NKorea says UN resolution equivalent to 'declaration of war'
SEOUL (XFN-ASIA) - North Korea said the UN resolution imposing sanctions over its nuclear weapons test last week 'cannot be construed in any other way but a declaration of war,' the Korean Central News Agency reported.
The KCNA also reported an announcement from North Korea saying its test of a nuclear weapon was an 'exercise of its independent and legitimate right as a sovereign state.'
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/10/17/afx3096080.html
N Korea rejects UN resolution as 'declaration of war'
SEOUL: North Korea said on Tuesday the new UN resolution imposing sanctions on the country was a "declaration of war" and warned it would strike back at any nations that try to tighten the screws on its regime.
"We will deliver merciless blows without hesitation to whoever tries to breach our sovereignty and right to survive under the excuse of carrying out the UN Security Council resolution," a foreign ministry spokesman said.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/update_detail.asp?id=11373
Kandahar said:Leave 'em alone. This is China and Japan's problem, not ours.
Kandahar said:This is China and Japan's problem, not ours.
Korimyr the Rat said:China or Japan sucks down a Korean nuke, and we're going to lose a whole Hell of a lot of money.
They sell a nuclear bomb or missile to Al Qaeda, and we're going to lose a Hell of a lot more than just money.
It's our problem.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:No this is most certainly our problem as well given the fact that North Korea has shown that they are more than willing to sell their military technology to the highest bidder and even has been proven to sell nuclear technology when Khadafi disarmed Libya.
And are you honestly asserting that we should not enforce the U.N. resolution on North Korea and allow them to continue with their nuclear proliferation?
Trajan Octavian Titus said:No this is most certainly our problem as well given the fact that North Korea has shown that they are more than willing to sell their military technology to the highest bidder and even has been proven to sell nuclear technology when Khadafi disarmed Libya.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:And are you honestly asserting that we should not enforce the U.N. resolution on North Korea and allow them to continue with their nuclear proliferation?
Korimyr the Rat said:China or Japan sucks down a Korean nuke, and we're going to lose a whole Hell of a lot of money.
Korimyr the Rat said:They sell a nuclear bomb or missile to Al Qaeda, and we're going to lose a Hell of a lot more than just money.
Last week's op ed piece:Kandahar said:This is not Iran, Kim Jong-il isn't suicidal.
G-Man said:Its also difficult to see on what basis the UN can try to impose sanctions. NK is not a signatory to the NPT so in theory is free to develop any WMD programme it desires - although I could be wrong so pls post any international law/agreement they are breaching.
Napolean Nightingale said:Why The Agreed Framework Worked:
1. The Agreed Framework was never designed or intended to completely eliminate North Korea's nuclear program. It's only real goal was to delay the inevitable until the United States could plan a better solution to the problem. It delayed North Korea for 8 years.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:What a crock.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:lmfao you're kidding me right? It didn't delay jackshit Kim Jong il never ceased his nuclear weapons program, all this plan did was give Kim vital economic aid which his regime desperately needed and which kept his regime afloat long after it would have collapsed on its own. All Clinton did was pump more money into Kim Jong il's military and nuclear weapons program but hay go ahead and blame Bush and his hostile words. What a crock.
G-Man said:He's just doing the same as any leader across the world would do when threatened, building up his own defences.
G-Man said:If you threaten someone or give them an ultimatum then I guess they are either going to sumbit or fight back. The US under Bush has pushed NK into a corner.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:Yes before Bush Kim Jong il was a lovable little fuzzbull and after the harsh words by Bush they created a nuclear weapon in only 3 years time, because ofcouse they couldn't have been working on them long before that.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:lmfao you're kidding me right? It didn't delay jackshit Kim Jong il never ceased his nuclear weapons program, all this plan did was give Kim vital economic aid which his regime desperately needed and which kept his regime afloat long after it would have collapsed on its own.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:All Clinton did was pump more money into Kim Jong il's military and nuclear weapons program but hay go ahead and blame Bush and his hostile words. What a crock.
