More talk from the Norks, more fear on the part of the Chief Executive of the Republic of Korea:
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said that the North’s statement on Thursday was “a bombshell announcement”.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said it was regrettable that Pyongyang had broken a promise it made after six-party talks on the issue last month not to escalate tensions.
Pyongyang said on Thursday it had reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and added on Friday that it had overcome “technical difficulties” in using the plutonium extracted from the rods for weapons purposes.
But despite his concern, Mr Roh stressed it was important for the international community to remain calm.
“If we react too sensitively, it could only aggravate the already tense situation,” he said.
Of course, then again President Noh, if you insist on acting like a scared little bitch, don’t be surprised when the North Koreans treat you like one.
As you may have inferred from my last couple of posts on this topic, I’m getting rather sick of the crap.
PS: As much as bitch about the President’s lack of nerve, he’s damn near Reagan-esque compared to his Unification Minister:
Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun has requested the United States take a more conciliatory approach to North Korea over its nuclear weapons programs.
“The harder the U.S. pushes ahead with the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), the stronger the backlash it will face from the North,” Jeong cautioned in a meeting with South Korean correspondents in Washington on Tuesday.
“The U.S. needs to assure the North that it will do its best to sustain the North?s regime stability, rather than present ambiguous positions over the security issue,” he said.
More steely-eyed determination brought to you by Jeong Se-hyun and the Ministry of Unification of the Republic of Korea.
One Comment
As much as bitch about the President’s lack of nerve, he’s damn near Reagan-esque compared to his Unification Minister
I don’t think it’s a lack of nerve so much as it is a completely different worldview. In this worldview, South Korea is just a pawn in a struggle for supremacy between the US and North Korea. We’ve rocked this worldview once or twice by talking about withdrawing our troops from the Korean peninsula, but talk is cheap.
We need to actually rid ourselves of this albatross, and then the worldviews of the South Korean people will no longer matter to us. Once our troops are gone, we’ll be able to listen to these worldviews from a distance and say “God bless them”, without having to worry about how they will affect our security posture.