Word: syria
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...apparently trying to shame North Korea into complying with its commitments in the so-called six-party talks (with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea). In an April 24 presentation in Washington, the Administration produced damning photographic evidence that North Korea was deeply involved in helping Syria build a plutonium nuclear reactor, "basically a copy of Yongbyon," as one Bush official...
...hawks were delighted by the revelations about Syria, hoping that the North will be so angered that Kim will abandon the six-party talks, finally bringing down the curtain on what they believe has been a feckless effort by the State Department. But Administration officials insist they don't expect that to happen. They believe North Korea 3.0 - the "shame on you" policy - may pay off. "I doubt they're walking away," says one diplomat involved in the talks. Yes, they say, North Korea's serial proliferation is a huge problem. That's why getting Pyongyang to stop making plutonium...
Consider the reason given at yesterday's briefing in Washington for the North's motivation in helping Syria build a reactor: "Cash," said a CIA official. The North is a gangster state. It earns hard currency anyway it can-including selling weapons and its expertise in producing them. The point of the diplomacy is give Kim sufficient incentives-both economic and diplomatic-to get to a point where he and his regime don't need to do that anymore to survive. A return to what used to be called, in the early years of the Bush Administration, a "strangulation" strategy...
...talks with the U.S. and four other negotiating partners (China, Russia, Japan and South Korea). In a convincing presentation to reporters in Washington, the Administration produced damning photographic evidence of what has been whispered about for seven months now: North Korea was intimately involved in helping Syria build a plutonium-fueled nuclear reactor, "basically a copy of Yongbyon," one Administration official told TIME...
There were reasons for the seven months of silence. Bush Administration officials say they were worried that Syria might start a new war in the Middle East if they were publicly fingered after the attack. In other words, it was one thing for Israel to send bombers into Syrian airspace and obliterate a massively expensive nuclear reactor that had been under construction for years. Syrian President Basahr Assad could apparently accept that. But talking about it in public? Now that was really going to hack the Syrians off - so much so they might start a war against Israel that they...