The Marmot’s Hole

I don’t have a lot of time to comment on this yet, but the big story is that the North Koreans have reportedly decided to honor us by “considering” the recent American offer of written security assurances. According to Yahoo! News:

In a sudden shift, North Korea said Saturday that it would consider President Bush (news - web sites)’s offer of written security assurances in return for dismantling the communist state’s nuclear weapons programs.
Pyongyang had previously ridiculed Bush’s offer as laughable and “not worth considering.”
The abrupt change brightened prospects for restarting the six-nation talks to ease tensions in the yearlong standoff over North Korea’s nuclear programs, which some experts say could produce several more atomic bombs within months.
North Korea already has informed Washington of its new intentions through a contact in New York between Bush administration officials and North Korean diplomats at the United Nations, said an unnamed spokesman of Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry.

However, a little later:

But the North Korean spokesman said Saturday: “We are ready to consider Bush’s remarks on the ‘written assurances of nonaggression’ if they are based on the intention to coexist with the (North)” and offer “simultaneous actions.” The comments were carried by Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency.
When it calls for “simultaneous actions,” North Korea means it wants the United States to first provide economic and humanitarian aid, sign a nonaggression treaty with Pyongyang, open diplomatic ties and build a nuclear power plant. Meanwhile, North Korea will first declare its willingness to give up nuclear development, allow nuclear inspections, give up missiles exports and finally dismantle its nuclear weapons facilities.
The North Korean spokesman said it was “premature” to talk about whether his country would return to six-nation talks. His country must first confirm that the United States will take “simultaneous actions” toward ending the nuclear crisis, he said.
“Simple and clear is our request,” the North Korean spokesman said. “What we want is for both sides to drop guns and establish normal state relationship to coexist peacefully.”

Look, I usually take a dim view of these sort of things, mostly on account that I believe that negotiating with the Norks is a waste of time in general. It’s impossible to know whether this represents a “diplomatic victory” or simply the tried and true North Korean diplomatic tactic of offering a “concession,” seeing the reaction, and then following it up with previously unannounced “conditions.”

And North Korea should get “normal state relations” when it begins behaving in a way similar to that of a “normal state.” Until then, it’s “abnormal state relations” for the Norks.

Other Random Readings

• OhMyNews runs a pretty good interview with Song Seung-jae, a representative from the Japanese-Koreans Youth League, which discusses the rise in assaults on ethnic Koreans living in Japan. Personally, I thing the story does much to expose both a) the extent to which racism (especially towards its Korean community) is a problem in Japan, and b) just how clueless some ethnic Koreans are as to why Japanese might not like them (the latter point is not the one that was intended by the article).

• I rank on OhMyNews quite a bit - and for good reason - but I do enjoy reading them, and this piece asking a number of cultural figures (although I’m not sure if the world’s female boxing champ counts) how they would like to spend this fall. Cute piece, even if Lee Yun-i would apparently like to desecrate one of my favorite places in Korea (Andong’s Pyongsan Confucian Academy) by holding an all night conversation with Prof. Song Du-yul there.