops.

Which is fine with me.
They actually don't do any good there as the "trip wire" anymore, except automatically implicate US in a war we don't need to fight.

We've fought it for more than 50 years, and what thanks do we get?

... oh fuck it.

The short memories really bother me too. No doubt about it.

The following is my response to a Portuguesa on the topic of N. Korea on another forum. His views are anti-American and he hopes that America is nuked and the U.S. Armed forces are destroyed. He believes that the U.S. Armed Forces are the cause of all things evil. He said he will laugh when America is nuked. He believes that Portugal is a Utopian nation with a perfect government and perfect people.

quote:

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[Pedro]
You've made yourself perfectly clear that you do not understand politics at all. North Korea heavily depends on United States aid. There's a reason they were sniveling and crying to the U.S. after talk about removing Saddam was becoming a realistic situation. Pyongyang saw it as the perfect opportunity to throw dirt in the States' face. Not only would Bush, Jr. be caught in three major time-conflicting decisions: to invade Iraq or not, to proceed with activities in the coalition against terrorism, or to act on North Korea, but it was also the perfect opportunity to ask for more aid.

Under the 1994 Agreed Framework with the U.S., Pyongyang agreed to discontinue its nuclear program in exchange for U.S. aid. In December of 2002, Pyongyang announced they would no longer abide by the terms of the treaty and reopen their nuclear program. They said they violated the agreement because Washington stopped sending fuel shipments to N. Korea which was also a violation of the treaty.

Before you step in with a "it's Washington's fault" 'argument', understand that Washington stopped sending fuel shipments to Pyongyang in October because Pyongyang disclosed that they had restarted their nuclear program. Why did Pyongyang openly declare their violation of the treaty to the world after the invade Iraq issue was becoming a sure thing? Like I said, it was the ideal moment to spite the Communists' enemies -- the Capitalists.

Political scientists will agree that this is purely a child-like move to negotiate a "better deal."

For the full story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,872125,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/01/10/nkorea.treaty/index.html

In-depth coverage:
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1521810

It's also "Portuguesa fun" to see these articles:
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0475_BC_NKorea-Warning&&news&newsflash-international

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OK, went away for the weekend, so I haven't had a chance to get back to these threads. This will be brief, since I've got some work that needs to get done.

WS: Cold hard evidence, eh? Well, if you're looking for links, I can't give you any. In fact, it would be difficult to find anything "factual" to support my position. I came to this conclusion by 1) watching North Korea's actions over the years, 2) reading between the lines in the North Korean press (links there probably wouldn't help you much), and 3) speaking with Koreans about the issue. Based on my experience, I believe what I said above to be true. I may be wrong, but that's the best conclusion I can come to. Sorry I can't give you anything more concrete than that.

Internally, the DPRK leadership is not yet facing any serious threats, primarily because they have done their best to keep their people ignorant and unarmed (in more than one sense). When I say there are no serious threats, I mean that there is no power struggle within North Korea. There is, however, the very real danger that the country will collapse. I believe it was in the other thread (the one Beekay started) that someone quoted an article that said it was not a question of if the regime would collapse but when. I would tend to agree with this. If things were not getting desperate, they probably would not resort to the dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship.

As for the Sunshine Policy, it is basically a policy of tolerance toward the DPRK, rather than a hard-line stance. There is no document that outlines the tenets of the Sunshine Policy--it's just basically a stance taken by the ROK government toward the DPRK. I'm not sure if I entirely agree with it, but I also don't entirely disagree with it (a change in stance for me from the last time this was discussed). As for what the Sunshine Policy is supposed to accomplish, the ultimate goal is peaceful reunification.

But no, I am not suggesting that taking all the pressure off the DPRK would make the problems go away. Kim's first goal may be to ensure that he stays in power, but if that goal is ensured he will move onto to bigger and better things--like figuring out how to get the US military out of the ROK so he can begin his brand of reunification. Then again, I don't think putting undue pressure on the DPRK is wise, either. I think our best bet, to be honest with you, is to keep moderate pressure on the North and wait for them to collapse. It will happen sooner or later (hopefully sooner).

So much for brief. There's just one more point I'd like to address. A lot of people have been getting upset over the anti-US demonstrations in Korea, including those calling for the removal of US troops. I would like to remind everyone that these demonstrators are in the minority. A very vocal minority, but a minority nonetheless. Most South Koreans understand the need for a US military presence on the peninsula, even if they do tend to get emotional at times when things go bad. Recently, in fact, there were pro-US demonstrations here: crowds of people stood outside in the freezing cold waving around banners and chanting about how they loved the US and they wanted the US military to stay. I'm not sure if that showed up in the news over there, but it should have.