How North Korea almost gave up its nuclear program in 2000 - until John Bolton interfered

[muriel_volestrangler]

Getting North Korea to agree to strict missile curbs was the key objective of the Albright visit, and she made it clear to Kim that she could not recommend a visit by Clinton until Kim could allay US concerns. The US had prepared a list of questions about Pyongyang’s understanding of the proposed restrictions, and had expected it to be answered by the country’s missile experts. But Kim demanded to see the questionnaire himself at the start of his second meeting with Albright, the day after the extravaganza at the Mayday Stadium.
...
Albright returned from Pyongyang convinced that Kim Jong-il was a pragmatist, and that a visit would put the seal on a historic deal. “President Clinton told me he would do whatever was needed to get the treaty signed, and he would have prevailed on the issue,” Perry said.
...
Even after Bush’s victory, the diplomats who had been pursuing a peace deal with Pyongyang thought all was not lost. Colin Powell, the former general appointed as Bush’s secretary of state, was enthusiastic about a potential agreement. According to Perry, “Colin assured me and assured Clinton that he liked this agreement and was going to go through with it. And he intended to do that.” As late as 6 March 2001, Powell stated publicly that the new administration planned “to engage with North Korea, to pick up where President Clinton left off.”

He was wrong. Cheney and the new defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, shared Bolton’s antipathy to talks, and won the day with Bush. The view of the Bush hawks was that the Clinton administration’s contact with Pyongyang represented a reward for the regime’s human-rights atrocities and violations of arms agreements. “September 11 pushed North Korea to the side, but by year’s end I was able to move on to the offensive toward dismantling the failed Agreed Framework and its various manifestations,” Bolton wrote in his memoir. In Bush’s state of the union speech in January 2002, he named North Korea alongside Iran and Iraq as a member of the “axis of evil”.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/30/north-korea-us-nuclear-diplomacy-agreed-framework-1999-pyongyang-mission

[progressoid]

1. And he'll probably do the same with Iran.

Is it too early to start drinking?

[Nitram]

2. I didn't know Bolton spiked the N Korean de-nuclearization talks.

There will be a special place in Hell reserved for The Mustache. I can only hope he spends some time in prison before that. But I doubt anybody trusted him enough top include him in their nefarious plans to collude with Russia.

[Igel]

5. Look for what's missing in the OP.

When you find it, you'll realize that you're being told a bit more than half the story.

The rest of the story tells you that the optimism wasn't warranted. In fact, things were being done to undermine the first half of the story, and not by the US side.

Add in what's missing and the story stops having the only possible ending. In fact, it starts to look like the way it went was the way it had to go.

[Nitram]

6. That's not what I read. I read that the prospects were very good until Bush won the election and

Dick Cheney took charge of foreign policy. Could you clarify for me why you assert that the negotiations were already doomed? Where are you reading the lines, or between the lines, to reach that conclusion? Thanks in advance - I'm very interested to understand what I'm missing.

[Dorn]

3. Why doesn't anyone know this! The missiles and nukes are George Bush and John Bolton's fault!

Just do a web search CNN / MSNBC / FOX!

[CaptainTruth]

4. It should say "until the PNAC interfered," of which Bolton was a member

I'll never forgive our media for ignoring the PNAC. They created America's biggest foreign policy disaster & started wars we're still fighting, 15 years later, yet got basically no coverage by major news sources.

[MiniMe]

7. Was that him or his father?

I didn't think he was in power that long.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. That depends on who you mean by "him", I guess

Jong-Il was in power from 1994 till 2011.

[MiniMe]

9. That's what I thought, it isn't the current Kim

Still, Bolton is a jerk!

[dalton99a]

10. Kick