North Korea (Superthread)

[rregtc-etf]

There is a saying in Japanese, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down."  The Chinese have the biggest hammers in Asia and will use them if indeed NK is getting out of hand.  The fact that both are commie won't be an issue, it wasn't for the USSR kicking butts 1967 Czechoslovakia or for Chinese invasion of Vietnam and punch up in 1979.

The Chinese are the dominant force in Asia and will not lose face to NK defiance.

 

[exsemjingo]

There are some issues with making, or allowing, NK to be China's problem.

We don't get to choose for this one.  North Korea has been well inside the Chinese sphere of influence since Chinese armies drove the UN forces from North Korea in 1951.

Namely, lets assume we wake up tomorrow and the NK state has dissolved - if we have allowed China to incorporate NK into its agreed sphere of influence, they are likely to take it over and install a puppet regime.

Why would they do that?  The current situation is ideal for China.  They get a supplemental army in case of war with the west with no cost of upkeep during times of peace.  They get to have the best of both worlds.

If at this point we decide all of a sudden to interfere, this will create a large amount of hostility with the Chinese possibly leading to conflict. The other option of course, the one I think to be more preferable, is to have SK open it doors to the citizens and quickly move to unify the peninsula with the backing of the major democratic pacific, and NATO nations.  By active interest, understand I in no way mean interacting in a hospitable manner with them, but rather directly enforcing strict sanctions and working to subvert the leadership and economy of the state - while keeping them distanced from China and constantly asserting our own freedom of movement in this area.

The only comparable situation to this was when Germany re-united in 1989.  They are still having problems integrating due to lingering Communist ideas.  In North Korea, they still live as if Mao were still in power.  As far as sanctions, they will only work with Chinese co-operation.  For now, an aggressive North Korea is not convenient for China, but this can change if they want it to.

Trade relations with China, in this regard, should be used as a leverage tool, along with a host of other issues, to keep them from interacting and supporting the regime (there are a number of trade disputes with China before the WTO which could be "resolved amicably" if China agreed)

Trade relations definitely help keep the peace with China, though I think it works the other way around.  Friendly relations with China are the larger issue, and N.Korea is available as their leverage tool.

, not to mention the simple threat of recognizingon ours - so  Taiwan's independance if China touches NK with a ten foot pole.

That would be neither new, nor threatening.  The Americans have been keeping Taiwan in their back-pocket as a base for a war in Asia for some time now.  The counter-threat against China is the United States' nuclear arsenal, and if it came to that we would already be close to war.  The reason we were so worried last week is that China is free to do what it wants with N.Korea.  Chinese relations are the ones that matter, not North Korean ones.

In the end though, the point is that I think it is in fact in our best interested to actually try and distance, as much as possible, North Korea and China. Further we should become as involved as we possibly can by actively trying to disrupt the normal functioning of the state in the hopes of creating a sufficient crises to bring about mass unrest, support destabilizing elements who can direct this unrest towards regime change, while further selling the "western image" to the North Korean people through our tried and true methods - Coca-Cola, Nike, and Hollywood.

Can't do it because of geography.  Can't do it because of a closed border and a controlled media.  The best we can do is keep China happy, and they will keep this backwards, army-disguised-as-a-country, Orwellian cubicle in check.

 

[couchcommander]

I think the reasons China would install a puppet regime in North Korea are pretty clear exemjingo. They'd much rather have a more stable, not completely aid dependant ally than the current unpredictable basket case they've got now.

Yes, there would be problems with integration with SK, but I don't think I need to point out that it would be for the better in the long run. Strenghting of a western ally, resolving a long standing point of tensions, maybe neutralizing a nuclear armed rogue state? The economic differences between the two halves would be immense at first and would take a lot of capital to reconcile - but that also means there are amazing business opportunities to be had.

And yes, I do believe we can choose. Our actions will very much determine where NK falls. There is a reason they have been demanding that the US come to six part talks, namely because the want their resources and aid. The western image has a very very large pull, even for those who think we're the devil. You are right in that we will never be able to completely separate NK and China - they are neighbours and currently ideologically aligned. We can, however, distance them, using trade and Taiwan as leverage tools.

