Word: pyongyang
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...North Korea went into the talks demanding that Washington agree to a non-aggression pact that rules out any U.S. attempt to force regime-change in Pyongyang. The U.S. representative at the talks, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelley, made clear that a nuclear-armed North Korea was unacceptable to the U.S. and its allies in the region, but that the North Koreans have no reason to fear renouncing nuclear weapons because the U.S. has no intention of attacking them. But Kelley's was not the only voice from Washington to which the North Koreans were listening...
...internal Bush administration memorandum purportedly written by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and leaked to the New York Times on the eve of the talks calls for the U.S. to actively pursue the overthrow of the North Korean regime. That won't have helped Kelley reassure Pyongyang. Nor was it intended to - the hawks had reportedly opposed sending Kelley to Beijing, preferring to send one of their own, Undersecretary of State for Non-Proliferation John Bolton who has a well-earned reputation as an ultra-hawkish bomb-thrower...
...Regardless of the tone taken in Washington, however, North Korea appears bent on ratcheting up the confrontation. Many Korea analysts had long viewed Pyongyang's nuclear brinkmanship as part of a pattern of extortion - acting in a menacing way, and then promising good behavior in exchange for economic assistance. But many fear that Kim Jong Il may have decided that a nuclear deterrent is the only way to ward off the threat of U.S. military action to smash his regime, and that while pressure from neighbors such as China - which is North Korea's economic life-support system right...
...post-Iraq Bush administration would allow itself to be seen "appeasing" a charter member of the President's "Axis of Evil" by offering political and economic rewards in exchange simply for a measure of restraint. Indeed, both sides in Beijing may have agreed to talk simply to buy time. Pyongyang wants to placate neighbors - the fact that China recently closed off its oil pipeline to North Korea for a couple of days may have played a major role in getting Pyongyang to the table - but its rhetoric right now suggests it is not expecting the U.S. to give...
...case, U.S. diplomats are used to Pyongyang's scare tactics. Through bluster and provocative moves?including becoming the first country to withdraw from the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?North Korea has spent the last seven months trying to convince the world it is a dangerous military power on a hair-trigger?one that must be appeased at all costs...