THAT WASN'T IT AT ALL!
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-Latest Update!-August 02, 2010SEOUL: North Korea attacked a South Korean warship after the South balked at its request for economic aid in return for a proposed summit, a report said Monday.
The North's request was delivered through a senior member of the South's ruling Grand National Party last December, Dong-A Ilbo newspaper reported, quoting sources familiar with Pyongyang.
It said the North demanded that the South pledge economic assistance including 300,000 tons of fertiliser before any summit between President Lee Myung-Bak and its leader Kim Jong-Il.
It also called for the establishment of an unofficial channel for inter-Korean dialogue, designating then-South Korean Labour Minister Yim Tae-Hee as dialogue partner, the paper said.
The unification ministry and the presidential office had no comment on the report.
Yim, one of Lee's close confidants, reportedly held a secret meeting with a North Korean official in Singapore late last year in an unsuccessful attempt to arrange a summit. He became chief of presidential staff last month.
Seoul, however, failed to give a clear answer to Pyongyang for months because of intense debate among its top policymakers, Dong-A said.
In February Lee said he would not reward North Korea for agreeing to hold a fence-mending summit.
In March, according to South Korean and US officials, a North Korean submarine torpedoed the corvette near the disputed sea border with the loss of 46 lives.
The first-ever summit was held in 2000 and a second in 2007, when Seoul's left-leaning leaders were practising a "sunshine" aid and engagement policy with Pyongyang.
Lee, a conservative, took office in 2008 and linked major aid to progress in the North's nuclear disarmament, sparking anger in Pyongyang. Nevertheless, the impoverished North put out peace feelers late last summer.
[[Original Article]]North Korea vs. USA: Round ∞
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SEOUL: The United States hopes new sanctions on North Korea will be strong enough to discourage "provocative activities" and encourage it to scrap its nuclear weapons programme, a senior US envoy said Monday.
Robert Einhorn said Washington wants measures "that provide strong incentives for North Korea 's leaders to abide by their international obligations not to pursue any provocative activities, and fulfil completely their commitments for denuclearisation".
Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, was speaking at the start of a visit to South Korea and Japan aimed at tightening sanctions on both the North and Iran.
Seoul and Washington accuse Pyongyang of torpedoing a South Korean warship earlier this year with the loss of 46 lives, a charge it vehemently denies.
During a visit to Seoul last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new US sanctions on the North along with efforts to tighten existing United Nations measures.
The two allies last week held a major naval and air exercise designed to deter against cross-border aggression.
The North has threatened unspecified "strong physical measures" against the new US measures.
Einhorn is accompanied by Daniel Glaser, a senior Treasury official overseeing efforts to combat terrorist financing and financial crimes.
Speaking after a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Yong-Joon, Einhorn said the allies should work closely together to deal with threats to international security posed by both North Korea and Iran.
"One means of addressing these challenges is to create the pressures felt by these two governments, so that they recognise it is in the best interests of their countries to meet their international obligations and forsake nuclear weapons," he told reporters.
But he said different measures may be needed for each government to persuade it "to be more reasonable", adding that Washington is still finalising new measures.
Six-party talks on the North's denuclearisation have been stalled since December 2008. In April last year the North quit the forum before staging its second nuclear weapons test a month later.
Einhorn also met Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan and chief nuclear envoy Wi Sung-Lac. He was to hold a press conference later in the day.
Widespread local media reports have said that, as part of the punitive measures, the United States plans to freeze some 100 overseas bank accounts believed linked to illicit North Korean transactions.
During her visit to Seoul Clinton announced new sanctions "directed at the destabilising, illicit, and provocative policies" of the North's regime.
She also announced greater efforts under existing regulations, to freeze the North's suspect assets.
China, the North's sole major ally and economic lifeline, has not backed the findings of international investigators, who said there was overwhelming evidence that Pyongyang sank the warship.
A US State Department spokesman last week urged China to live up to its international obligations on sanctions, and use its leverage to change the North's behaviour.
[[Original Article]]NOW, Indonesia?!
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JAKARTA - Indonesia warned Monday that tensions on the Korean peninsula could spin out of control without a return to dialogue, as North Korea's foreign minister visited the southeast Asian country.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa held talks with his North Korean counterpart Pak Ui Chun and said there was an "inherent risk" attached to the current freeze in six-party talks over the North's nuclear programme.
