PERICLES
1stMay2005, 23:18
U.S.: N. Korea apparently tests missile
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/story.nk.missile.file.cnn.jpg
North Korea's test-firing in 1998 of a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/story.andrew.card.jpg White House chief of staff Andrew Card said the administration wants a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It appears North Korea has conducted a test of a short-range missile, White House chief of staff Andrew Card told CNN Sunday.
"I got the report this morning, so I don't know an awful lot about it. It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan," Card said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"We're not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before. They've had some failures.
"We have to work together with our allies around the world -- especially the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Russians and the Chinese -- to demonstrate that North Korea's actions are inappropriate. We don't want them to have any nuclear weapons, we don't want the Korean Peninsula to have any nuclear weapons on it."
Six-nation talks on persuading North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions -- involving the two Koreas, United States, China, Japan and Russia -- have been stalled since last June after three inconclusive rounds.
North Korea has already said it will stay away from the nuclear talks until Washington apologizes for comments by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which she described the communist state one of the world's "outposts of tyranny."
Resuming the talks gained urgency in February when North Korea said it had developed nuclear weapons and would boycott the talks indefinitely. The North has since threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal and has demanded that the United States drops what it calls a hostile policy.
Card described North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as "not a good leader."
He said North Koreans "are living in poverty -- many in concentration camps. They do not have any exercise of democracy or freedom. They are not allowed to contact the outside world. He is not the kind of leader that is comfortable with the rest of the world."
North Korea on Saturday called President Bush a "hooligan" and said it expected no solution of the international standoff over its nuclear program during the Bush administration. (Full story (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/30/northkorea.ap/index.html))
The comments by North Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman followed a White House news conference on Thursday at which Bush described Kim as a "tyrant" and a "dangerous person." (Transcript (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/28/bush.transcript/))
Card, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said the North Koreans are "looking to be bullies in the world, and they're causing others to stand up and take notice, but they're not very constructive leaders."
On NBC's "Meet the Press," Card portrayed North Korea as a target of U.S. efforts to inspire democracy around the world.
"We're doing everything we can to make sure that the people of North Korea recognize that they're being cheated and denied opportunities that come with freedom and democracy," he said.
U.S. .State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper issued a statement saying the test apparently took place Sunday. "We are continuing to look into this," Cooper said. "We are consulting closely with governments in the region. We have long been concerned about North Korea's missile program and activities, and urge North Korea to continue its moratorium on ballistic missile tests."
History of testing
North Korea tested missiles in 2003, and in 1998, it test-fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Both tests triggered a great deal of concern in nearby Japan. Japanese officials had no immediate response to reports of Sunday's test.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told "Late Edition" that Sunday's test shows the Bush administration's refusal to hold direct talks with Pyongyang is leading to an even greater nuclear threat.
The test, Levin said, is "additional, very discouraging evidence that this administration's policy towards North Korea is failing. We've had a lot of other evidence in the last four years -- the fact that they have renewed their reprocessing program of plutonium; the fact that they're now enriching uranium; and the fact they apparently can now put a nuclear weapon on a missile."
Last week, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby testified on Capitol Hill that, according to a U.S. assessment, North Korea has the capacity to arm a missile with a nuclear device and hit U.S. territory.
Such a "two-stage" missile is "assessed to be within their capacity," Jacoby said in response to a question from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York.
The Pentagon later argued that Jacoby was not stating new information but only reiterating his previous statements that North Korea has a "theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile."
"We have no information to suggest they have done so," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement Saturday.
But Levin argued that the danger North Korea presents is mounting. He pointed to an official moratorium on missile testing "that the North Koreans imposed on themselves" toward the end of the Clinton administration "when we were talking directly to the North Koreans."
In addition to the multilateral talks, Levin said, the Bush administration should "talk directly to the North Koreans. That's what's been missing. ... It has led to real failure in these policies. The nuclear threat is increasing from North Korea as a result."
But Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said North Korea lied to the United States in the bilateral talks during the Clinton presidency.
"On the one hand we thought we solved the problem, and they were picking our pocket with the other hand, developing nuclear capability," Coleman said. "That's the reality of North Korea. It's not that it's impossible to negotiate with them, it's that it's worthless to negotiate with them because Kim Jong Il is a petty tyrant."
Multilateral talks could make a difference because "China has some leeway on North Korea," Coleman said. "If you bring enough people in who have a stake in what happens, those in the region, you got a better chance of getting something done than sign a paper with a guy whose word you don't trust."
Levin countered that China and South Korea want the United States to hold bilateral talks in addition to the multilateral negotiations.
During his televised news conference Thursday evening, Bush addressed the North Korean nuclear issue insisting that the six-party talks are working and are the best way to solve the dispute.
"Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person," Bush said. "He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps."
"There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il, to assume he can.
"That's why I've decided that the best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries."
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/index.html
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/story.nk.missile.file.cnn.jpg
North Korea's test-firing in 1998 of a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/story.andrew.card.jpg White House chief of staff Andrew Card said the administration wants a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- It appears North Korea has conducted a test of a short-range missile, White House chief of staff Andrew Card told CNN Sunday.
