North Korea To Be Removed From State Sponsors of Terrorism List
North Korea gave China the long awaited accounting of its nuclear activities, as agreed in the six-party talks. In return, the US will delist NK as a state sponsor of terrorism and lift some trade sanctions:
The United States on Thursday welcomed a long-delayed North Korean account of its shadowy nuclear activities and said it would act to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
[...]
“North Korea has pledged to disable all its nuclear facilities and tomorrow will destroy the cooling tower of the Yongbyon reactor,” a White House statement said. The White House said the United States would respond by lifting sanctions on North Korea under the “Trading with the Enemy Act” and would also begin steps to remove Pyongyang from the U.S. blacklist of countries it considers sponsors of terrorism.
Of course, we’ve been rolled by NK before. But it would appear that the Administration’s long, persistent insistence on six-party talks rather than bilateral negotiations has yielded something worthwhile. China’s long term willingness to police the accord and ensure that its client state abides by it is the big question.
About Dodd
The very idea of bilateral talks with North Korea is, was, and always has been absurd. China will always be the dog in the manger.
The smallest negotiating table in talks with the North Koreans has three sides.
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Insisting on multilateral talks was one of the rare things I agreed with the Bush Administration on. I’m hopeful that this effort might be successful.
Quick question, though – does North Korea really sponsor terrorist groups, or did we just say they do?
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does North Korea really sponsor terrorist groups, or did we just say they do?
Indeed. Amazing how quickly the designation was dropped, isn’t it?
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“Amazing how quickly the designation was dropped, isn’t it?”
And note the quid pro quo of making these changes on the same day North Korea turned over its accounting of nuclear facilities and the day before they disable their reactors. It’s almost as if this was previously negotiated, and not a spontaneous reaction to North Korea doing so as a precondition for talks (which we know no Republican would ever do).
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We all can breathe a sigh of relief, haha. This decision is very curious.
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