White House Targets N. Korean Companies

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, intensifying pressure on North Korea, targeted eight companies in that country suspected of helping to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

The action taken by the Treasury Department on Friday means that any bank accounts or financial assets belonging to the eight companies found in the United States would be frozen. Americans also are forbidden from doing business with them.

"Proliferators of weapons of mass destruction often rely on front companies to mask their illicit activities and cover their tracks," said Stuart Levey, the department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. "Today's action turns a spotlight on eight firms involved in weapons of mass destruction proliferation out of North Korea. We will continue to expose and designate these dangerous actors."

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-treasury-weapons-proliferation,0,4869770.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

This is interesting, considering the underreported success of Richardson's (sanctioned, but unofficial) efforts there this week...

North Korea Ready for Talks, U.S. Envoy Says

2005-10-20 - TOKYO, Friday, Oct. 21 - North Korea is "fully committed" to return to nuclear disarmament talks in November and is showing "flexibility" on conditions for obtaining a light-water reactor, an American envoy to the North said here Friday. "They showed me flexibility on the light-water reactor issue," the envoy, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, said in an interview.
....
"It was the most positive tone I have seen" Mr. Richardson said of his trip, his fourth to Pyongyang. He said he met four times with Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's top nuclear negotiator, and had a two-hour meeting with Kang Sok Ju, a deputy foreign minister whom he described as "the top foreign policy adviser to Kim Jong Il," the North Korean leader.

In the meetings, the North Koreans also agreed to allow most foreign aid workers to stay in the country. Last month, North Korea had given a Dec. 31 deadline for foreigners working for private aid groups to leave and had ordered the World Food Program to change its aid from "humanitarian" to "development."

http://www.minjok.com/english/news.php3?code=701

[teryang]

1. Turning Point- Gregory Elich

Mr. Elich has a well researched article on the new state of affairs in northeast Asia. The US position there has been circumvented by unilateral S.Korean initiatives to the North. While this article attempts to pose the US administration as the decisive factor on the peninsula the fact is that the Chinese presented the US with an ultimatum, and four of the six parties stand against US sanctions policies. By the way, the north wants two light water reactors not "a reactor." If you are truly interested in Korean/Asian policy, this detailed and lengthy article is worth a read.

http://www.globalresearch.ca

A Turning Point in the North Korean Nuclear Dispute


by Gregory Elich

October 20, 2005


<snip>Had the talks fallen apart it could well have marked the end of the diplomatic road. Certainly senior U.S. officials were hinting as much, and the American delegation was talking about returning home. The Bush Administration would have interpreted a breakdown in negotiations as a signal that the time had come to implement non-diplomatic measures. It was a pivotal moment. The Chinese delegation knew it had to act quickly, and prepared a new draft statement that carefully balanced the opposing positions. The new document was presented on Friday, September 16, with the delegations being told that they had until the next afternoon to respond. The U.S. delegation immediately rejected the statement. But the Chinese held firm, telling the Americans, "This is the final draft. Take it or leave it." The deadline passed with no sign of movement from the U.S. delegation, so talks were extended into Sunday. Throughout the weekend, Christopher Hill was in frequent contact with Secretary of State Rice. The U.S. delegation made persistent but unsuccessful efforts to get the Chinese delegation to water down the proposed statement. The Chinese warned the U.S. delegation that if it failed to sign the draft statement, then they were prepared to blame the U.S. for the collapse of talks. "At one point they told us that we were totally isolated on this and that they would go to the press," acknowledged an Administration official. "China really dug in," said an official close to the talks. By Sunday night, Secretary of State Rice and President Bush relented and instructed the U.S. delegation to sign the document, but only on condition that each party could issue a statement offering its own interpretation. "We didn’t want to lose the argument over this," explained a U.S. official. For the Bush Administration, the worst possible outcome would be for the talks to collapse with the U.S. being singled out for public blame. That would have made it impossible to garner international support for punitive measures against North Korea. Going it alone on North Korea would have been problematic, too. Washington had its hands full with ongoing efforts to win international backing for isolating and pressuring Iran for its pursuit of nuclear power plants. Furthermore, any hostile measures taken against North Korea carried an inherent risk of escalating into conflict, and the U.S. military was tied up in the occupation of Iraq. The Iraqi resistance was placing serious constraints on the ability of the U.S. to create new crises. For these reasons, intervention at this time in North Korea was simply unfeasible without allied support. Faced with these disagreeable choices, the Bush Administration apparently concluded that the best option was to in effect kick the ball down the field by agreeing to the document in hopes that a later time would bring a more advantageous set of circumstances. (22)<snip>

<snip>On a surface level, the statement of principles signed at the September talks appeared to accomplish nothing more than committing the parties to further dialogue. At the same time, it also marked a crucial turning point in relations in Northeast Asia. Restive over Washington’s approach, the other parties at the talks boldly offered their own vision of the future for Northeast Asia. There may be little hope for a negotiated settlement in the remaining years of the Bush Administration. But South Korea, China and Russia feel they can at least compel the U.S. to make some concessions and refrain from confrontation with North Korea. The Iraqi resistance deserves a great deal of credit for tying Washington’s hands, but it is China, Russia and above all South Korea that have played the major role in circumventing U.S. plans to plunge the Korean Peninsula into crisis or possibly war...<snip>