Best Interests

So what are China, Russia, and the United States doing in the Korean peace talks?

Is it that everyone who had an interest in the war nearly sixty years ago still retains the same interest? Or, perhaps, these are the nations that see some significance in Korea remaining divided.

Is it South Korea that is refusing to send the promised rice until the nuclear plants are destroyed? Don't think so. Is it China that is interested in opening the border so that Koreans can move back and forth with their families? Don't think so.

Perhaps the move, recently taken by the South to just go ahead and talk with the North, is a good move.

www.kimsoft.com/korea/4-talks.htm
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IF02Dg01.html

Senior Fellow, Paul M. Edwards

An Obvious Question?

Surely it is time someone in the Bush administration asked themselves the obvious question: What does North Korea want?

In between the sword rattling and the rhetoric about peace treaties, the message does not seem to have changed a great deal in the past thirty years.

More than anything North Korea wants to be left alone. By left alone, I mean treated like any other sovereign country, free of international harassment, free of a foreign power poising troops on its border, free to trade for the food and energy it needs.

And is this too much to ask? Somehow I don't think so.

http://www.etherzone.com/2006/raim070706.shtml
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IF02Dg01.html

Senior Fellow, Paul M. Edwards