{"id":286,"date":"2004-01-02T10:31:25","date_gmt":"2004-01-02T14:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=286"},"modified":"2004-01-02T10:31:25","modified_gmt":"2004-01-02T14:31:25","slug":"nk-diplomacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=286","title":{"rendered":"NK Diplomacy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slate<\/a> links to this<\/a> USA Today<\/i> report announcing North Korea’s approval of a U.S. delegation that intends to “inspect its nuclear complex at Yongbyon next week<\/i>“. It includes the following:<\/p>\n

An official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry confirmed the development Friday, saying U.S. diplomats had informed South Korea of the mission. <\/p>\n

By inviting Hecker to Yongbyon, the regime of Kim Jong Il may want to prove that it has nuclear weapons as a way of bolstering a tough negotiating stance. It may also want to try to defuse tensions by showing that its nuclear sites will be open to inspection if a deal is reached.<\/p>\n

The trip has not been announced. If it goes off as planned, it will mark the first time outsiders have been allowed inside the reclusive nation’s main nuclear complex since United Nations inspectors were expelled Dec. 31, 2002. The Bush administration, which blocked a congressional delegation’s visit to North Korea in October, approved this trip, scheduled Jan. 6-10. Besides Hecker, the delegation includes a China expert from Stanford University, two Senate foreign policy aides who have previously visited Pyongyang and a former State Department official who has negotiated with North Korea.<\/p>\n

Administration approval for the trip, coupled with a Christmas Eve announcement that the United States would send 60,000 tons of grain to North Korea, could encourage the North Koreans to resume talks about giving up nuclear weapons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Reuters is carrying an article<\/a> that quotes an anonymous official denying Bush administration involvement in any part of the process.<\/p>\n

A State Department official who asked not to be identified also sought to distance the Bush administration from the planned visit, saying: “This is something that the U.S. government has not been involved in, nor would we be participating in the inspections. This is a completely private initiative.”<\/div>\n

For a lengthy but interesting blog discussion on North Korea go here<\/a> , linked by lenin’s tomb<\/a>, a site that seems to be experiencing some technical problems today but doesn’t usually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Slate links to this USA Today report announcing North Korea’s approval of a U.S. delegation that intends to “inspect its nuclear complex at Yongbyon next week“. It includes the following: An official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry confirmed the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-4C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}