Napoleon's Nightingale said:Wrong. It slowed the program down considerably.
The North Korean regime would not have collapsed on it's own without the Agreed Framework.
North Korea Advisory Group
[SIZE=+4]Report to[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+4]The Speaker[/SIZE][SIZE=+4]U.S.[/SIZE][SIZE=+3] [/SIZE][SIZE=+4]House of Representatives[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+3]November 1999[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+2]Members of the Speaker's North Korea Advisory Group[/SIZE]
Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, NY
Chairman, North Korea Advisory Group and Chairman, Committee on International Relations
Rep. Doug Bereuter, NE
Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific
Rep. Sonny Callahan, AL
Chairman, Subcommittee on Foreign Operations
Rep. Christopher Cox, CA
Chairman, Republican Policy Committee
Rep. Tillie K. Fowler, GA
Vice Chair, Republican Conference
Rep. Porter J. Goss, FL
Chairman, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
Rep. Joe Knollenberg, MI
Member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations
Rep. Floyd Spence, SC
Chairman, Committee on Armed Services
Rep. Curt Weldon, PA
Chairman, Subcommittee on Military Research and Development
CHAPTER FOUR
[SIZE=+1]Sustaining The North Korean Government[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+1]Does U.S. assistance sustain the North Korean government?[/SIZE]
The United States has replaced the Soviet Union as a primary benefactor of North Korea. The United States now feeds more than one-third of all North Koreans, and the U.S.-supported KEDO program supplies almost half of its HFO needs. This aid frees other resources for North Korea to divert to its WMD and conventional military programs.
U.S. aid to North Korea has grown from zero to more than $270 million annually, totaling $645 million over the last five years. Based on current trends, that total will likely exceed $1 billion next year. During that same time, North Korea developed missiles capable of striking the United States and became a major drug trafficking and currency counterfeiting nation.
Despite assurances from the administration, U.S. food and fuel assistance is not adequately monitored. At least $11 million in HFO assistance has been diverted. In contravention of stated U.S. policy, food has been distributed in places where monitors are denied access. One U.S. aid worker in North Korea recently called the monitoring system a "scam."(109) More than 90% of food aid distribution sites in North Korea have never been visited by a food aid monitor. The North Koreans have never divulged a complete list of where aid is distributed.
North Korea has the longest sustained U.N. food emergency program in history. There are no significant efforts to support or compel agricultural and economic reforms needed for North Korea to feed itself. North Korea will likely continue to refuse to reform, instead relying on brinkmanship to exact further aid from the United States and other members of the international community.
A. Does U.S. assistance directly or indirectly sustain the North Korean government?
U.S. assistance helps to sustain the North Korean government, and current accounting systems are not capable
of tracking aid to ensure its proper use.
KEY FINDINGS
- North Korea is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in Northeast Asia. American assistance feeds one-third of all North Koreans and KEDO, largely funded by the United States, provides 45% of its heavy fuel oil needs.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/dprk/nkag-report.htm
- Current food aid monitoring programs by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and the Private Voluntary Organization Consortium (PVOC) face a difficult environment and cannot ensure that U.S. assistance reaches those in need. There are continuing and credible reports of diversion of food aid to the military, closed regions, and unintended recipients. Food aid has been distributed in areas closed to international monitors in contravention of stated administration policy.
- A number of other donors and international relief organizations, such as the European Union (EU) and Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) have cut back or ended their programs in North Korea due to diversions and the DPRK's refusal to permit them to monitor assistance programs.
- The fuel monitoring system suffers from inherent limits, including dependence upon the North Korean electric power system. Flow meters and other monitoring equipment are routinely inoperable. Furthermore, KEDO has no arrangements with North Korea for monitoring the large quantities of heavy fuel oil in storage or in transit to the plants consuming the heavy fuel oil.
- During a power outage which left the monitoring system inoperable from January- April 1999, the North Koreans consumed record amounts of unmonitored fuel. This case represents an example of diversion.
