Word: pyongyang
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...North Korea HIGH WATER, RISING TENSIONS North Korea marked its 61st anniversary Sept. 9 by vowing to "mercilessly annihilate the U.S. imperialists" in response to any aggression, just days after Pyongyang announced its continued pursuit of a uranium-enrichment program. The hermit state also opened a dam on the Imjin River without warning on Sept. 6, sending 40 million tons of water across the border into South Korea, where six people were swept away. Seoul has demanded an apology, calling the North's excuses for releasing the water "not acceptable...
...Finally, about North Korea. I've been as annoyed as you have by the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. But last week I sent my personal envoy, Dai Bingguo, to Pyongyang, and we told him again that the time has come to sit down and negotiate with you directly. We'll host the talks in Beijing to give you a fig leaf of multilateralism, if you still care about that. But I'm assuming you'll now get on with the business of ... how did your Defense Secretary, Mr. Gates, put it? Oh yes: 'Buying the same horse twice.' (Read...
...That's unlikely to happen. Pyongyang has said it has no interest in ever returning to the six-party negotiations in which the U.S. enlisted South Korea, Japan, China and Russia as its negotiating partners. Pyongyang has always wanted to deal directly with Washington, as it did in 1994 when it negotiated the so-called "Agreed Framework" with the Clinton administration - the first instance in which Pyongyang agreed to stop work on its nuclear program. Kim has always wanted to deal with the biggest dog on the block, both for reasons of international prestige (see the former pariah now sitting...
...does the U.S. talk to North Korea about, and in what order? Other than acceding to the direct talks - which the Administration had hinted upon taking office that it was amenable to - it has hit the same notes that the Bush administration did. Only after a verifiable disabling of Pyongyang's nuclear program - in return for economic and energy assistance, both part of the 1994 agreement - would it move on to discussions about "normalizing relations." Diplomatic sources in east Asia say the U.S., in concert with its allies, is now talking about exactly what to put on the table...
...highly enriched uranium as well. (Indeed, North Korean refugee groups in Seoul have recently been circulating reports - impossible to verify, of course - that the North plans a uranium bomb test this autumn.) The Administration will no doubt give negotiations the old college try, one on one, just like Pyongyang wants. But assuming the North is bribeable - and that's a huge assumption - its price for doing a deal now, as the east Asia diplomat acknowledges glumly, "will have gone...