I am interested as what your reasoning is in regards to "can't do it because of geography. Can't do it because of a closed border and a controlled media?" That seems awfully linear. Bribes to certain generals and other officials can easily cross borders and geography, as can radio and televsision broadcasts. But I suspect you're also not considering the Chinese border, which, unlike the DMZ, trade does flow over. With them making only $900 a year, I don't think it would take a whole lot to bribe some border guards (I should add, nor do I think it has).

 

[exsemjingo]

North Korea may be unpredictable in terms of inflammatory political posturing, but as far as being a real threat, all their wayward efforts are contained.  No one else in the world will deal with North Korea except for the Chinese at this point.  China is also the only nation to have a long land border with North Korea.  Right now, China is fencing it off, but if they wanted to, they could trade with North Korea without permission from anybody.
Invading North Korea to install a puppet regime would be very costly in terms of casualties.  China has soldiers to spare, but any drop in those numbers would mean less available on other fronts, such as against India, Vietnam, Taiwan, or Russia.  When North Korea does begin to fall (and with the way Kim Jong Il runs things, it is only a matter of time) it would be much more advantageous for China offer support in trade, and keep the status quo.
As far as winning the population over with Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Hollywood, this can only happen with an open border.  You may let a few things in with bribed officials, even high ranking generals, but it would not be enough to cause the population to turn.
I would not doubt that the United States secret service (and a few other nations') have tried to bribe a few officials in North Korea.  I would also not be surprised if said officials were quickly disposed of as soon as it looked like they might have divided loyalties.  Do not doubt the tenacity of an entrenched totalitarian regime.
For now, China is happy to trade with the west.  They tolerate North Korea as an insurance policy, but that relationship is still one-sided.

 

[chanman]

Got this off the CBC just now...

China's president sent State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan to North Korea on Thursday with a personal message for Kim about his Oct. 9 nuclear test. He returned to China later in the day.

Kim also told the Chinese diplomat he "is sorry about the nuclear test," according to the Chosun Ilbo daily.

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/10/20/china-korea.html

 

[Lancaster]

Recently I have Emailed to our government and opposition on my concerns on the North Korean missile crissi:
To Minister of Foreign Affairs Hon. Peter Mackay: [email protected]  Oct 16/2006
To Foreign Affairs Critic Keith Martin: [email protected]
Bcc: Senator Colin Kenny: [email protected]

I have concerns about the North Korea’s missile and nuclear crisis which is developing.
Last October 2005 I have emailed to then Defence critic O’Connor and then Defence minister Bill Graham and Senator Colin Kenny  a wish list on Canadian military equipment (see www.canadianmilitary.blog.com) and about Korea’s and Iran’s missiles reaching our shore by next decade, and received no response from  Mr. O’Connor, and a weak form letter response from minister Bill Graham , but Senator Colin Kenny has the vision of replacing  our Tribal destroyers with news ones from the U.S in his senate reports. In my blog site I am least close to the prediction to than anyone else on North Korea missile capabilities. In my blog site I wished that Canada would purchase the U.S. Aegis Destroyer (or upgrade our Tribal destroyers to U.S. Aegis system with Standard missile 3) which are capable of knocking out missiles from North Korea and any future nuclear nations. Also if Canada is involved in naval blockade near North Korea there could be a nuclear shooting range, so Canada must take precautions in able to be protected from and destroy short range nuclear missile from North Korea. Also we may have to rethink about the Defence shield with the U.S., I realize that a majority of Canadians are opposed to it and is a political charged issue but we must protect our citizens.
Do not underestimate North Korea missile and nuclear capabilities. Over the last decade, North Korea has developed and acquired mid range missile and nuclear capabilities. Presently North Korea has no long range delivery missile system to reach North America but how long will it take them to develop and acquire intercontinental nuclear missile capabilities?  Since North Korea has exploded a low yield nuclear  in the kilotons and how long will it take have the dangerous higher yield 1 megaton weapon that the Western allies have?  In 1998 North Korea sent a missile over Japan, upsetting everyone and receiving world condemnation and if that is not reckless what is? North Korea’s missile over Japan could have started “a war”, but thank fully Japan did not retaliated but is developing its own self missile defence systems. What about North Korea’s recent missile testing in July 2006, the long missile test failed but when will restart again? Question that should be asked by everyone is:
1) Since North Korea’s s nuclear explosion, could be there be a new race to acquire nuclear weapons by North Koreas neighbors?
2) Will North Korea be a seller of nuclear weapons without restrictions, and will the UN. sanctions work?
3) Of the six countries talks with North Korea, China is the key country, because it sells and controls the oil and food to North Korea. Has China allowed North Korea to have nuclear tests?  Should the world pressure China to punish North Korea, and have them revoke there nuclear program?
4) The fifty year cold war nuclear checkmate of the old Soviet Union and the Western Allies were based on MAD that is Mutual Assured Destruction, each side having and developing new nuclear weapons but cannot overwhelm the other side. The Post Cold War era the other Nuclear power such as Britain, China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and U.S. have had more stable and accountable governments than North Korea which is a Stalin dictatorship and accountable to no one, so now we have to deal with the unstable Kim Jong-il's regime that can endanger its neighbors and eventually Canada. According to U.S. National Terror Alert Response Center (see fact sheet explosive devices and weapons> see nuclear devices>see 1 megaton>see radius blast 4.7miles), new generation of Nuclear weapons such as 1 megaton bomb is 80 times more destructive powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945’s killing more than 140,000 people and radioactive illness tens of thousands more. The U.S. National Terror Alert Response Center for a 1 megaton bomb of 4.7 mile blast radius detonated over downtown Toronto God forbid, would flatten and kill millions to the perimeter, and to the outer greater Toronto area, further millions would have radiations burns and illness a very tragic catastrophe, basically all living kind would end the same way as the dinosaurs. Would it not be “reckless” to remove or contain Kim Jong-il's regime to prevent a nuclear catastrophe?
5) What are North Korea’s and its neighbor’s next moves?
Do you think a carrot and stick diplomacy is the way to deal with North Korea? Please respond and answer all my questions thank you.

