<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Editorials</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><description>Editorials</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[Well Spoken]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55442-2005Mar21.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55442-2005Mar21.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT'S NOT CLEAR how much Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice achieved on the six-nation tour of Asia she wrapped up yesterday. On issues such as North Korea and economic relations with Iran, her talks with government leaders yielded no substantial public results. But Ms. Rice did strengthen what has been a welcome development during her first months  at the State Department: the emergence of the secretary of state as a forceful advocate of democratization and human rights. Wherever she went on her tour, Ms. Rice made the case for greater political and religious freedom  --  to presidents and foreign ministers, journalists and students, in public as well as in private. Though she is only beginning, Ms. Rice has taken a step toward connecting President Bush's Wilsonian vision with the administration's day-to-day practice of diplomacy.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Korea's Threat]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17611-2005Feb11.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17611-2005Feb11.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IF NORTH KOREA'S declaration of itself as a nuclear power was intended, as it seems to have been, to shock the world and thereby pressure the United States into making unwarranted concessions, then the Bush administration responded well by playing it down. The erratic Pyongyang regime, officials pointed out, has made similar statements before. U.S. intelligence has credited the North with a couple of bombs for a decade, and in the absence of a nuclear test, there's no way to know whether it has workable warheads. The administration is also right to dismiss, again, North Korea's attempt to insist on bilateral negotiations with the United States. The Bush administration's recruitment of China, South Korea, Japan and Russia for "six-party" talks was its sole success on the Korean front in the past four years and should be preserved. The latest declaration nevertheless underlined the distressing truth that as the threat from North Korea grows steadily worse, the administration lacks an effective strategy to counter it.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Pass on Nukes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10788-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10788-2004Oct29.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) recently gave the Bush administration a passing grade on preventing nuclear terrorism [op-ed, Oct. 23]. Hard as it is to disagree with one of the most farsighted advocates for American security, I nonetheless found his case unpersuasive. Lugar accurately described what has been done, but he neglected to mention the more critical work left undone.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Choice on North Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4713-2004Oct3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4713-2004Oct3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ONE OF THE substantive surprises of Thursday's presidential debate was the detailed exchange between President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry on the critical but neglected subject of North Korea. Prodded by moderator Jim Lehrer, Mr. Bush touted and Mr. Kerry attacked the current U.S. diplomatic strategy for preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear weapons power. Somewhat esoteric references to "six party" vs. "bilateral" talks and plutonium vs. uranium processing soon were flying back and forth, probably leaving a lot of viewers wondering what the difference was. Here's how we'd sum it up: Mr. Kerry faults Mr. Bush for undoing the diplomacy of the Clinton administration with respect to North Korea and intends to respond by undoing, in turn, what has been accomplished by President Bush.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Korea Gesture]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43362-2004Sep22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43362-2004Sep22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   IT'S A SMALL PIECE of legislation -- a gesture, really. But human rights diplomacy is often a collection of gestures, and this is one that needs to be made. In July, the House unanimously adopted the North Korea Human Rights Act, a moderate bill that, among other things, provides some humanitarian assistance for North Koreans, conditioned on improved transparency and monitoring; gives North Koreans the right to apply for refugee status in this country and broadens U.S. support for them; and establishes Congress's general belief that negotiations with North Korea should include, in diplomatically unspecified ways, concern for  human rights.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Too Slow on Nukes]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33101-2004Jun10.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33101-2004Jun10.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  THE GROUP OF EIGHT industrialized nations took a couple of steps at their summit meeting in Georgia this week to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Urged on by the Bush administration, the leaders of Europe, Japan, Canada and Russia agreed to a one-year moratorium on supplying equipment for producing fissile material to countries that do not already have it. Mr. Bush seeks a permanent ban, which will be discussed in the coming months. The G-8 also announced seven new participants in its program for funding the securing of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and agreed to press more non-nuclear countries to accept expanded inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The various initiatives followed several  recent steps by the Bush administration -- including a new $450 million program to collect enriched uranium and plutonium from 40 countries around the world -- that have added momentum to its efforts to prevent the spread of nukes to nations or terrorist groups.