N. Korea Gives Key Nuke Documents To U.S.

Pyongyang Turns Over Cache Of Long-Sought Nuclear Weapons Records

(AP)  North Korea turned over key nuclear weapons documents to a visiting U.S. diplomat Thursday, a senior State Department official said. It was a step toward the Bush administration's goal of a full accounting of the isolated regime's nuclear past.

The official told The Associated Press that the North handed over the records in the capital Pyongyang. The diplomat is to carry them to South Korea later this week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the outcome of confidential meetings between U.S. envoy Sung Kim and the government of Kim Jong Il.

The documents are detailed technical logs from North Korea's shuttered plutonium reactor. The records will give the U.S. and other outsiders a way to, in effect, check North Korea's mathematics if it finally produces a long-overdue summary of its weapons program.

"They are an important element in the verification of a declaration which will include figures for the amount of plutonium they have produced," the State Department official said. "These documents would help verify those figures are correct."

The paperwork could also build confidence among conservative critics of the recent, relatively flexible U.S. posture toward North Korea, an isolated dictatorship President George W. Bush once termed part of an "axis of evil." The Bush administration is pursuing a comprehensive disarmament deal with the North that requires some congressional approval, and is lobbying to counter criticism that it is giving away the store.

North Korea agreed in recent weeks to blow up the cooling tower at its Yongbyon reactor, a largely symbolic display but one intended to demonstrate good faith in its nuclear talks with the U.S. and four other nations.

U.S. diplomats also appear close to an agreement with the North over distribution of promised U.S. food aid, the State Department official said. The U.S. takes pains to keep the two issues separate, saying food is a humanitarian issue that should not be linked to U.S. goals in other areas, but officials acknowledge that the North may not make the same distinction.

North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people after its economy was devastated by natural disasters and mismanagement in the mid-1990s. As many as 2 million people are believed to have died from famine.

The food situation in the North has worsened this year after a devastating flood swept the country last summer and South Korea's new conservative government stopped sending aid.

A previous offer of U.S. aid broke down over U.S. demands that it be able to monitor the distribution to ensure it reached the needy. The administration accuses the regime of widespread corruption. The North now seems more receptive to greater U.S. oversight, the official said.

The developments together suggest a better footing for the United States and North Korea after months of rancor and deadlock. Ridding the North of nuclear weapons that threaten Asia and, in theory, the U.S. West Coast, would give the Bush administration a foreign policy victory in its final year.

The United States says North Korea missed a Dec. 31 deadline to list its past plutonium production and provide other information under an agreement struck earlier in 2007. The bargain would give the North economic and political incentives, including removal from a U.S. list of terror-sponsoring nations, in exchange for giving up a weapons program that culminated in a successful nuclear test in 2006.

The North claims it met its obligations, but has also agreed to a new tentative deal to break the impasse. That deal would have the North acknowledge U.S. concerns about an illicit uranium program and alleged sale or transfer of nuclear know-how to other nations but would not require the North to spell everything out.

The deal would set up a system to verify that North Korea is telling the truth and does not restart banned nuclear activities.

Terms of the deal do not satisfy some congressional Republicans whose vote the administration will probably need to provide money promised for weapons disposal and other pledges to the North.

[acolton1]

North Korea is playing a game with the USA and you dont play chicken with the big boys because we have all the good toys and lots of them.

[randynason]

Why is it OK for us to have weapons, our "friends" to have weapons, but no one else to have weapons? Why have we appointed ourselves the world police and what moral clout could we possibly wield in light of our miserable world standing thanks to the current administration? I would really like to know. Answers?

[indivthinker]

RandyNason, let''s see, we don''t want North Korea, Iran, Syria, or pretty much any other irresponsible country to have nukes because:
1. North Korea is an enemy of the US and South Korea, and has preemptively striked them before. North Korea has proven to defy the world, even at the expense of their economy. It just goes to prove how much they want it... and they don''t want it for "defense".
2. Iran has supported Hamas, Hezbollah, the Mahdi Army, and other terrorist organizations. They have stated that they want to destroy Israel, the US and the West. They can very easily slip it to a small terrorist group, and detonate it in Jerusalem, Washington, NYC, or London.
3. Syria... same as above
4. Libya is a very unstable country full of corruption. Giving them nukes would be just inviting them to "lose" them.

In summarization, we "police" the world to prevent something disastrous from happening, something along the lines of millions of people dying because terrorists or rogue states try to incite a nuclear holocaust. The US cannot sit back in this globalized world and do nothing in apathy. Apathy is the cause of WWII and the Cold War. With Iran, they have already made the threat, and we know those jihadists are willing to die if it means killing innocent Westerners with them. It''s people like you (and Obama) who don''t believe in doing something about the situation that are going to be responsible for us or our allies getting nuked.

[haoli25]

Someday only the ''Stable'' countries will have nukes.. like India, Pakistan, and Israel. The U.S. needs a big cup of ****.

[xalen54]

Someday only the ''''Stable'''' countries will have nukes.. like India, Pakistan, and Israel. The U.S. needs a big cup of ****.

Posted by haoli25 at 04:40 PM : May 08, 2008
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Since no one else is up to the task of playing "Police the World" we have to. Therefore, at times we have to be a little aggressive. I don''t see your country doing anything.

[haoli25]

Since no one else is up to the task of playing "Police the World" we have to. Therefore, at times we have to be a little aggressive. I don''''t see your country doing anything.

Posted by Xalen54

You either have your head up your a$$, or have been living under a Bush for the last 7 and a half years.

[gce65]

Bush got details of the N Korean nuke program? Watch, in a week or two he''ll suddenly hold up "new experimental plans" for his switchgrass converter.

[juwboy]

RandyNason asked:

"Why is it OK for us to have weapons, our friends to have weapons, but no one else to have weapons?"

Isn''t the answer self-evident?

[eggy1620]

"Why is it OK for us to have weapons, our friends to have weapons, but no one else to have weapons?"

For the same reason Andy did not give Barney live ammo. Anyhow, the way things are shaping up this year in North Korea, they will not have much of a population left to defend in the near future.

[drewmm1]

indivthinker: "1. North Korea (the US) is an enemy of the US and South Korea (Iraq), and has preemptively striked them before. North Korea (US) has proven to defy the world (UN), even at the expense of their economy. It just goes to prove how much they want it... and they don''''t want it for "defense"."