Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...surprising number of Americans agree. A new TIME/CNN poll shows that 80% of respondents favored economic sanctions if Pyongyang continued to restrict inspections. By 46% to 40%, they approved U.N. military action against the nuclear facilities. As tensions with North Korea began to look serious, members of Congress worried aloud about the safety of the 35,000 troops deployed in the South, along with their 11,000 dependents. They and hundreds of thousands of Koreans could die if the adversaries launch -- or blunder into -- another...
...next act begins. Even if some plutonium was diverted in 1989, it was enough for no more than one or two bombs. The fuel rods Pyongyang has just removed from the reactor will have to cool for about a month. After that, if the North Koreans reprocess them, they will remove all evidence of past extractions and, more important, acquire enough plutonium for five additional bombs...
...catch is that North Korea has threatened to withdraw entirely from the nonproliferation treaty if the U.N., or the U.S. unilaterally, imposes sanctions. That would defeat Clinton's purpose, since it would mean the end of all inspections, no matter how imperfect. Washington would have to assume that Pyongyang was reprocessing the plutonium to build bombs. Pressure would increase to pile on the sanctions and begin reinforcing South Korea to defend against a possible retaliatory onslaught from the North. A cycle of response and reprisal could spiral out of control...
...light of Pyongyang's war talk, Washington plans a series of steps aimed at cutting off the North Koreans' international trade and commercial contacts, in hopes of slowly pressuring Pyongyang to return to proper inspection. One central element will be an effort to halt transfer payments to people in the North of up to $1 billion a year from Koreans living in Japan. This is a major source of hard currency for Pyongyang, and could provoke retaliation. The more likely a sanction is to hurt the North, the more likely it could goad them into lashing back with missile bombardments...
Perhaps the best-informed analysis comes from a Western diplomat who recently visited Pyongyang and talked with senior government officials including members of the Kim family. This diplomat describes the North Korean attitude as a siege mentality, desperate to maintain itself, fearful of attack. He does not think Kim Il Sung is looking for an economic payoff or playing a self-aggrandizing game of brinkmanship. Rather he is obsessed with assuring the survival not just of the regime but also of the very country he created. The diplomat compares Kim's quest for nuclear power with French President Charles...