David....you may want to do some reading before you say "all for naught"..........
KLP
ap.tbo.com
Sep 27, 2000 - 10:02 PM
U.S. and North Korea Resume Talks on Missiles, Terrorism, Nukes
By Karine G. Barzegar
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - The United States and North Korea opened a new round of talks Wednesday aimed at ending a stalemate over the communist state's development and export of missiles.
The talks, which are expected to last a few days, also will deal with U.S. allegations that North Korea sponsors terrorism and with the terms of an accord that froze North Korea's nuclear weapons program in exchange for two civilian reactors and supplies of energy, State Department officials said.
The U.S. special envoy for North Korea, Charles Kartman, said after nearly nine hours of talks Wednesday evening that he and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, who heads the North Korean delegation, would return to the U.S. mission to the United Nations on Thursday morning for another session.
He said there was a "good atmosphere" in the discussions and that during a working lunch at a nearby restaurant, the two sides talked about the Olympics.
"We congratulated each other on the performance of our teams," he said.
North Korea is believed to be capable of targeting virtually all of Japan as well as other Asian countries with its missiles. A potential long-range missile threat has been cited by the Clinton administration as one reason for considering a U.S. missile defense program - a decision President Bill Clinton has deferred to his successor.
The talks come amid slowly improving U.S.-North Korean relations following attempts at reconciliation between North and South Korea. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the North's reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, held a summit meeting in June and there are plans for another one.
The previous round of missile talks ended in July with North Korea insisting its program was a sovereign exercise in self-defense, but also with indications from cash-strapped Pyongyang that it might curb the program in exchange for payments of about $1 billion a year.
The United States maintains that North Korea shouldn't be compensated for stopping a program it shouldn't be developing in the first place.
In a related development Wednesday, the U.S.-led U.N. Command has given South Korea the right to negotiate with North Korea to reconnect a cross-border rail line, officials said.
The command controls all activities within the southern half of the 2 1/2-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone, which has separated the capitalist South from the communist North since the 1950-53 Korean War. It remains the most heavily fortified border in the world.
Last week, South Korea broke ground for reconnecting a rail line across the DMZ as part of agreements reached during the first summit between the two Koreas in June.
That project will entail the removal of up to 100,000 mines planted in the area of the rail corridor - and coordination between the two Korean armies operating in the potentially volatile DMZ.
AP-ES-09-27-00 2200EDT
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