Reference sites
a)1998 North Korea missile over Japan and other tests in July 2006
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/5149512.stm
b) 1 megaton 80 times powerful than Hiroshima, see U.S. National Terror Alert Response  Center
http://www.nationalterroralert.com/nuclear
c)Hiroshima total losses 140,000 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
d) Aegis Ballistic Missile (Standard Missile SM-3) Defense System, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Ballistic_Missile_Defense_System
e) Canada has presently  the Standard Missile SM-2 MR on the HMCS Athabaskan,
http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/athabaskan/about/ship_about_e.asp?category=18

 

[geo]

IN THE EARLY 1990s, Kim Jong Il became the world's leading purchaser of Hennessy Paradis, a cognac legendary for its complexity and finesse. Paradis usually retails for a few hundred dollars a bottle, though in Kim's case bulk discounts may have applied: The North Korean leader--who, according to a former personal chef, has "an exceptionally discriminating palate"--was said to be spending $700,000 to $800,000 a year on it.

Such a liquor tab fits the sort of pathological decadence described by defectors and national leaders who have spent time with Kim. The same former chef reports being sent on shopping trips to Denmark for pork, Czechoslovakia for beer, and Uzbekistan for caviar.

A former Russian presidential envoy has described a 2001 state visit in which Kim traveled across the country in a private train stocked with crates of Bordeaux, flat-screen televisions, and a retinue of female performers. Live lobsters were flown in to await the train's chefs at points along the route.

It was therefore with a certain satisfaction that John R. Bolton, President Bush's UN ambassador, highlighted the ban on luxury imports that is part of the sanctions approved last week by the UN Security Council to punish North Korea for testing a nuclear weapon. The measure, Bolton suggested, might be "a little diet for Kim Jong Il."

As with most diets, there is some question as to how effective the ban will be. But whatever the effect, the UN resolution has managed to highlight the role Western luxury goods play in North Korea, a purportedly communist country with an impoverished, malnourished populace.

North Korea experts say that such goods aren't simply for Kim's bacchanalian lifestyle--even the most committed North Korean propagandist would be hard-pressed to claim that the Dear Liver could process several daily bottles of cognac, no matter how smooth. Instead, experts argue, expensive jewelry, fine wine, and performance automobiles are less indulgences for Kim than a currency used in a system of rewards for loyalty among the country's governing elite.

According to Bruce Cumings, a historian of Korea at the University of Chicago, North Korea is as much a patronage state as it is a police state. As an example, Cumings points to a recent mass celebration of the 80th anniversary of Kim Il Sung's Down with Imperialism Union, the predecessor to the ruling Workers' Party of Korea. Despite the country's severely straitened circumstances, "everyone that participates in that ceremony will get a wristwatch, a pair of shoes, a new television to take home, something like that. The leadership has always used consumer goods that are rare in the country to reward that sort of pageantry."

