North Korea Says Willing to Talk to U.S. and IAEA

[Copzilla]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030103/wl_nm/korea_north_dc&e=1

The reclusive communist state's ambassador to China, Choe Jin-su, told a news conference in Beijing the North's decision to reactivate the nuclear program was an act of self-defense and accused Washington of refusing to discuss the crisis.
Tends to eliminate doubt about what the ploy was about anyway. The non-aggression treaty seems to weigh heavily on the North. At the same time, their excursions into the DMZ are notorious.

I think the proper approach is to be elusive. Refuse to negotiate over this issue, because this will be an ace in the hole for the North, for a long time. They'll break any other treaty as well if things don't go their way.

edit - pasted the wrong text

[jamming]

We probably should not make a treaty with the North as it won't mean anything to them, but the world will expect us to keep it.

[Copzilla]

Their recent actions would certainly suggest exactly that, wouldn't it?

The reality is that they probably were already breaking the treaties in the first place, and this was already known by the US intelligence, they know we know it, we act like we don't know it and they act like we don't know it. So once it comes out, it's like "Yeah, what else is new" from the intelligence community...

But then want to discuss their breaking the treaty as a bargaining chip? Nahhh. Driving them crazy that the US stance has been a big yawn so far, I think.

[Sierra Mike]

I'm all for playing hardball with these jokers. Despite what the ROK says to the contrary, if our troops are still there, then they're there because the South allows them to stay.

SM