La Russia avverte :guerra nucleare imminente!!

[pietro]

Tokyo, 23 apr 2003 - 126

Nordcorea, Russia: per crisi nucleare siamo su orlo disastro


Il governo russo avverte: la penisola coreana rimane sull'orlo del disastro a causa delle crisi nucleare tra Corea del Nord e Stati Uniti. Una crisi innescata dalla decisione della prima di uscire unilateralmente dal Trattato di non proliferazione nucleare del 1970. L'allarme è stato lanciato dal vice ministro degli Esteri russo, Alexander Losyukov, in concomitanza con i colloqui a tre apertisi oggi a Pechino alla presenza di emissari di ambedue le parti, con i buoni uffici della Cina.

"E' probabile che, non più tardi di domani, gli eventi possano prendere un corso disastroso", ha messo in guardia Losyukov da Tokyo, ove si trova in visita. Lo stesso Giappone e la Corea del Sud hanno invece manifestato un cauto ottimismo sull'andamento dei colloqui trilaterali, che tuttavia a parere degli analisti non condurranno ad alcun risultato. (Red)

[Shardana Ruju]

Report: U.S. Has Plans to Bomb N.Korea Nuke Plant
Tue April 22, 2003 03:37 AM ET


CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Pentagon has drawn up plans to bomb a North
Korea nuclear plant if it reprocesses spent nuclear fuel rods, according
to an Australian newspaper report on Tuesday that was quickly downplayed
by Australian officials.
Citing "well-informed Canberra sources close to U.S. thinking," The
Australian's foreign editor Greg Sheridan said the U.S. has produced a
blueprint to bomb Yongbyon if the plant went ahead with reprocessing
spent nuclear fuel rods to make atom bombs.

He said the plan also involved a U.S. strike against North Korean heavy
artillery in the hills above the border with South Korea, threatening
the capital Seoul and about 17,000 U.S. troops stationed nearby.

But Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer shrugged off the
report, which came on the eve of a meeting in Beijing between the United
States, China and North Korea aimed at ending a six-month stand-off over
Pyongyang's suspected arms programs.

Western intelligence agencies believe no reprocessing has yet taken
place but Pyongyang has a history of raising the stakes ahead of major
talks as an attention-grabbing negotiating tactic.

"It's one of these stories which probably is perfectly true...but there
again, the Americans would have contingency plans for any range of
different military option," Downer told an Australian radio station.

"Militaries do this sort of contingency planning the whole time and you
shouldn't extrapolate from that that this is the policy of the American
administration to bomb this plant."

North Korea last Friday seemed to say it had begun reprocessing spent
nuclear fuel rods in what would be a dramatic escalation in the row
between the reclusive Communist state and the United States. But the
claim apparently was the result of a translation error.

Reprocessing the fuel rods would be the most provocative step North
Korea has taken since the nuclear dispute flared in October, when
Washington said Pyongyang admitted to a covert program to make highly
enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Downer dismissed suggestions the United States was preparing any
military action against North Korea, saying the U.S. administration was
rightly going down the path of trying to find a diplomatic solution to
the crisis.

"The military option, obviously, by any standards, is not an attractive
option," said Downer, whose country is one of only a handful of Western
nations to have diplomatic ties to Pyongyang.

---


Rumsfeld calls for regime change in North Korea

A secret Donald Rumsfeld memorandum calling for regime change in North
Korea was leaked yesterday, opening a fresh foreign policy split in the
Bush administration.


By David Rennie in Washington
The Telegraph: 04/22/03



The classified discussion paper, circulated by the defence secretary,
appears to cut directly across State Department plans to disarm Kim
Jong-il, the North's dictator, through threats leavened by promises that
his regime is not a target for overthrow.

The paper does not call for military action against North Korea, but
wants the United States to team up with China in pushing for the
collapse of Kim Jong-il's bankrupt but belligerent regime, the New York
Times reported.

