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Pyongyang's Deputy Foreign Minister at the U.N. [VIDEO
BELOW]; Kim Jong-il With His 'Loyal' Well-Fed Supporters.
— UNITED NATIONS VIDEO: Choe Su-hon, North Korea's Deputy Foreign Minister
Speaks for His Nation at the U.N. Last Week, Sept. 22, 00:14:27
Kim Jong-il Back to the Game of Cat and Mouse
Despite the momentary glee at the close of six-party talks, after three years the participants had achieved only a flimsy deal that looks likely to result in a more isolated North Korea - playing China and South Korea against Washington. What’s more, according to this op-ed from France’s Liberation, the situation in Iran is almost equally as dire.
By Jacques Amalric
September 29, 2005
Liberation
- Original Article (French) 
For U.S. and North Korea, It's Back to Cat & Mouse
Despite the recently announced success,
nuclear proliferation has beautiful days ahead of it. Such is the quality
of the flimsy agreement nailed down on September 19 between North Korea and
the five countries that have been negotiating with Pyongyang for almost three
years (the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea), in the hope
of persuading the Stalinist State of giving up its nuclear weapons. According
to the text, written mainly by Chinese diplomats, North Korea commits itself "to giving up its nuclear
weapons and its existing nuclear programs" and to return "at
an early date" to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear
weapons (NPT) and to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards.
In exchange, the United
States promises
a normalization of relations with Pyongyang (committing themselves not to attack the country
militarily) and to begin discussions "at an appropriate time," on
the delivery of a light-water nuclear power plant (thus, a non-proliferating
nuclear plant) for North
Korea.
A Jumpsuit Worker's Paradise
The deal was too good to be true. The
ink of the agreement was barely dry before North Korea let it be known
that "the United States should not even dream" that
it would give up its nuclear weapons and programs until after having
received - not one, but two - light-water nuclear reactors. This is a claim
that is in total contradiction to the Beijing declaration,
which envisages that the process would begin with the termination of all
North Korean nuclear activities on the military side, the return of Pyongyang to
the NPT, and therefore the return of IAEA inspectors. The North Korean
reversal brought a wry, practiced reaction from American negotiator Christopher
Hill: "Life is too short to overreact to
every statement coming out of Pyongyang. The statement is not welcome, but it
is not unexpected, either."
The tentative conclusion of this episode:
the game of cat and mouse that the United States and North Korea commenced
since suspicions emerged that Pyongyang had violated agreements concluded
with the Clinton Administration in 1994, will resume next month -
if Kim Jong-il condescends to send his representatives to the next meeting
of the Six Party talks [slated for November]. The North Korean dictator
can all the more count on the discrete support of China and South Korea (which want to avoid American military intervention
at any price) as Bush struggles with his Iraqi quagmire and domestic difficulties.
All of which explain the less-intransigent attitude adopted by Condoleezza
Rice since taking over at the State Department and sending John Bolton,
upon whom negotiations with Pyongyang no longer depend, to the United
Nations.
It is more than likely that this new American
realism will be interpreted as a sign of weakness by Kim Jong-il and as
an incentive to isolate his country even further. Hasn't he just put an
end to World Food Program assistance, which assisted him and which benefited
over a quarter of his population? This will be replaced by Chinese and
South Korean assistance, Beijing and Seoul being less vigilant than the U.N. agency in monitoring
the equity of food distribution. [In other words, so Kim-Jong-il can feed
his army with it].
The things are hardly better with regard
to Iran’s nuclear programs. European mediation having failed, Germany, France
and the United Kingdom agreed to America’s long-standing request for referring
the issue to the Security Council for the purpose of sanctioning Teheran
for supposed violations of the NPT. The request had to be postponed due
to the opposition of Russia and China. The first [Russia] is committed to a civilian nuclear partnership
with Teheran. The second [China] "is constrained" by the need to acquire
large amounts of Iranian oil, the purchase of which has multiplied many-fold
over recent years. Result: if the Board of Directors of the IAEA is to
send the issue to the Security Council, a new vote will have to confirm
the decision. Until that moment and to evade that fate, Teheran will openly
use the weapon of gas and oil; and far more discreetly than it wields influence
over the Iraqi Shiites.
The Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
took the opportunity to hammer in the first nail by stating, "Economic
links are just a step away from political links." The secretary
of Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani [See Video
Below] was even more explicit when he stated: "If certain countries
that have economic interests, in particular oil, do not behave in a spirit
of responsibility; the Supreme Council has decided to treat their participation
in our energy sector accordingly."
This message is aimed particularly at
the United Kingdom and France, or in other words Royal Dutch Shell and Total,
who are poised to sign significant contracts with Iran. India is also in Teheran’s sights: although New Delhi has concluded a contract for the purchase of significant
quantities of Iranian natural gas over the next 25 years, of, she voted
for the first IAEA resolution against Iran. In response, a spokesman
for the Iranian Ministry for Foreign Affairs declared, in an effort to
avert such a stance from New
Delhi in future: "what
the Indians have done is quite strange to us and we are very disappointed."
VIDEO FROM THE MUSLIM WORLD: U.S. SHOULD 'LEARN LESSON OF NORTH KOREA'
Iranian News Network: Iran's Nuclear Chief and National Security Council Secretary Advises Washington, September 20, 00:03:54, MEMRI
"You have pressured North Korea for two years ... What did you do after these two years? You accepted North Korea's nuclear program."
Ali Larijani, Iran's Nuclear Chief
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