The Dear Leader seems to be having second thoughts about the utility of his recent nuclear tests (AP):
Kim told the Chinese delegation that “he is sorry about the nuclear test,” the newspaper reported.
That was fast. I guess the threat of not getting any more Hennessy V.S.O.P cognac is having an effect.
Kim also gave terms for what it would take to get him to return to the six-party talks:
[Kim] said Pyongyang would return to international nuclear talks if Washington backs off a campaign to financially isolate the country, a South Korean newspaper reported Friday.
“If the U.S. makes a concession to some degree, we will also make a concession to some degree, whether it be bilateral talks or six-party talks,” Kim was quoted as telling a Chinese envoy, the mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported, citing a diplomatic source in China.
That is a step in the right direction. Kim had been refusing to go to the six-party talks and only wanted to deal with the USA unilaterally.
Alas, it is not going to happen. The US financial sanctions related to North Korea’s conterfeiting of US money and other nastiness can and will be stopped when North Korea stops its illegal acts. They are not matters for negotiation. Of course if, during the course of the six party talks, they want to negotiate an end of financial sanctions in exchange for verifiably ending their criminal activities, that seems fair.
I feel pretty safe in assuming that someone here will have more on this later, so stay tuned.
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i’m sure he said something along the lines of…”I had to because
I’m so Ronery / So ronery / So ronery and sadry arone / There’s no one / Just me onry / Sitting on my rittle throne / I work very hard to be number one guy / but, stiwr there’s no one to right up my rife / Seems rike no one takes me serirousry / And so, I’m ronery / A rittle ronery / Poor rittle me / There’s no one I can rerate to / Feewr rike a biwd in a cage / It’s kinda siwry / but, not reawry / because, it’s fiwring my body with rage / I’m the smartest, most crever, most physicawry fit / but, none of the women seem to give a shit / Maybe someday, they’wr awr notice me / And untiwr then, I’wr be ronery / Yeah, a rittle ronery / Poor rittle me…”
quote from “team america”
The Chinese must have really read him the riot act if that is a direct quote as its portrayed.
Sorry that it wasn’t bigger, probably.
Kim Jong-Il can keep going in the direction they were going in, now that President Roh is a admitting he’s a communist.
Seriously, let’s allow the South Koreans eat dirt and bark with their buddies in the North, or better yet have their culture simply erased by the Japanese and Chinese. The U.S. has spent untold billions on rebuilding South Korea, supporting their asinine policies of providing comfort and aid to the enemy (communists in the North), let’s let them fight, err lose, their own battles. Perhaps, then, and only then, after a proper revolution and the removal of President Roh through a coup’de’tat will some normalcy and commonsense prevail in what’s left of “Korea”.
Least not forget, if South Korea does continue to support North Korea, their MFN trading status will be removed, and their American bank accounts frozen. Good times!
–Remort
But was it sincere?
need more stick. china has been handing out too much carrot.
Not a bad day.
1. Korea invents cure for cancer.
2. Kim Jong-il says sorry
Korea will have a hat trick if Ban can figure out a solution to the mid-east problem
.
Kim Jong Il knows the United States will refuse. This way he is hoping that he can appear to be conciliatory while the US looks stubborn.
FYI, CNN is quoting Yonhap as saying the Dear Leader has forewsorn a second test.
Sorry - foresworn
Kill the head and the body will die!
Simple English - not going to conduct a second test. (OB fingers)
I predict we will have a fiery KCNA report in the next few days making clear that Kim Jong is NOT sorry about the atomic test.
He was probably quoted just after the unrecorded quote from his minions of:
“Dear Leader, the detonation was successful but we failed to reach sufficient critical mass. We have no idea what went wrong or how to compensate for our error. Please spare my life and that of my family, friends and my pet worm, Oomshik. It will take six months before we can trace our error. So sorry.”
“But was it sincere?”
Seouldout, I raise my glass to you. That one is a classic.
…But, I would like to think that he is being sincere. Simply put, worsening the misery of North Koreans won’t be enough to encourage dissent on the scale needed to accomplish regime change. The North Korean government keeps too tight of a control on the lives of North Koreans for that to occur.
