Thursday, April 20, 2006

North Who?

North Korea's No. 2 leader vowed April 14th to strengthen the country's "military deterrent force" in response to an American policy it considers hostile, the nation's official news agency said.

North Korea usually refers to its purported nuclear weapons as "deterrent force." North Korean officials often use harsh rhetoric to strengthen their position in international nuclear negotiations.

"The present situation of the Korean Peninsula has been driven to extremes by the U.S. vicious hostile policy" toward North Korea, said Kim Yong Nam, the North's ceremonial head of state, considered second in line to leader Kim Jong Il.

"It is (North Korea's) right for self-defense to strengthen its military deterrent ... to cope with the grave situation," he told a national meeting marking the birthday of late national founder Kim Il Sung, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
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CRS Report: North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program, April 7, 2006

North Korea's decisions to restart nuclear installations at Yongbyon that were shut down under the U.S.-North Korean Agreed Framework of 1994 and to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty create an acute foreign policy problem for the United States.

North Korea claims that it has nuclear weapons and that it has completed reprocessing of 8,000 nuclear fuel rods. U.S. officials in 2004 stated that North Korea probably had reprocessed most or all of the fuel rods and may have produced 4-6 atomic bombs from them.
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Note that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and has not violated the agreement. Bush is worried about Iran...why?
Oil.

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