In a sign that Washington is girding itself for a repetition of the
bitter rows that preceded the Iraq conflict, the memorandum was leaked
on the same day that a senior State Department negotiator flew to
Beijing for three-way talks with China and North Korea.

Officials working for Mr Rumsfeld are implacably opposed to the talks,
pointing to North Korea's long history of extorting aid and concessions
in return for promises - never kept - to behave in a more reasonable
way.

Instead, they seek to use the salutary effect of the rapid victory in
Iraq to push North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons programme
immediately.

They also want to demand weapons inspections across the country. That
would be an unthinkable concession for a Stalinist police state that
bars even aid agencies from a third of its territory.

This raises the prospect that Washington would be urging inspections for
form's sake and with little hope of success, much as happened in Iraq.

Even before the American envoy, James Kelly, arrived in Beijing for the
talks, there were signs of new North Korean brinksmanship.

Pyongyang released conflicting statements last Friday, saying in an
English language text that it had started reprocessing spent fuel rods
into plutonium, a dramatic step that would place it only months from
producing several nuclear warheads. However, a Korean version of the
statement said that Pyongyang was merely poised to begin reprocessing.

Supporters of the diplomatic approach attacked the Pentagon proposal as
ludicrous. They said that Beijing, while appalled by North Korea's
recent behaviour, would never join an American-led campaign to topple
its communist neighbour.

An unnamed senior administration official told the New York Times: "The
last thing the Chinese want is a collapse of North Korea that will
create a flood of refugees into China and put Western allies on the
Chinese border."

The White House says that regime change in North Korea is not official
policy, despite the country's inclusion with Iraq and Iran in President
George W Bush's "axis of evil".

Mr Bush has said that he "loathes" Kim Jong-il, who is believed to have
killed a tenth of his population through starvation and imprisonment in
vast labour camps.

Colin Powell, the secretary of state, is said to have secured the
president's approval for a carrot and stick approach in a meeting last
week. Mr Powell called for threats to withhold aid and investment from
North Korea, while assuring the regime that it faces no threat from the
United States.

Mr Rumsfeld, who was "distracted" by the war against Saddam Hussein, did
not attend the meeting and may now be trying to regain some traction in
the Korea debate, officials speculated.

Mr Bush, who appears willing to let his senior aides scrap over policy
before taking a final decision, endorsed Mr Kelly's diplomatic mission
at the weekend and thanked Beijing for hosting the talks.

He said that China's involvement meant there was "a good chance of
convincing North Korea to abandon her ambitions to develop nuclear
arsenals".

The Clinton administration drew up plans to bomb the main North Korean
nuclear site at Yongbyon. But the generally far more hawkish Bush
government has long contended that talk of military action against North
Korea is unrealistic, given the country's huge conventional arsenals
aimed at South Korea.

Instead, conservatives have advocated letting North Korea "stew in its
own juice", cutting off the overseas aid which sustains the crumbling
regime until it collapses under its own weight.

Originally posted by pietro
Tokyo, 23 apr 2003 - 12:36

Nordcorea, Russia: per crisi nucleare siamo su orlo disastro


Il governo russo avverte: la penisola coreana rimane sull'orlo del disastro a causa delle crisi nucleare tra Corea del Nord e Stati Uniti. Una crisi innescata dalla decisione della prima di uscire unilateralmente dal Trattato di non proliferazione nucleare del 1970. L'allarme è stato lanciato dal vice ministro degli Esteri russo, Alexander Losyukov, in concomitanza con i colloqui a tre apertisi oggi a Pechino alla presenza di emissari di ambedue le parti, con i buoni uffici della Cina.

"E' probabile che, non più tardi di domani, gli eventi possano prendere un corso disastroso", ha messo in guardia Losyukov da Tokyo, ove si trova in visita. Lo stesso Giappone e la Corea del Sud hanno invece manifestato un cauto ottimismo sull'andamento dei colloqui trilaterali, che tuttavia a parere degli analisti non condurranno ad alcun risultato. (Red)