Volcanic Calm
"Adoption of the resolution itself is not enough. We want to see full implementation of the resolution. The top priority now is to defuse the tensions, bring down heat ... bring the situation back on the track of diplomacy, on negotiations."
Li Baodong, China's UN ambassador
That is a rational assessment, well articulated, with a reasonable expectation. That is, when one is dealing with a rational intelligence. This is China, however, speaking of North Korea. And this is the North Korea whose blunt belligerence has its neighbours concerned about the many instances of offensive violence directed toward them.
North Korea's ballistic missile tests, its satellite launch, its nuclear tests that at first world bodies found it difficult to take seriously, and now sit up grimly and take notice with each notable advance, has caused a world of worry for its neighbours, worried about the unpredictability and sinister intentions of its powerfully cranky regional bad boy.
Ambassador Li Baodong has urged calm. Calm may very well descend upon the six nations involved in talks with North Korea, but the North Korean leadership is not known for its calm demeanor. It is recognized as a threat to world stability and peace. It is known for its volatile and threatening stance, insisting on its desire for peace, while calling for war.
And it has some very worrisome friends. North Korea shares its technological/scientific advances with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iranian nuclear physicists are stationed in Pyongyang, and Korean scientists are stationed at Iran's various nuclear complexes, including the Fordow installation. What one achieves, the other shares.
And they are proceeding full speed ahead. Both are under what is considered to be hefty sanctions meant to do harm to their economies and by extension hamper their nuclear programs. But in neither instance, not North Korea's nor Iran's, has the inconvenience of a crippled economy staunched their enthusiasm for funding their nuclear programs even if it means starvation for their population.
A spokesman for Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry announced before the UN Security Council vote that unanimously reached agreement for tough new sanctions as punishment for the last nuclear test, that North Korea is prepared to exercise its right for "a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors". In response to Washington which is "set to light a fuse for a nuclear war"
Western intelligence does not believe that North Korea is yet capable of producing a warhead small enough to cap a missile that could reach the United States. It is thought that it is in possession of merely enough nuclear fuel to produce several crude nuclear devices. And perhaps this is all wishful thinking.
Whereas in reality this oafishly dangerous regime just possibly does have the technology perfected and has produced the weapon it boasts it has, and is prepared in its pique to prove just that.
Labels: China, Conflict, Munitions, North Korea, Nuclear Technology, United Nations, United States
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, March 09, 2013
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