Thursday, June 21, 2007

Hill visits North Korea

I read a news article that Christopher Hill made his first visit (it was kind of surprise, as I thought he must have visited there a lot) to Pyongyang as the chief of the U.S. nuclear envoy (about an hour ago, 12:30pm local time). Article said that he is planning to meet his counterparts, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, and Kang Suk Joo to “move the process forward." With the BDA fund problem finally solved, it seems like that the State Department is now actively engaging in the North Korean nuclear issue (shutting down the Yongbyun reactor). This nuclear reactor had been one of the most valuable cards that the North held in order to ask for aid, etc. If they are to give up this reactor, I wonder what’s gonna be their next card.

1 comment:

rfishel said...

Speaking of North Korea having the "nuclear card," I sometimes wonder if it was an inflated bargaining chip to begin with. That is, it seems that at least to a certain degree the United States and others make North Korea appear much more dangerous than they might actually be. As we talked about in class, it is not likely for North Korea to even use the nuclear bomb, and it is not really in any country's interest to go to war. Because of that, and the way the NK regime is portrayed in the media, I question whether the nuclear issue is as big of a deal as some make it out to be.