Fuming at the U.N. Security Council for condemning its recent missile launch, North Korea said Tuesday it will restart its plutonium factory, junk all its disarmament agreements and “never participate” again in six-country nuclear negotiations. …
It called the Security Council’s statement a “brigandish,” “wanton” and “unjust” infringement of its sovereignty. It said that six-party nuclear talks with the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and, even its closest ally, China, had “turned into a platform” for forcing the North to disarm itself and for bringing down its system of government.
“We have no choice but to further strengthen our nuclear deterrent to cope with additional military threats by hostile forces,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released by its state news agency.
If it follows through on Tuesday’s bluster, North Korea will walk away from six years of slow, fitful but sometimes productive negotiations that have led to substantial disablement of the North’s main nuclear reactor and partial disclosure of the scale of its weapons program.
That last sentence might be the first mainstream media recognition that the Bush administration actually made progress with North Korea. Unlike the previous administration, George Bush pushed for verification and actual disablement before sending food and fuel to Kim, stabilizing his regime in the face of massive starvation and poverty. Spiking Yongbyon and having inspectors verify the shutdown kept Kim from producing more nukes, even if he managed to keep what he had. It wasn’t perfect, but it was progress.
Hot Air Blog Archive Kim throws a tantrum
Will Obama throw a stiff response to Korea or as we have seen he did nothing after missile launch. I heard the UN finally responsed with a terse resolution.