I wonder about translation – did he say “sorry,” or did he express “regret.”
As far as coming back to talks if the U.S. drops the financial sanctions, that was the exact same tune as before the nuke test = no change.
I think he’s just blowing smoke up China’s arse.
I think ulsanchris is on to something. Let’s see…he “says sorry,” and says he’ll return to 6-party talks (but floats the idea once again of bilateral talks) if the US drops the financial stuff. Working on the assumption that the Norks always have an ulterior motive in appearing to offer something, let’s take a look…
The US will refuse (understandably), because it cannot make the effort to stem NK’s counterfeiting, etc., a bargaining chip! But the Norks may then try to spin it that they held out an olive branch, but….
Also, as Richardson points out and I was also wondering, what exactly did KJI say? There are so many Sino-Korean words for apologizing or expressing regret and all with different nuances or meanings. And it seems that more than a few times, Japan has been criticized (rightly or wrongly; I don’t know…perhaps this is where the “apologizing sincerely” thing comes from) for choosing to use one word over some other word, even though it may or may not come out in English almost the same. (I’m not mentioning Japan here for the sake of mentioning Japan, but citing it as an example of why it’s essential to know exactly which words the guy actually used…of course, even then, it’s probably a ploy just to try to get bilateral talks and counterfeiting off the table!)
All too typical of Kim Jong-il:
throws out a line
sees if anyone nibbles on the bait
determines what to do next; e.g., claims misunderstanding, claims it was a joke, denies making the statement … or hauls in the fish
Interesting that the financial controls are working. KJI looks more like paper mache with each passing day…does anyone know who really runs the North?
We knows that any connection between KJI’s smile, reality and political mine are purely coincidental.
And we also know, How MR. Roh and URI members will be shown the happy face at 9:00 pm prime news on KBS. Maybe a Live broadcasting from Kumgangsan hosted by the ruling URI Party chairman Kim Geun-tae.
I meant Gaesung…not Kumgangsan…
Today on Fox News, they used the word regret, not sorry in their report.
East Asian politicians are past masters as using the word “regret” in ways that make the other party look bad. I’d like to know exactly what the guy said, not that it would make any difference at all.
Now there’s talk that he won’t carry out a second test. This way, when he does do a second test (if he ever does, it’s because he would have been intending to do so all along), he’ll claim he was forced to do so by outside hostility (i.e., the current reaction to the first test). Senior Uri Party officials in SK will then blame the Americans for forcing KJI into testing a second nuke.
Classic.
I do hope the Chinese are coming around:
Customs office on border about to close, officials say
October 21, 2006 ㅡ DANDONG, China ― North Korea has few doors open for goods to be imported from the outside world. This Liaoning province city on the border with the North is a major access point for such goods, but the gateway is shutting on the Chinese side as the international community steps up efforts to isolate the North after its Oct. 9 nuclear test.
The Chinese customs office here will shut down for 40 days starting next week, a Chinese border patrol official told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday.
About 80 percent of the goods from China pass through this city to the North, customs officers said, so the closure of the Dandong customs office for more than a month would be a blow to the North Korean economy.
In a meeting with North Korean traders at the customs office, the Dandong official said the border patrol unit was ordered to take the measure. “Over the weekend, we will educate our border guards about how to carry out their operations after closing the customs office,” said the official, who, like the others interviewed for this story, declined to give his name. “The guards will be intensively trained to stop smuggling.”
After meeting with the Chinese authorities at the customs office, North Korean businessmen appeared uneasy. “We do not know why China has decided to take such a stern measure at this time, because talks [on the nuclear crisis] are still ongoing,” a North Korean trader said. “We will probably know by Monday when the customs office will be shut down.”
http://joongangdaily.joins.com.....09031.html
This is China blowing smoke up everyone’s ass.
Just like Kim DaeJung’s reporting that Kim had acknowledged privately that US troops would stay in Korea even after unification (which NK tv paid no attention to, and commenced attacks on the “criminal GI’s” the next week), this is worthless. DJ went to Pyongyang eager to bring back good news, and he made sure he did. Except, the good news had no basis in North Korean intentions or reality.
