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Bush Turns Back The Clock On North Korea
Washington (AFP) March 8, 2001 President George W. Bush has injected an icy new tone into US relations with North Korea, ditching the conciliatory language of the Clinton administration for terminology familiar from a 50-year-Cold War with Pyongyang. While stressing that negotiations may be possible in future with the sealed communist state, Bush has nevertheless shelved the fast-track rapprochement strategy with North Korea followed by the last US administration. He told President Kim Dae-Jung of South Korea here Wednesday that he was "sceptical" of the motives of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, and didn't think he could be trusted to keep agreements. Highlighting the North's missile program and past efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction, Bush signalled that talks between Washington and Pyongyang would not resume any time soon. Contrast that with the tone in the final days of the administration of Bill Clinton who just fell short of a missile accord with North Korea. "What was frozen can thaw," former secretary of state Madeleine Albright told a senior North Korean envoy who enjoyed several intimate dinners with US officials here last October as Clinton chased a historic breakthrough after a 50-year Cold War. Bush seemed to signal Wednesday that difficulties in dealing with hermetic North Korea meant that permanent peace could only come with a new regime or fundamental change in Pyongyang. "When you make an agreement with a country that is secretive how are you aware as to whether or not they're keeping the terms of the agreement?" he asked. Bush's dealings with President Kim-Dae Jung were also markedly cooler than those of former president Bill Clinton, who made no secret of his reverence for the man who won a Nobel prize for reaching out to Pyongyang. Despite lavishing his own warm personal praise on Kim, Bush described the talks as "frank" -- often a diplomatic codeword for disagreement. Kim came out of the talks stressing strong and firm cooperation with Washington, and claiming an endorsement of his country's policy of engaging North Korea. But in a speech on Thursday he was more expansive -- echoing the warnings of former Clinton administration officials that North Korea will not wait forever. "North Korea's top priority is to build better ties with the United States ... without progress between the US and North Korea, advances in South-North relations will be difficult to achieve," Kim said. However, some analysts believe a firm US stance will not necessarily cast a shadow on Kim's "Sunshine policy" of engaging North Korea, arguing that it could compliment Seoul's softly, softly approach and prod Pyongyang into making concessions. Douglas Paal of the Asia-Pacific Policy Center in Washington on Tuesday compared Bush and Kim to a policemen and a priest in their dealings with North Korea. "The cop wants to get the North Koreans off the streets and the priest wants to give him the resources to become a very different person," he said. While differences of nuance were evident between Seoul and Washington, Bush's foreign policy team had its own struggles to sing from the same song-sheet on North Korea. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that Clinton had left some "promising" ideas on the table. "We do plan to engage with North Korea, to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off." he said. But then, just a day later, he emerged from the Bush-Kim summit to say that suggestions that talks could start soon were "not the case." "In due course, we will determine at what pace and when we will engage with North Korea," he said, then stiffened his rhetoric again on Thursday before hawkish Senators in Congress, saying North Korea was ruled by a "despotic, broken" regime. All rights reserved. � 2001 Agence France-Presse. All information displayed on this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. CommunityEmail This Article Comment On This Article Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express Military Space News at SpaceWar.com
Space Group To Activate New Unit
Colorado Springs CO (SPX) Jan 6, 2006Air Force Reserve Command's 310th Space Group will travel deeper into the space program when it activates a new unit Jan. 7. Headquarters Reserve National Security Space Institute will be a Reserve associate unit to the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo. The institute is the Department of Defense's focal point for providing education about space power in joint warfighting. |
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