- Kim Jong-il, the ruler of communist North Korea, is getting
a diplomatic response from the United States for what would have been a
cause of war in the case of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein: an admission
that his country was indeed engaged on a covert nuclear weapons program,
as American intelligence hawks have long suspected.
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- Conceding the geopolitical reality that North Korea sits
in a heavily populated peninsula surrounded by major industrial countries
rather than amid desert, US President George Bush has ruled out any immediate
military approach.
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- "We are seeking a peaceful resolution," he
said through a spokesman. US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly,
the official who obtained the North Korean admission in a visit to Pyongyang
early this month, was in Beijing yesterday to ask China to pressure North
Korea to drop the activity.
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- The US Undersecretary of State for Disarmament, John
Bolton, has gone to Seoul and Tokyo. The aim is to persuade Pyongyang to
comply with its 1994 agreement with Washington to drop its nuclear weapons
program and allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspections in return
for economic aid, including two American power reactors.
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- American officials say that, as well as a small stockpile
of plutonium acquired stealthily in the 1980s, North Korea recently obtained
gas centrifuge technology that enables it to enrich uranium to weapons
grade. China, long accused of helping Pakistan's nuclear program, will
be highly embarrassed by this. Its President, Jiang Zemin, goes to Texas
for a summit meeting with Mr Bush next Tuesday seen as capping his 13-year
leadership before he begins retiring next month.
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- http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/10/18/1034561314568.html
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