- The State Department admitted to the General Accounting Office (GAO) that "insignificant" amounts of fuel have been diverted since this program started. When asked what would be a "significant" diversion, a State Department representative told GAO "you could drive a truck through our definition of a 'significant diversion.'" State Department representatives later admitted that North Korea has probably diverted at least $11 million worth of U.S. supplied fuel.
B. Does assistance promote critical reforms likely to make North Korea a more responsible member of the international community?
It is likely that North Korea will continue to use brinkmanship to exact more assistance from the international
community rather than undertake reforms.
KEY FINDINGSIn the Far Eastern Economic Review of July 20, 1995 (two months before North Korea made its first appeal for international food aid), Steve Linton, a researcher at Columbia University who has visited North Korea frequently (he presently operates a humanitarian aid project in North Korea), described what he believed would be the response of North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, to North Korea's mounting economic crisis. He predicted that Kim would: (1) reject a dismantling of Soviet- style central planning and institutions, including collective farms, thus rejecting China's model of economic reforms ("Kim Jong-Il does not plan to make the same mistake"); (2) seek massive transfers of technology, capital, and aid from abroad; (3) accept no responsibility for the economic and food crises, instead blaming them on uncontrollable factors; and (4) ensure that the communist elite class in Pyongyang received priority in the distribution of food and consumer goods.(141)
- U.S. assistance programs do not support or compel any major reform programs intended to help the North Korean people feed themselves or to restart economic growth.
- North Korea is likely to remain a ward of the international community, bent on maintaining its policy of brinkmanship in order to exact assistance from the U.S. and other members of the international community.
Linton's prediction has been largely borne out by subsequent events. An example is the speech by Choe Su-hon, North Korea's Vice Minister of Agriculture, to an international conference on agricultural recovery and environmental protection in Geneva, Switzerland on May 28-29, 1998. Choe blamed the food crisis on floods and droughts, the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist regimes, and U.S. economic sanctions. He said that collective farms would be strengthened, and described them as providing "the effective social safety net that is often missing in other developing country settings."(142) He then appealed for more international food aid and a technological assistance program for agriculture from other countries and international agencies of $300 million.(143) The WFP and U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization disagreed with North Korea's diagnosis. In their 1995 crop assessment, they estimated that the droughts and floods highlighted by the North Koreans only accounted for 15-20% of North Korea's food deficit, while 85% of their problems stemmed from the government's own policy of collectivist agriculture.(144)
The North Korean government has made a few changes in its agriculture or economic policy. These changes include: the promotion of double cropping; the encouraging of the growing of potatoes; allowing the emergence of de facto private markets as the state food distribution system has collapsed in many locales; emphasizing the role of small work teams on collective farms; and allowing South Korea's Hyundai Corporation to open a tourist project in North Korea. These developments show that the North Korean government is interested in some very limited reforms tactically designed to take advantage of a willing donor. While some analysts, including those at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), highlight these reforms, opinion appears to be veering towards a very skeptical and bleak assessment of the food security situation, even among private aid-giving groups.(145)
C. Is the decline in the North Korean economy likely to encourage the leadership to undertake risky policies which threaten international peace?
Rather than reform its economy, North Korea chooses to extort assistance from the United States and other members of the international community. This presents a dangerous situation as brinkmanship increases the possibility of miscalculation and the risk to peace.
KEY FINDINGS
- In 1994, North Korea triggered a nuclear crisis that it resolved only after it was promised two new nuclear reactors and annual shipments of 500,000 mt of fuel from the United States and its allies.
- In 1998, North Korea leveraged international concern about its large underground facility at Kumchang-ni to gain an extra 200,000 mt of food from the United States.
- In 1999, North Korea used its impending launch of a Taepo Dong 2 missile over Japan to win an end to the 49-year-old U.S. economic sanctions regime.
- In the coming year, North Korea may leverage possible missile development and sales to win access to more aid and other credits from the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Trajan Octavian Titus said:<<<CONTINUED>>>
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