[USFK Forums] U.S. Gives Up Toppling NK: Export [Yonhap]

[C. Y. Lee]

[Uploaded by C. Y. Lee, Friday, November 11, 2005] Here is an article from the Korea Times:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US Gives Up Toppling NK: Expert

The Korea Times, Thursday, November 10, 2005

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) _ The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush may have abandoned the idea of toppling the Kim Jong-il regime in North Korea, but it is not fully committed to engaging it either, a non-proliferation expert said Wednesday.

Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state, said the shift in the second Bush government from the first term is a "tactical" one designed to evade blame should negotiations with the North collapse.

Einhorn is now senior advisor to the Center for Strategic International Studies. North Korea agreed at last month's six-party talks on its nuclear programs that it will give up its nuclear weapons and programs in return for security guarantees, diplomatic recognition and financial assistance.

The talks also involve South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan. Einhorn said there was still a strong division within the Bush administration about whether North Korea will indeed give up its nuclear ambitions.

Even if the communist state says so, the U.S. will still doubt it, he said at a discussion session at Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "I am unsure whether the Bush administration is yet willing to take yes for an answer," he said.

The reason for no longer seeking regime change in North Korea is that the U.S. does not see Kim Jong-il and his government as very dangerous, and that Pyongyang is doomed to collapse anyway, according to Einhorn. "Kim is seen as leading an inward-looking, dead-end regime preoccupied with its own survival," he said.

"The downside risk of lending some legitimacy to Kim's doomed regime is manageable … (The Bush administration) does not worry about giving more staying power to a doomed regime." Einhorn said North Korea has been trying to procure uranium enrichment equipment since the 1990s.

"There was evidence in late 1990s of North Korean efforts to procure certain specialized pieces of equipment that pointed to an enrichment program. Efforts were made in Japan, Russia and elsewhere," he said. The uranium suspicions became unambiguous in the summer of 2002 when North Korea made larger-scale efforts to procure such equipment, he said.

11-10-2005 19:22