Word: pyongyang
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Pyongyang is prone to such outbursts when it's in a diplomatic headlock. And increasingly, Kim Jong Il's government is being tag teamed by the U.S. and South Korea in international efforts to get Kim to dismantle his nuclear arms program. After a promising start to carrying out landmark denuclearization agreements signed by the North in 2007 - deals reached through the six-party talks involving North Korea, South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan - Pyongyang is no longer cooperating. North Korea shut down its main reactor at Yongbyon in July and allowed in international inspectors, as called...
...Hill will need to turn up the heat on North Korea even more. His somewhat unlikely ally in pressuring Pyongyang is Lee Myung Bak, 66, the newly inaugurated President of South Korea. Lee, a conservative who says he wants closer ties with Washington, has vowed to take a tougher line toward his uncooperative Northern neighbor, in stark contrast to the "Sunshine Policy" Seoul has pursued for the past 10 years. This program of engagement allowed North Korea, without giving up much of anything, to gorge on a smorgasbord of South Korean aid amounting to more than $800 million...
...Bush Administration. Indeed, the two countries seem to be taking pains to present a united front. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in March stood shoulder to shoulder with Lee's Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan in Seoul while Yu said that "time and patience is running out" on Pyongyang's foot-dragging...
...Whether or not this U.S.-South Korea partnership will budge Pyongyang is an open question. The current bottleneck in negotiations is over an American demand that Pyongyang fully reveals all of its nuclear facilities, as well as acts of proliferation of nuclear know-how (including a suspected instance involving Syria). But the tide may turn in favor of the allies: after growing slightly for seven years, the North Korean economy contracted by 1.1% in 2006, according to South Korea's central bank, and a bad harvest has worsened chronic food shortages, say North Korea watchers. Lee has pledged to maintain...
...along with handling diplomatic affairs with a sweep of other East Asian and Pacific countries. As the talks have made more headway, Hill has gotten greater latitude from the Administration. With some balking, the North has shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. Recent talks have dangled carrots before Pyongyang like promising deliveries of heavy fuel oil in exchange for further denuclearization. The New York Philharmonic's visit to North Korea in February is not a direct result of Hill's work, but the event would surely have been less likely without the improved atmospherics he's helped bring about...