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Wrong Lesson]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14529-2004Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14529-2004Jan13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION and its supporters have been celebrating the steps by Libya and Iran toward giving up the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction -- a shift probably brought about at least in part by the proven willingness of the United States to use force to stop such illegal programs. Less noticed are signs that North Korea, the most dangerous of the world's rogue states, may have taken a different lesson from the intervention in Iraq. Pyongyang has launched a propaganda campaign that amounts to loudly denying that the secret program of uranium enrichment it admitted to about 18 months ago in meetings with a U.S. delegation  really exists. Meanwhile, it is offering to renew the freeze on its well-documented stockpile of nuclear fuel rods and processed plutonium -- for a big price. In essence North Korea seeks a return to the status quo before U.S. intelligence discovered its uranium enrichment, on the pretense that U.S. allegations about a secret weapons program are once again wrong. This reckless gambit could undo the modest progress that has been made toward a settlement in recent months.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Truth and Consequences]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6823-2004Jan10.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6823-2004Jan10.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE CHINESE government recently suggested that it does not necessarily believe U.S. intelligence reports on North Korea's secret effort to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. "We have no knowledge of [North Korea's] nuclear program or its capabilities. We do not know if [North Korea] has a HEU [highly enriched uranium] program," a Chinese embassy spokesman told The Post last week. In Britain and France hostile commentators have questioned whether there is any legitimate basis for U.S. requests that certain commercial flights to the United States be canceled because of intelligence about possible terrorist attacks. Maybe these objections were politically motivated and would have been raised regardless of the circumstances. But the painful fact is that they carry more weight because of the mounting evidence that U.S. intelligence about Iraq was mistaken -- and because of the Bush administration's refusal to acknowledge it.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tactics for North Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50871-2003Aug26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50871-2003Aug26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[PESSIMISM COMES EASILY as a new round of talks with North Korea begins today in Beijing, where the United States and China will be joined by Japan, South Korea and Russia. At the last meeting, in April, North Korea announced that it already had nuclear weapons and threatened to test them or supply them to third parties unless the United States met a long list of unacceptable demands. Its behavior during the past year suggests that it has committed itself to becoming an established nuclear power. It claims to have reprocessed nuclear fuel rods that would give it material for half a dozen more weapons. Though dictator Kim Jong Il suggests he might be willing to bargain these weapons away, his violation of a previous deal with the United States makes that stance hard to credit. Any deal will require months of tough negotiations -- little progress is expected this week -- and extended talks risk giving Pyongyang the time it needs to complete and secure an arsenal.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[More Sunshine Needed]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19330-2003Aug4.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19330-2003Aug4.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[YESTERDAY Chung Mong Hun, a top executive of the South Korean Hyundai conglomerate, threw himself from the 12th floor of his company's headquarters. He left behind several notes, including one requesting that his ashes be scattered over Diamond Mountain, a loss-making North Korean holiday resort set up by Hyundai. It was a fitting request. For the past several years, Mr. Chung and his father had spent hundreds of millions of dollars in North Korea, some on ludicrous "investments" such as Diamond Mountain, some directly on payments to the North Korean government. At the time of his death, in fact, Mr. Chung was under investigation for allegedly orchestrating the payment of what may have been as much as $1 billion to the North Korean government shortly before the historic summit between the leaders of North and South Korea in 2000. A large chunk of this money came directly from the coffers of the South Korean government.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Heading Off North Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48621-2003Jul25.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48621-2003Jul25.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE STREAM of alarming reports this summer about North Korea's steps toward producing nuclear weapons is the product, at least in part, of a deliberate effort by an isolated dictatorship to frighten the world -- and increase the pressure on the United States to grant its long and unacceptable list of demands. But that doesn't mean the threat should not be regarded as deadly serious and urgent, despite the Bush administration's equally calculated attempt to play it down. As former secretary of defense William Perry pointed out on the op-ed page last week, if it keeps going North Korea soon could be producing five to 10 nuclear weapons a year, and the United States would have no effective way, short of all-out war, to stop it from smuggling some of them to terrorists or other rogue states. It might not be possible to stop the bomb project, either: After all, neither the Clinton administration's policy of bargaining with Pyongyang nor Mr. Bush's subsequent attempts to apply pressure from the outside have worked.