When my cup's already over-filled....mmmhmm........
....But I'm growing hungry, yeah.
Looks like the NKs have decided that maybe having food is better than owning nukes. We'll see.North Korea Getting High Marks From U.S.
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Fri Jul 29, 4:51 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Having been denounced by
President Bush as part of an "axis of evil," and its leader Kim Jong Il dismissed by former U.S. negotiator John R. Bolton as a "tyrannical rogue,"
North Korea is suddenly getting high marks from the Bush administration.
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Officials are crediting North Korea with being cooperative in the current round of nuclear weapons talks in China and agreeing that the Korean peninsula should be denuclearized.
North Korea is putting ideas on the table that could contribute to the foundation of an eventual agreement, and the atmosphere is different in the new round of talks, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday.
"I think all would agree that we have a continuing good atmosphere," McCormack said after another one-on-one meeting between U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart.
The round has gone so well that all six parties — North Korea. China, Japan,
South Korea, Russia and the United States — are working on a statement of principles that could evolve into an agreement, McCormack said.
And, he said, "you have all the parties agreeing what the goal of the six-party talks is now: a denuclearized Korean peninsula."
The fact that the United States is having one-on-one talks with North Korea may contribute to the brighter mood, though the administration is taking a nonchalant public stance on the development.
"You'll find if you look back through the history books" that bilateral talks have been part of the six-nation negotiations since they began in August 2003, McCormack said.
And, he said, Hill has met separately also with members of the South Korean, Japanese and Chinese delegations.
But these were what McCormack called "pull-asides," a usually brief exchange. Hill's five one-on-one sessions with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan have been more extensive and in apparent response to persistent North Korean demands for the form of bargaining pursued by the Clinton administration.
That produced an agreement in 1994 that froze North Korea's nuclear facilities in exchange for energy assistance. But North Korea eight years later was found to have been in violation of that agreement by starting up an enriched uranium operation, according to U.S. officials.
The Bush administration hesitated at first to try to resume negotiations but finally did in a six-nation format.
Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, interviewed Thursday on PBS' "NewsHour," said any agreement in which North Korea gave up its nuclear weapons "is really only going to be achieved in a six-party framework."
Rice dismissed what she called "breakout sessions in which people talk directly" as not unusual in negotiations involving several countries.
In fact, McCormack said Friday, the statement of principles in the works is a result of consultation with the Japanese, Chinese, South Korean and Russian delegations, as well as the North Koreans.
Although I do recall a time in the debates when Kerry suggested he would pursue bi-lateral talks with NK, and Bush scoffed at the idea.
