Any comments on the efficacy of this report?
It was stated that we would be able to push China to do something about N. Korea. I've yet to see it, and time appears to be drawing short. Instead, China, South Korea and Russia all appear to be applying pressure on us to negociate one on one with North Korea.
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=920
North Korea has been yearning to strengthen its economy that has been constrained by international regulations disallowing economic aid from U.S.-controlled multilateral financial institutions. Pyongyang was hoping the 1994 U.S. - D.P.R.K. Agreed Framework would facilitate this. Under the agreement, the United States lowered trade and economic barriers along with guaranteeing that two 1,000 megawatt light water reactors (LWR) would be built by 2003. For the United States, the purpose of the agreement was to decrease the likelihood North Korea would create nuclear weapons with nuclear waste created by its graphite-moderated nuclear reactors. Graphite-moderated nuclear reactors contain a plutonium reactor, which, like enriched uranium, can be used to make nuclear weapons; it is more difficult to convert LWR waste into weapons-grade material.
Contrary to the agreement, construction of the LWRs is far behind schedule. The first reactor is not expected to reach completion until at least 2008 if there are no further delays, even though the 1994 agreement specified that both reactors would be built by 2003. The holdup has prompted North Korea to take bold actions hoping to keep the project on target. The first such action took place in 1998 when North Korea test fired a Taepo-Dong-1 missile which resulted in the project being even further delayed. But this action did not directly violate the agreement. Even as recently as February 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell stated that North Korea has so far "stay[ed] within the agreement." Despite this, the construction of the LWRs remained behind schedule.
Doug
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