He said he had repeated Indonesia's condemnation of the sinking of a South Korean warship in March with the loss of 46 lives, without blaming North Korea as the United States, South Korea and other countries have done.
"Our emphasis is on the future in terms of wanting to ensure that the conditions conducive to the return to six-party talks are created," Natalegawa said after the meeting.
North Korea has offered to return to the stalled disarmament dialogue involving the two Koreas plus China, Japan, Russia and the United States.
The talks have been on ice since December 2008. In April last year the North announced it was quitting the forum before staging its second nuclear weapons test a month later.
The United States and South Korea have said that before negotiations can resume, Pyongyang must acknowledge its role in the sinking of the warship, sincerely commit to scrapping its atomic weapons and halt provocative actions.
Pak did not speak to reporters after the meeting in Jakarta.
"Sooner or later, all parties must return to the dialogue, to the negotiation process," Natalegawa said.
"In our view, in the Indonesian view, sooner is better than later because otherwise there is an inherent risk of events developing out of control and we may end up in a situation where we don't want to be."
The United States and South Korea accuse the North of torpedoing the Cheonan near the disputed Yellow Sea border in March -- a charge Pyongyang denies.
The North threatened a physical response to US-South Korean naval exercises launched last month in the Sea of Japan.
A South Korean newspaper reported Monday that the North attacked the warship after the South balked at its request for economic aid in return for a proposed summit. - CNA /ls
[[Original Article]]Give North Korea a Break!
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SEOUL: New sanctions to be adopted soon will allow the United States to clamp down on illicit activities which earn North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars a year, a senior US official said on Monday.
These include counterfeiting US currency and other goods, drug smuggling and other "illicit and deceptive activities" in the international financial and banking systems, Robert Einhorn told a news conference.
Einhorn, the State Department's special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, was speaking during a visit to South Korea aimed at tightening enforcement of sanctions on both the North and Iran.
Illicit activities earn hundreds of millions of dollars in hard currency which can be used to support North Korea's nuclear or missile programmes or buy luxury goods in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, he said.
Einhorn appealed to China, the North's sole major ally and economic lifeline, to back the sanctions on both countries and not to take advantage of restraint by other countries.
"We want China to be a responsible stakeholder in the international system," he said.
"That means co-operating with the UN Security Council resolutions and it means not backfilling or not taking advantage of responsible self-restraint of other countries."
The new measures on North Korea, announced last month in Seoul by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would let Washington designate entities and individuals and "block the property or assets they possess that are under the control of a US person or bank," Einhorn said.
"By publicly naming these entities, these measures can have the broader effect of isolating them from the international financial and commercial system," he said.
Einhorn was accompanied by Daniel Glaser, a senior Treasury official overseeing efforts to combat terrorist financing and financial crimes.
Glaser said the private sector had previously reacted powerfully to the exposure of entities which assisted illicit activities.
In 2005 the US publicly blacklisted a Macau bank for alleged links to North Korean counterfeiting. The move led to a freeze of 25 million dollars in the North's accounts there.
The measure reportedly hit the North hard after other financial institutions also cut ties to Pyongyang for fear of similar action.
Einhorn, who will leave Seoul for Tokyo on Tuesday, said that, apart from the new sanctions, Washington will be "aggressively implementing" existing measures in the months ahead.
More companies or individuals would be designated under an existing executive order for involvement in weapons of mass destruction and missile-related activities.
The new sanctions on the North are designed both to punish it for the alleged sinking of a South Korean warship and to pressure it to scrap its nuclear weapons programme.
Seoul and Washington accuse Pyongyang of torpedoing the ship earlier this year with the loss of 46 lives, a charge it vehemently denies.
South Korea and its US ally held a major naval and air exercise last week designed to deter cross-border aggression.
The North has reacted furiously, threatening unspecified "strong physical measures" against the new sanctions.
China has not backed the findings of international investigators, who said there was overwhelming evidence that Pyongyang sank the warship.
Einhorn described North Korea and Iran as "two of the greatest threats to the nuclear non-proliferation regime and to international security generally".
Glaser said new sanctions adopted by the United Nations, the US, Australia, Canada and the European Union were powerful tools "to increase the financial pressure on Iran and further protect the international financial system from Iranian abuse".
Six-party talks on North Korea 's denuclearisation have been stalled since December 2008. In April last year the North quit the forum before staging its second nuclear weapons test a month later.
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