For the country's ruling class, though, the rewards are greater. On visits to North Korea, Cumings has seen not only Rolexes on government officials and fur coats on their wives, but leaders being chauffeured around in Mercedes-Benz sedans correlating to their rank: 200-model sedans for lower-level party bosses on up to the top-of-the-line S600 for the nation's leaders.

Han Park, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia who has visited North Korea more than 40 times, believes the relative prevalence of German luxury automobiles may be more coincidental. In his view, it simply stems from the country's "historical resentment" of major car-exporting nations like the United States, Japan, and South Korea.

There is, though, a precedent for Stalinist dictators doling out luxury cars as bonuses: Stalin himself. According to Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of the biography "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar," the Soviet leader used to personally decide which of the upper nomenklatura would be awarded Rolls-Royces and which would get Buicks. Record players and General Electric refrigerators were also popular prizes. "They would call these rewards the 'gift of the people,' i.e., of Stalin," Montefiore says, "and it was understood that the next day everything could be taken away and you could be nothing."

Few North Korea-watchers think Kim Jong Il's patronage powers will be severely threatened by the UN ban. His regime is already expert in the use of the black market and shell companies abroad, and the commitment of China, by far the country's largest trading partner, to enforcing the sanctions remains to be seen. At most, according to Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the forthcoming book, "The North Korean Economy," the ban will simply raise the price of such imports. "It's basically a tax on luxury goods for Kim Jong Il," he says.

And even if the ban were to be effective, everyone familiar with North Korea believes that, given the choice between more late-model Mercedes and a nuclear weapons program, the regime's preference will be clear. After all, there's nothing like a nuclear warhead to impress the neighbors.

 

[exsemjingo]

We should translate geo's post into Korean and drop pamphlets by air all over North Korea.  That would not just create instability, but help turn the populace to our side.
Then again, once a population ssubjugates it's own logic and self interest to an ooppressivepolitical ideology, there is no telling how far it's misguided loyalties might go.

 

[Mike Baker]

From CTV

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea's military is observing movements at a site in North Korea where the communist country is believed to have conducted its first nuclear test, indicating possible preparations for another test, Yonhap news agency reported Saturday.


The report, citing multiple unnamed military officials, said South Korea is closely monitoring movements of trucks and North Korean soldiers at the site in Punggye-ri in the country's remote northeast.


"It is clear there are movements at Punggye-ri after the nuclear test," one military official was quoted as saying. "We are closely monitoring to see if these are preparations for a second nuclear test."


Another official also confirmed activities at the North Korean site but said another test "is not believed to be imminent," according to Yonhap.


North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test on Oct. 9, prompting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions.


It was not immediately clear how the military officials first spotted the activity at the site. However, the United States and South Korea generally share intelligence information obtained through satellite imagery.


Meanwhile, more unidentified South Korean government sources said they are trying to confirm whether a new facility that has been built at the site could be part of preparations for a second nuclear test, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported Saturday.


Defense officials could not immediately be reached for comment.


The news came a day after the South's Foreign Minister and incoming U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with Chinese leaders to discuss sanctions against the North over its Oct. 9 underground nuclear test.


Ban met with Chinese President Hu Jintao, State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan and Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Friday. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said they would discuss sanctions, but details of their talks were not immediately released.


Ban is visiting the five permanent U.N. Security Council members following his election as secretary-general this month. He pledged to make resolving the North Korea nuclear issue a key priority on his agenda as head of the international body.


The United States has been trying muster greater support for a UN Security Council resolution that calls for sanctions in response to the North's nuclear test.


Seoul and Beijing have been reluctant to enforce sanctions over the Oct. 9 test for fear they might aggravate their unpredictable neighbor and destabilize the region.


As the North's main aid providers and trade partners, China and South Korea's participation are considered crucial for the success of the United Nations resolution, which bans the sale of major arms to the North and calls for inspection of cargo entering and leaving the country.

They clame that they were "sorry for the test an that no more would take place." I wonder what happened?

