"Diplomacy Don't Work With North Korea"

The U.N. Security Council swiftly condemned North Korea's nuclear test on Monday as "a clear violation" of a 2006 resolution banning them and said it will start work immediately on a new one that could result in stronger measures against the reclusive nation.

Hours after North Korea defiantly conducted its second test, its closest allies China and Russia joined Western powers and representatives from the rest of the world on the council to voice strong opposition to the underground explosion.

After a brief emergency meeting held at Japan's request, the council demanded that North Korea abide by two previous resolutions, which among other things called for Pyongyang to return to six-party talks aimed at eliminating its nuclear program. It also called on all other U.N. member states to abide by sanctions imposed on the North.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current council president, made clear in a statement that the condemnation was only an initial response, and that more will follow. He said it was too early to give any specifics.

"The members of the Security Council have decided to start work immediately on a Security Council resolution on this matter," he said. (Read Full Article)

President Barack Obama assailed North Korea Monday for new missile tests, saying the world must "stand up to" Pyongyang and demand that it honor a promise to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."

It was his second statement within hours of the tests, the latest in a number of nuclear actions that Obama said "endanger the people of Northeast Asia." He called it "a blatant violation of international law" and said that it contradicted North Korea's "own prior commitments." Obama had released a written statement chastising the North Koreans in the early morning hours of Monday.

In his statement in the White House Rose Garden, he noted that the latest tests had drawn scorn around the world. Pyongyang's actions "have flown in the face of U.N. resolutions" and had deepened its isolation, he said, "inviting stronger international pressure."

"North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons," the president said. "We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behavior. The United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world." (Read Full Article)

The fundamental notion underlying U.S. diplomacy with Pyongyang, going back to Bill Clinton's first term, is that North Korea can be bribed. In this view, everything that Kim's regime says or does is meant simply to up the ante in negotiations and get the U.S. and its negotiating partners to sweeten their offerings. This conviction is widely shared among career diplomats in Seoul as well, and they joined their State Department colleagues in being outraged when the Bush administration at first took a confrontational approach to the DPRK. Bush's hardline stance, the critics believe, prompted Pyongyang to kick-start nuclear weapon production. Intelligence analysts in Washington and Seoul believe North Korea increased its total arsenal from one or two nukes to seven or eight during Bush's time in office.

Bush eventually overhauled his approach to the North entirely, and even after the launch of the long-range missile early last month, the Obama administration was still dangling the possibility of eventual direct talks with the North - if Kim would first return to the multilateral six-party format in Beijing. On Korea, Obama heads the most openly dovish administration in Washington since Jimmy Carter. Yet the North's rhetoric since he was inaugurated has been vitriolic. It says it believes the U.S.'s "hostile policy toward the DPRK remains unchanged."

If it remains "unchanged," it's because the North hasn't given Obama even the slimmest reed on which to hang an alteration in policy. Is it possible that today's nuclear test will finally convince diplomats that the North Korea they see is the one they get: that perhaps, on the question of nukes, it simply can't be bribed? North Korean leaders have long cited the year 2012 as being particularly significant for their country. It will mark the 100-year anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the nation's founder and Kim Jong Il's father and predecessor. Jong Il, now 67 and ailing after suffering a stroke last summer, is thought to be arranging a succession now: foreign intelligence analysts believe he wants to pass power onto to his youngest son, 26-year-old Kim Jong Un, with Kim's trusted brother-in-law guiding the young man from behind. (Read Full Article)

    North Korea's cult like Communist government seems to be beyond  the realm of diplomacy, with the recent underground nuclear test and short range missile tests. Clearly impoverished North Korea is a security threat to the region within missile range but a more deadly threat to sell nuclear bomb technology to whatever terrorist group that wants to purchase it. Iran, a nation nowhere close to a nuclear warhead, is on the verge of being attacked by Israel, with American support. I am sure some neoconservative think tank somewhere is planning a militarily imposed regime change in North Korea, ostensibly to stop the sell and spread of North Korean nuclear technology, along with an invasion and occupation of Pakistan, for the same purpose of keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorist organizations. Now is the time for 24/7 military surveillance and intelligence gathering of North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Israel and other "rogue nations" seeking or possessing nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Economic sanctions imposed by the UN or individual nations doesn't seem to work because there is always some few nations that will continue to do business with the "rogue" nuclear nation. Israeli like "preemptive attacks" are immoral, as I see it, without very concrete evidence of imminent attack or transfer of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. In these perilous times, America should not be cutting back on defense spending, just get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, because it takes a lot of money to watch crazy ass North Korea, Iran and Israel, as I see it.

tags: north korea  iran  pakistan  war  warpeace  un security council  politics  

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