Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...more than a decade, ever since the first nuclear deal reached between the U.S. and North Korea fell apart, it has been an article of faith among Washington diplomats that with just the right configuration of carrots and sticks, Pyongyang could be enticed to stand down its nuclear weapons and begin to be drawn out of international isolation. That belief prompted the Bush Administration to jettison its first-term approach of diplomatic disdain and economic sanctions, and instead embrace, along with its partners in East Asia, a policy of engagement with the North - which culminated in another nuclear deal with...
...Obama Administration formally began its trudge up the same hill, as special envoy Stephen Bosworth, a veteran U.S. diplomat, traveled to Pyongyang for a day and a half of talks with North Korea. But to hear experts in Washington and East Asia tell it, whatever optimism the Obama team may have carried into office in January has already dissipated. Over the summer, the North's second test of a nuclear bomb, followed by the launch of long-range missile (on the very day Obama was in Prague making a soaring speech about a world free of nuclear weapons) has seen...
...North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Il has previously declared the six-party talks "dead," saying only direct negotiation with the U.S. on a range of issues is acceptable. But pressure from China - thought to be the only country with any leverage over Pyongyang - may have produced a change of heart. Since late this summer, North Korea has taken some steps to ease ongoing tensions with South Korea; Kim personally met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton when he traveled to Pyongyang in order to free two American journalists who had managed to get themselves arrested in North Korea...
...Even getting the North back to the bargaining table may prove difficult. Pyongyang wants to be recognized by the world as a nuclear power, and probably has other reasons to talk to Washington. Experts in Seoul say the North has sent signals recently that it is interested in negotiating a peace treaty with South Korea. That would be politically enticing to a segment of the South Korean population, but the Obama Administration now views it as a distraction. "The main agenda is the nuclear program, and Bosworth has made it clear he's not going to allow the North...
...second reason for the crackdown - as ever with Pyongyang - is control. The government allowed black markets to proliferate this decade out of desperation, but they had grown to the point where the leadership may have begun to feel threatened. Small traders and black markets existed outside of government control, and by definition at some point the regime was not going to tolerate that, analysts say. "The breakaway, snowballing market is a threat to the regime," says Lim Kang-taeg, senior research fellow at the Korean Institute for National Unification, a government-sponsored think tank in Seoul. "This is a significant...