 

[a_majoor]

The problem with sanctions is most of what we want to stop (luxury goods) would fit a small number of sea cans, while nuclear weapons and materials would fil a similar number of sea cans going out. It would not be too difficult to smuggle these items individually over the course of a year.

Better than stopping the goods, how about the people. North Korean embassies should be closed and North Korean chefs stopped at the airport when attempting to enter a country to buy luxury food items. This will not stop the trade, but make it much more difficult, and that might create an instability in the system of rewards that the regime uses to maintian loyalty in the upper echelons.

 

[Korus]

GAP, that article was from 13 Oct, 4 days after the blast. The next day the US revised their statement and said that they had found some radioactivity, and eventually (On the 16th or so?) they confirmed that it was a nuclear test..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6056370.stm

 

[Korus]

It's interesting, though, to see how things change over time and a news article which is valid one day is not necessarily quite so the next....

I suppose the mods can delete my previous post as it's no longer relevant.

 

[CougarKing]

The DPRK test-launches more missiles.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/nkorea.missile/index.html

Report: North Korea test-fires missiles
North Korea fired short-range missiles off its western coast, reports say
South Korea is trying to confirm reports of the missile launches

S. Korea's presidential office said launches just part of "ordinary military training"

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea fired short-range missiles off its western coast Friday, a South Korean defense source said, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.

The South Korean Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff told CNN they were trying to confirm reports of the missile launches.

South Korea's presidential office dismissed reports of the missile launches as part of "ordinary military training" by the communist state.

"The government regards North Korea's missile firing as merely a part of its ordinary military training," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told Yonhap.

"The South Korean government will just continue to watch the missile-related situation carefully," he said. "We're convinced that North Korea doesn't want inter-Korean relations to deteriorate."

Washington urged caution following the reports. "The United States believes that North Korea should refrain from testing missiles," U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

"This kind of activity is not constructive. North Korea should focus on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear proliferation activities, and to complete the agreed disablement."

The reported firings came a day after the Seoul government pulled 11 of its diplomats from an industrial park the two countries operate in North Korea.

Their departure followed comments made last week by South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong.

He said it would be hard to expand the industrial complex without North Korean progress on denuclearization.

North Korea cited the minister's remarks as a reason for demanding that the South Korean diplomats leave, Yonhap reported.

 

[CougarKing]

Is this action a genuine symbolic gesture of what really has been accomplished with these multilateral talks, or is Kim just doing this for show and has more to hide? Does anyone else here think that Bush's move to lift sanctions against North Korea may be a little bit too premature?


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080627/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear

YONGBYON, North Korea - North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday, blasting apart the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

An explosion at the base of the cylindrical structure sent the tower collapsing into debris and dust that billowed into blue skies at 5:10 p.m. local time as journalists and diplomats looked on, according to footage filmed at the site by international video news agency Associated Press Television News.

The demolition of the 60-foot-tall cooling tower at the North's main reactor complex is a response to U.S. concessions after the North delivered a declaration Thursday of its nuclear programs to be dismantled.

"This is a very important step in the disablement process and I think it puts us in a good position to move into the next phase," said Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top expert on the Koreas who attended the demolition.

After the tower's tumble to the ground, Kim shook hands with Ri Yong Ho, director of safeguards at North Korea's Academy of Atomic Energy Research, who was the most senior Pyongyang official present.

"The demolition of the cooling tower is proof that the six-party talks have proceeded a step further," Ri said, referring to the nuclear negotiations.

The tower destruction was not mentioned by the North's media or shown on state TV broadcasts.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that North Korea had agreed to principles for verifying its declaration.

"The have agreed that every question that we have about their nuclear program — plutonium, uranium, proliferation — is something they have to answer," he said. "That would mean, if there is any place we want to visit, we should be allowed to visit, any person we want to talk to, we should be allowed to."

In the North Korean government's first reaction to the developments this week, North Korea's Foreign Ministry welcomed Washington's decision to take the country off the U.S. trade and sanctions blacklists.

"The U.S. measure should lead to a complete and all-out withdrawal of its hostile policy toward (the North) so that the denuclearization process can proceed smoothly," the ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The symbolic tower explosion came just 20 months after Pyongyang shocked the world by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground test to confirm its status as an atomic power. The nuclear blast spurred an about-face in the U.S. hard-line policy against Pyongyang, leading to the North's first steps to scale back its nuclear weapons development since the reactor became operational in 1986.

