Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Despite the much-ballyhooed February agreement among North Korea, four of its neighbors and the U.S. that would have Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear weapons program, thus far there has been very little progress towards meeting that goal. And watching North Korea successfully stall may reinforce the bravado of the Iranian leadership...
...able to explain to you North Korean thinking is probably the day I've been in this process too long.' CHRISTOPHER HILL, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, after North Korea's delegation walked out of six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear program last week in Beijing
...reporters before the talks that the return of the abductees was his "main objective," it was clear the meetings were unlikely to go anywhere. Normally the blame for failure would fall squarely on North Korea's negotiators, who never met a summit they couldn't stall. But this time Pyongyang may have a point. If North Korea really is telling the truth - admittedly, an unusual occurrence - and there are no surviving abductees, there may be little that Pyongyang can do to satisfy Tokyo's demands...
...connected Japan's tough sanctions against North Korean trade not to nuclear weapons, but to the kidnappings. Tsuyoshi Takagi, chairman of the Japanese Diet's special committee on abductions, recently told TIME that the kidnappings actually present a more significant danger to Japan than North Korean nuclear weapons because Pyongyang's missiles are merely a potential threat. The abductions, he says, were a "real physical attack" on Japan's sovereignty...
...refusal to compromise even slightly on the abductions means that Pyongyang and Tokyo will remain estranged - which puts Japan a bit out of step with a U.S. ally that's suddenly ready to engage with North Korea. Washington has repeatedly said that it respects Japan's position on the kidnappings, but if American and North Korean negotiators in New York remain on theatergoing terms, there's a risk that Japan might be left behind - and that would only make Kim Jong Il happy...