Word: yongbyon
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...agreed to consider taking North Korea off its list of countries that sponsor terrorism, one of Pyongyang's key demands. "It's certainly good news," says Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS, a Honolulu-based think tank. "If by the end of December the three facilities at Yongbyon are disabled to the point that it would take a year or two or three to get them back up, then we have accomplished a very important first step...
...history: Pledging to pursue nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the North signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1985, yet it didn’t allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) into the country until 1992. When inspectors demanded greater access to the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, the communist leadership blustered that the IAEA was the U.S.’s poodle and kicked inspectors out of the country.Despite the North’s past transgressions, the recent February deal seems to be a knockoff of the Agreed Framework, North Korea’s most famous broken promise...
...Recall that back in February, Kim's government agreed, during the so-called six-party talks, to shutter its Yongbyon nuclear plant within 60 days of signing what was then billed as a breakthrough agreement. In return, the North would get a variety of economic and diplomatic benefits. After several years of fruitless talks, this seemed like a major diplomatic victory for the Bush Administration and its partners - Japan, South Korea, Russia and China. But Kim delayed moving on Yongbyon until the North got back more than $20 million that had been frozen in a Macau bank account - funds...
...apparatus by the end of the year. Hill said that it was the "first time" North Korea had put such a timetable on its commitment to stand down its entire nuclear program. (And indeed, precisely when the North would get rid of its entire nuclear program - not just the Yongbyon reactor - was not specified in the February agreement...
...Seoul insist, the summit comes amid genuine momentum on the nuclear front - momentum that they believe the meeting at the end of August will add to. Inspectors from the United Nations were in North Korea last month to verify that the Pyongyang had idled its nuclear plant at Yongbyon. That was a key part of the agreement the North made in February, which detailed the steps the regime needed to take to live up to a pact it signed onto in the so called six-party talks in September of 2005. (The February agreement also laid out the diplomatic steps...