|
The U.S. and Japanese governments are under pressure at home to get tougher in negotiating with North Korea, which has delayed implementing a Feb. 13 six-nation agreement to shut down its nuclear facilities. The New York Times on Wednesday charged the White House with doing too little. ¡°The North Koreans have a way of making even patient people apoplectic,¡± the daily said, but Washington permitted the North to stall citing delayed transfer of its funds in a Macau Bank. The paper noted the February agreement ¡°says nothing about the sequencing of concessions and rewards or what ¡±disablement¡¯ and ¡°abandonment¡± and ¡°denuclearization¡± mean.¡±
The Washington Post in an editorial said North Korea has done nothing under the agreement, although the U.S. unfroze the North¡¯s assets in the Banco Delta Asia. ¡°Now the North is insisting that it be able to transfer the money to bank accounts in South Korea, Italy or Russia -- and thereby formally break the taboo the U.S. Treasury had managed to create on its use of the international banking system,¡± it said. ¡°Guess what? The Bush administration is once again going along.¡±
One U.S. government official said even if the BDA problem is fixed, other matters requiring strategic decisions remain. They include North Korea¡¯s report of its nuclear program, the shutdown of nuclear facilities, economic aid to Pyongyang, negotiations over establishing permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula and the normalization of U.S.-North Korea diplomatic relations. He added it was impossible to predict what will happen to the denuclearization process if North Korea attaches new conditions in every stage.
With the atmosphere souring, U.S. top nuclear envoy Christopher Hill is under fire from hardliners at home who feel the U.S. was deceived by North Korea. Appearing discouraged, Hill in a lecture at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington said he might lose his job if the February agreement is not implemented within this year.
Japan is considering additional sanctions on North Korea if Pyongyang continues to drag its feet, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Thursday. Tokyo imposed its own sanctions on North Korea after the Stalinist country test-fired missiles and conducted a nuclear test last year. The fresh sanctions would ban all exports to North Korea, ships from third countries will be barred from Japanese ports if they come via North Korea, and the targets of a ban on financial transactions will be increased. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said China is also putting pressure on North Korea to speed up implementation of the February agreement by reducing operations of cargo trains between the two countries.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
