When I worked in Beijing I was fortunate in my acquaintances.
In the SOTU text of February 2005, the Regime deviated from prior texts on the issue of the Kim Dynasty in Pongyang. This text-of-record is "[the Regime is] working with governments in Asia to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions."
Today Pongyang issued a statement. "We are compelled to suspend our participation in the talks for an indefinite period," and North Korea would only return when "there are ample conditions and atmosphere to expect positive results from the talks."
The "talks" are the six-party talks, with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and the US forming the six-parties. Pongyang had held out for years for direct bi-lateral talks with the US, and a non-aggression treaty, neither of which the Regime currently holding Washington City has been willing to enter into.
In the same text Pongyang announced that North Korea is a nuclear weapons state.
In the past week most of the world, including the sleepy bits nominally colored "blue" but generally agreeable to any "Mullahs-R-Meanies", "Mullahs-got-Missiles" and of course, "N comes after M" theories of received truth (and consequences) woke up to the fact that absent coup, mutiny, parallel strokes or cardic infarctions, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsford-Wolfowitz-Rice-Feith-Scooter-Hadley-Bolton-Luti-Fowler-(Perle)-Negroponte-(Bremer)-Garner gang of
Which is why it is interesting that Pongyang suddenly started barking.
Who queued the dog? Who's dog is it? Has it sliped its leash? Is the barking the message, or does it signal more than a stage in the game of musical chairs played around a six-sided table involving oil, grain, and atoms?
Everybody's getting into the restrain-Bush-before-he-acts ... act. Pakistan, Japan, France and Germany, its getting really complicated on the diplo-pags.
I look at today's news from the Koreas and wonder. Who is djúpúðga today?
Posted by EBW at February 10, 2005 12:01 PM | TrackBack