Word: pyongyang
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...crisis has been years in the making. In early 2001 President George W. Bush abandoned the talks the Clinton Administration had pursued with the North. Then, last summer, the U.S. learned that Pyongyang had been secretly trying to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons all along and had bought specialized centrifuge cylinders from Pakistan. When Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly confronted North Korean officials about the program last October, they happily admitted to it, according to U.S. officials, and asked what the U.S. intended to do next...
Over the past two weeks, U.S. and South Korean officials have released fresh evidence that North Korea is advancing its program to build miniaturized nuclear weapons. Pyongyang claims to have converted enough plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods for at least five or six bombs. The U.S. and South Korea say the North has conducted recent tests to perfect high-explosive detonators used to trigger a nuclear explosion. Ongoing work at the North's nuclear plant at Yongbyon is well known. But over the weekend, the New York Times reported that American and Asian officials say there is strong evidence...
...alternative is awful: not just that North Korea might one day threaten the U.S. directly but also that the cash-strapped regime in Pyongyang could decide to sell its nuclear material to other rogue states or to terrorists. Last week Chinese diplomats shuttled between Pyongyang and Washington trying to restart talks among the U.S., China and North Korea, but internal divisions between hard-liners and moderates in all three capitals are stalling progress...
...thought Pyongyang's bad behavior would gain it allies for a tougher line, though, it was wrong. The Bush team said the uranium program was proof that Pyongyang could not be trusted, but critics argued that Washington's hard line had driven the North to pursue enrichment. South Korea's President at the time, Kim Dae Jung, who had pursued a "sunshine" policy toward North Korea, urged caution and more direct talks between the North and the U.S. Pyongyang's longtime protector, China, refused to support U.N. sanctions against the North despite its concerns about a nuclear-arms race...
...Washington seems to calculate that the risk cannot be avoided without confronting far greater dangers later. Iran watcher Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, citing sources in Iran, says a delegation of mullahs traveled to Pyongyang a few months ago to discuss swapping nuclear technology for cash. It isn't known if the deal was concluded. But after the trip, top leaders of Iran's Revolutionary Guards were told that Iran would have its own nuclear weapons "soon," says Ledeen. Saddam Hussein's Iraq had no nukes. That regime is gone, but how much more frightening will Bush...