The Chinese envoy went to Beijing embarrassed, and came back with this face-saving “good news” face-saving (for China) story about sorry, oh and if America first does what North Korea was demanding all along NK will show up at a table. No mention of Kim forswearing his nuclear weapons of course.
The US should announce the following: unless it appears on North Korea tv, or in public on camera by a North Korean diplomat, then any statement is to be considered non-existent.
Watch the North Korean guards dodge knives and get a shovel thrown at his tummy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApawBfGZix8
Nork diplomat officially announced they had no plan for a second test — i was right, but i thought it was because they couldnt afford it, not because they changed their mind.
http://sun-bin.blogspot.com/20.....again.html
Forgive and forget - No harm; no fowl.
Chaebollshit. The South Korean press is lying through its teeth again, probably as a tool of the South Korean government in order to receive tax relief.
This news item does seem awfully suspicious in that it sounds too rational a response. I will believe it when I see North Korea returning to six-party talks.
You think that the fact there is a TV show on American TV about a nuclear attack, “Jericho”, could have played at least a small role in the timing of the test? They could have thought it would create a panic in the US. Could they be that naive?
An interesting thought. Maybe it depends on whether KJI regularly watches US satellite TV or not, it’d be fascinating to know. Indeed, one wonders if he would trust anyone other than himself in his govt/intel apparatus to regularly monitor US television broadcasts. It’d be nice to think that at least one person up north doesn’t have to watch the mind-numbing DPRK channels (I gather there are two of them, which only show undated propaganda footage?)
They say Saddam Hussein monitored CNN regularly; given KJI’s prediliction for Hollywood movies, just why wouldn’t he voraciously consume American TV daily? The Americans must be an all-consuming subject of interest for him, just like they were for SH; maybe even now he is clicking through the channels, to search out just what “El Diablo” and his insane cowboys are planning next.
Ah yes, indeed, if only the walls of Jericho would come tumbling down — once again.
“For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellers there is safety.” Proverbs 24-6
I’m sure they keep a close tab to what goes on in the US. The Italian chef who went to North Korea to teach NK chefs at a resort island reserved for NK VIPs (politicians, Olympic athletes, etc) wrote that they had access to CNN, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they keep a close tab as to what is shown on other channels. Information gathering often involves reading a lot of newspapers and watching a lot of TV.
Speaking of stupid human tricks…
http://www.chosun.co.kr/politi.....00421.html
http://times.hankooki.com/lpag.....210160.htm
Okay, I’m willing to admit that visiting shortly after the test may help diffuse the situation…but getting on stage and dancing?
I can already see the caption to these pictures in the North Korean papers, “South Korean High-ranking Government Officials Express Joy after Our Dear Leader’s Test of a Nuclear Device”.
Latest reports suggest that this is B.S., which saves me the trouble of explaining at length why I don’t believe it.
“Latest reports suggest that this is B.S., which saves me the trouble of explaining at length why I don’t believe it. ”
Was there any doubt about it? Kim Jong Il is a crazy little control freak, after all.
I think we should encourage guy to keep doing tests. Why stop at one? Why not all 12?
At his public execution, let’s find out how “sorry” Kim Jung-Il really is about having detonated a nuclear weapon.
The real story is to what extent did the Chinese and Russians participate in helping the North Koreans develop its nuclear weapon and delivery capabilities? In my mind, the problem isn’t resolved until North Korea is disarmed given we can’t trust anything they say or do, and China & Russia punished for its involvement in the matter. I suspect a similar fate for Iran and its leaders.
–Remort
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Kim Jong-Il’s “I’m sorry” face…
From the Sydney Morning Herald
……
[...] Kim Jong Il tells the Chinese he’s sorry about the nuclear test, while the US says that North Korea is only seeking to escalate the crisis. [...]
[...] *Kim Jong Il tells the Chinese he’s sorry about the nuclear test, while the US says that North Korea is only seeking to escalate the crisis. [...]