"I got the report this morning, so I don't know an awful lot about it. It appears that there was a test of a short-range missile by the North Koreans and it landed in the Sea of Japan," Card said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"We're not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before. They've had some failures.
"We have to work together with our allies around the world -- especially the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Russians and the Chinese -- to demonstrate that North Korea's actions are inappropriate. We don't want them to have any nuclear weapons, we don't want the Korean Peninsula to have any nuclear weapons on it."
Six-nation talks on persuading North Korea to curb its nuclear ambitions -- involving the two Koreas, United States, China, Japan and Russia -- have been stalled since last June after three inconclusive rounds.
North Korea has already said it will stay away from the nuclear talks until Washington apologizes for comments by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which she described the communist state one of the world's "outposts of tyranny."
Resuming the talks gained urgency in February when North Korea said it had developed nuclear weapons and would boycott the talks indefinitely. The North has since threatened to increase its nuclear arsenal and has demanded that the United States drops what it calls a hostile policy.
Card described North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as "not a good leader."
He said North Koreans "are living in poverty -- many in concentration camps. They do not have any exercise of democracy or freedom. They are not allowed to contact the outside world. He is not the kind of leader that is comfortable with the rest of the world."
North Korea on Saturday called President Bush a "hooligan" and said it expected no solution of the international standoff over its nuclear program during the Bush administration. (Full story (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/04/30/northkorea.ap/index.html))
The comments by North Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman followed a White House news conference on Thursday at which Bush described Kim as a "tyrant" and a "dangerous person." (Transcript (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/28/bush.transcript/))
Card, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," said the North Koreans are "looking to be bullies in the world, and they're causing others to stand up and take notice, but they're not very constructive leaders."
On NBC's "Meet the Press," Card portrayed North Korea as a target of U.S. efforts to inspire democracy around the world.
"We're doing everything we can to make sure that the people of North Korea recognize that they're being cheated and denied opportunities that come with freedom and democracy," he said.
U.S. .State Department spokesman Curtis Cooper issued a statement saying the test apparently took place Sunday. "We are continuing to look into this," Cooper said. "We are consulting closely with governments in the region. We have long been concerned about North Korea's missile program and activities, and urge North Korea to continue its moratorium on ballistic missile tests."
History of testing
North Korea tested missiles in 2003, and in 1998, it test-fired a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. Both tests triggered a great deal of concern in nearby Japan. Japanese officials had no immediate response to reports of Sunday's test.
U.S. Sen. Carl Levin, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, told "Late Edition" that Sunday's test shows the Bush administration's refusal to hold direct talks with Pyongyang is leading to an even greater nuclear threat.
The test, Levin said, is "additional, very discouraging evidence that this administration's policy towards North Korea is failing. We've had a lot of other evidence in the last four years -- the fact that they have renewed their reprocessing program of plutonium; the fact that they're now enriching uranium; and the fact they apparently can now put a nuclear weapon on a missile."
Last week, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby testified on Capitol Hill that, according to a U.S. assessment, North Korea has the capacity to arm a missile with a nuclear device and hit U.S. territory.
Such a "two-stage" missile is "assessed to be within their capacity," Jacoby said in response to a question from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York.
The Pentagon later argued that Jacoby was not stating new information but only reiterating his previous statements that North Korea has a "theoretical capability to produce a warhead and mate it with a missile."
"We have no information to suggest they have done so," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a statement Saturday.
But Levin argued that the danger North Korea presents is mounting. He pointed to an official moratorium on missile testing "that the North Koreans imposed on themselves" toward the end of the Clinton administration "when we were talking directly to the North Koreans."
In addition to the multilateral talks, Levin said, the Bush administration should "talk directly to the North Koreans. That's what's been missing. ... It has led to real failure in these policies. The nuclear threat is increasing from North Korea as a result."
But Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said North Korea lied to the United States in the bilateral talks during the Clinton presidency.
"On the one hand we thought we solved the problem, and they were picking our pocket with the other hand, developing nuclear capability," Coleman said. "That's the reality of North Korea. It's not that it's impossible to negotiate with them, it's that it's worthless to negotiate with them because Kim Jong Il is a petty tyrant."
Multilateral talks could make a difference because "China has some leeway on North Korea," Coleman said. "If you bring enough people in who have a stake in what happens, those in the region, you got a better chance of getting something done than sign a paper with a guy whose word you don't trust."
Levin countered that China and South Korea want the United States to hold bilateral talks in addition to the multilateral negotiations.
During his televised news conference Thursday evening, Bush addressed the North Korean nuclear issue insisting that the six-party talks are working and are the best way to solve the dispute.
"Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person," Bush said. "He's a man who starves his people. He's got huge concentration camps."
"There is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon. We don't know if he can or not, but I think it's best, when you're dealing with a tyrant like Kim Jong Il, to assume he can.
"That's why I've decided that the best way to deal with this diplomatically is to bring more leverage to the situation by including other countries."
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/northkorea.missile/index.html