Word: kim
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...summer, even as the CIA tracked his nuclear activities, Kim was showing signs of opening the North's barbed-wire gates, economically and diplomatically. He edged in the direction of primitive market reforms and announced a grandiose scheme for a private-enterprise zone along the border with China. Just as intriguing was the sudden burst of sunshine from Pyongyang diplomats as they clamored to hold talks with Seoul, Tokyo and even Washington. Soon after a shoot-out with Seoul's patrol boats that left five dead, the North scheduled its first tete-a-tete with the South in nine months...
Then came Kim's strange confessional meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September. Although U.S. envoys by then had briefed Koizumi on the CIA discovery, it's unclear how hard he pressed Kim on the issue. The Korean leader one-upped his counterpart by apologizing for kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens decades ago to train North Korean spies. He perhaps hoped the startling act of contrition would open the way to more aid from Japan. Koizumi said last week he would keep working to normalize relations...
...Bush Administration remains deeply skeptical about Kim's motivations, and debate rages over what his acknowledgement of the nuclear program portends. He remains firmly in charge of his country, but there's no question that it is in dire shape. Few have enough to eat, and 45% of children under the age of 5 suffer chronic malnutrition. Farms lie fallow without fertilizer, and at least 6 million of North Korea's 22 million people depend on international food aid. Most factories are closed and rusting for lack of power, and the only things lit at night in the North...
Some experts suggest that as North Korea's rigid system breaks down around him, Kim is reaching clumsily for reform. Many in South Korea and Japan interpret last week's confession as a clearing of the decks, kicking over the old framework to negotiate a new, more stable one. But others point to Kim's history of trading momentary friendship and empty promises for monetary assistance: he's just giving the world another head fake...
...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shrugged off any notion that Kim's confession augurs real change. "I don't think there's any way in the world anyone could say it's a good sign," he said. In the short term, hard-liners inside the Administration will resist rewarding Kim for giving up weapons. While the U.S. is not prepared to fight a three-front war, there are plenty of Bush advisers who believe North Korea's arsenal can't be dismantled without regime change--and they will come back to the argument once Iraq is behind them...