Jofi Joseph asks that churlish question, and a few others, in a Defense News (subscription only) op-ed about Six Party talks: The oft-repeated mantra for U.S. diplomats in 2003 and 2004 was this magical phrase: complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement,…
Picking up comments by Ambassador Hill at the Foreign Press Center (still not on the website), Peter Baker and Glenn Kessler report in the Washington Post that the Bush Administration plans “to push North Korea to begin disclosing the extent…
A former Department of State told Paul Kerr that “North Korea has probably imported enough components for 3,000-5,000 centrifuges and may have acquired enough for 6,000-7,000.” Whether those components have been assembeled into centrifuges or whether North Korea can make…
The Six Party Joint Statement calls on North Korea to “abandon”—not “dismantle”—it’s nuclear pograms. A few days ago, I observed that Glenn Kessler and Edward Cody missed this distinction in an otherwise outstanding article. Still, I felt like I was…
Max Boot, snapping pencils in frustration at CFR, sticks one in the President’s back over the Six Party Joint Statement: One suspects that if George W. Bush were not in the White House, he would be condemning the accord with…
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) has released a commercial satellite photograph of North Korea’s 50 Mwe reactor that appears to confirm June 2005 press reports that Pyongyang has resumed construction. In June 2005, I argued that analysts…
Well, the Six-Party Talks in Beijing have produced a Joint Statement. The Statement is pretty much the same set of principles as 1994 Agreed Framework, with all the tough stuff deferred into the future. Does Pyongyang get a light water…
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang announced that North Korea would return to Six Party Talks on September 13. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post reports that John Lewis, Sig Hecker and Jack Pritchard have returned from a trip to…
How many nuclear bombs does North Korea have? That depends on their plutonium (Pu) stockpile and design skill. In April 2004, David Sanger claimed AQ Khan told Pakistani interrogators that he saw three plutonium bombs in North Korea. Today, buried…
A couple of news outlets have mentioned that North Korea demanded the United States withdraw the “nuclear umbrella” extended to South Korea. Bloomberg cited Xinhua, which was citing Yonhap. Here is the quote from Yonhap: The top North Korean negotiator,…
