From FOX News: North Korea Agrees to End Nuke Program.
North Korea agreed Tuesday after arduous talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor and eventually dismantle its atomic weapons program, just four months after the communist state shocked the world by testing a nuclear bomb. ...Under the deal, the North will receive initial aid equal to 50,000 tons heavy fuel oil within 60 days for shutting down and sealing its main nuclear reactor and related facilities at Yongbyon, north of the capital, to be confirmed by international inspectors. ...
If Pyongyang follows through with its promises, they would be the first moves the communist nation has made to scale back its atomic development after more than three years of six-nation negotiations marked by delays, deadlock and the North's first nuclear test explosion in October. ...
Making sure that Pyongyang declares all its nuclear facilities and shuts them down is likely to prove arduous, nuclear experts have said.
North Korea has sidestepped previous agreements, allegedly running a uranium-based weapons program even as it froze a plutonium-based one -- sparking the latest nuclear crisis in late 2002. The country is believed to have countless mountainside tunnels in which to hide projects.
Already before its adoption, the deal drew strong criticism from John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who urged President Bush to reject it.
"I am very disturbed by this deal," Bolton told CNN. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: 'If we hold out long enough, wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded,' in this case with massive shipments of heavy fuel oil for doing only partially what needs to be done."
Jule Crittenden has more.
UPDATE I: Claudia Rosett explains how Nuclear Blackmail Pays: "This deal is no achievement, and it won’t buy peace. It is tribute paid to a murderous tyrant, it is a complete betrayal of what America stands for. And it won’t work." She also has an article at The Weekly Standard about the many ways Kim funds his communist prison state: Cash for Kim.
UPDATE II -- Feb. 15: From Hot Air: Video: Bolton slams Bush over North Korea deal.
UPDATE III -- Feb. 17: Macker at Macker's World has turned this cartoon in to a radio commercial. Click here to hear. And it's not the first time (see the link).
Posted by Forkum at February 13, 2007 04:42 PM
|