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Korea's Stance]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50281-2003Apr28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50281-2003Apr28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[NORTH KOREA'S latest message to the United States was not quite as provocative, or as perplexing, as it may have seemed. U.S. officials first told reporters that during a break in a meeting in Beijing last week, Pyongyang's representative abruptly informed the head of the American delegation that his country possessed nuclear weapons and might sell them or provide a "physical demonstration," depending on the U.S. response. Though the United States has suspected for a decade that the North might have one or two nuclear weapons, the announcement was portrayed as belligerent and embarrassing to China, which hosted and joined the talks. Chinese officials acknowledged they were shocked; but a senior official told foreign ambassadors yesterday that North Korea coupled its latest revelation with a broad offer to abandon its weapons programs and exports in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and economic concessions. In that sense the North was merely repeating the message it delivered during its last meeting with a U.S. envoy eight months ago, when it boasted of an emerging nuclear capability but offered to trade it away. In both cases the Bush administration chose to emphasize the alarming threat while playing down the offer of a deal. Yet any judgment about how to proceed needs to take both signals into account.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Korea's Choices]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18329-2003Apr22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18329-2003Apr22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[THE UNITED STATES and North Korea are due to take a welcome step away from a dangerous diplomatic impasse when they begin talks today, with China as host. Since the last formal contact between the Bush administration and the Pyongyang regime of Kim Jong Il eight months ago, North Korea has been moving rapidly toward producing an arsenal of nuclear weapons, while insisting on bilateral negotiations with Washington; the often-incoherent response of a chronically divided administration has ranged between passivity and insistence on a multilateral solution. The new Chinese government of Hu Jintao deserves credit for breaking the deadlock by offering to join the talks -- thereby providing a multilateral patina -- and by using its considerable economic leverage to gain North Korea's assent. Yet any chance for agreement, and an end to the grave threat North Korea poses, will depend on the willingness of all three parties to make hard choices they have avoided so far.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Out of the Corner]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48630-2003Mar5.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48630-2003Mar5.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[NORTH KOREAN dictator Kim Jong Il has one big advantage in his face-off with the Bush administration: He has a clear strategy. His regime is racing to produce nuclear weapons, while taking steadily escalating steps to force the United States into direct negotiations at which Pyongyang can demand political recognition, security guarantees and economic bribes. Most experts believe North Korea has the means to achieve at least one of those aims, and maybe both. Once it opens a reprocessing plant now being readied, something that could happen within weeks, it will be able to produce one nuclear bomb a month. If that doesn't succeed in bringing Washington to the table, Mr. Kim can always use military provocations, like the attempt last weekend to force down a U.S. surveillance plane on North Korean territory.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[No Easy Way]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5704-2003Feb13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5704-2003Feb13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[RUSSIA, CHINA and several European governments have been insisting that the United States cannot take action against Iraq without the full involvement of the United Nations. So it's curious to hear those same countries argue that in the case of North Korea, another rogue state that threatens its neighbors with weapons of mass destruction, the only solution is unilateral steps by the Bush administration. North Korea's defiance of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was rightly referred to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Pyongyang's defiance set "a dangerous precedent" that should receive "zero tolerance." Yet the Russian and Chinese governments grumbled that any action by the Security Council would be counterproductive. The only solution, they insist, is "direct dialogue" between the United States and North Korea. More than the Bush administration, neighbors ought to be gravely concerned about the incipient nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Yet while demanding a veto over any campaign to disarm Iraq, Russia and China propose to stand aside while Washington disarms North Korea on its own -- presumably by meeting Pyongyang's demands for political and economic bribes.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Back to the Gulag]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47612-2003Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47612-2003Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/editorials</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:20 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA["WHEN I WAS 10 years old, we were put to work digging clay and constructing a building. And there were dozens of kids, and while digging the ground, it collapsed. And they died. And they buried the kids secretly, without showing their parents."]]></description><author></author></item></channel></rss>