Last year, the North switched off the reactor at Yongbyon, some 60 miles north of the capital of Pyongyang, and it already has begun disabling the facility under the watch of U.S. experts so that it cannot easily be restarted.

The destruction of the cooling tower, which carries off waste heat to the atmosphere, is another step forward but not the most technically significant, because it is a simple piece of equipment that would be easy to rebuild.

Still, the demolition offers the most photogenic moment yet in the disarmament negotiations that have dragged on for more than five years and suffered repeated deadlocks and delays.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the tower's destruction would mark a step toward disablement, something that has been ongoing for many months to prevent the North from making more plutonium for bombs.

"It is important to get North Korea out of the plutonium business, but that will not be the end of the story," she said in Kyoto, Japan, on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries.

North Korea's nuclear declaration, which was delivered six months later than the country promised and has not yet been released publicly, is said to only give the overall figure for how much plutonium was produced at Yongbyon — but no details of bombs that may have been made.

Experts believe the North has produced up to 110 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium, enough for as many as 10 nuclear bombs.

The declaration was being distributed Friday by China, the chair of the arms talks, to the other countries involved, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said.

"We'll have to study it very carefully and then we'll have to work on verification," Hill said in Kyoto.

The declaration does not address the North's alleged uranium enrichment program or suspicions of its nuclear proliferation to other countries, such as Syria.

 

[imjustsomeguy]

If they have enough plutonium for 10 weapons, why keep the facility? Sure blow up the tower to ease sanctions...they didn't need it anyhow. I'd demo the reactor too if it meant economic aid and the lifting of embargoes on my country.

IMHO, I think the Bush administration should wait until North Korea completely disables it's nuclear facilities beyond an easy repair before lifting every sanction.

Just my $.02

*added*  Hasn't the US and North Korea had a history of "you give me money, I halt the nuclear program..then next year I start it up again?"

 

[Long in the tooth]

I believe the item destroyed has nothing to do with a reactor or fuel processing facility.  What was destroyed was simply a water cooler for a reactor (or even a coal or gas fired generating station).  In other words, this was one big PR exercise.

 

[George Wallace]

I believe the item destroyed has nothing to do with a reactor or fuel processing facility.  What was destroyed was simply a water cooler for a reactor (or even a coal or gas fired generating station).  In other words, this was one big PR exercise.

So?  A critical part of a reactor is blown up and you think it is only a PR exercise.

Sure it was, but a Cooling Tower is a necessary part of a reactor.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

From the pictures of the interior I got the impression it had not been in use for awhile, a hopefully sign, but still likley more PR than intent.

 

[armyvern]

I actually watched a Christian Amanpour piece on CNN a while back detailing the visit of the New York Philharmonic to Pyongyang.

While there, she was invited to tour the Yongbyon reactor facility with her camera crew. It was very obvious in that film footage that this place hasn't been active in quite some time - 1/2 thick dust on the walls etc and all equipment removed. Her story did note that inspectors were already on ground at that time (UN & US) to verify it's dismantling, but that the US was pushing for the towers destruction as a good faith measure. Seems that the North Koreans have now complied with that good faith bit. All I can find on CNN's site is a couple of her stories detailing the visit in print (am linking to the one with some still photos of the visit - including a shot taken inside the facility in question @ pic #11).

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/07/amanpour.north.korea/index.html#cnnSTCPhoto

Edited to add:

Here is the film footage which has been uploaded onto youtube:

Amanpour: Notes from North Korea [Pt 3 of 6]

(I watched the whole thing [on TV] -- I actually quite enjoyed this report).

 

[CougarKing]

KIM JONG IL really really must be anal now.

(CNN) -- North Korea said Tuesday it has stopped disabling its nuclear plants and will consider restoring them because the United States has not removed it from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

 
N. Korea demolished the cooling tower at its main reactor complex in Yongbyon in June.

The communist nation said it halted the dismantling of the plutonium-producing plants on August 14, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The North "will consider soon a step to restore the nuclear facilities in (Yongbyon) to their original state," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement that KCNA carried.
North Korea agreed to a complete dismantling of its Yongbyon nuclear complex by October. In return, U.S. President George W. Bush said he would lift some U.S. sanctions against North Korea and remove it from a State Department list of state sponsors of terrorism.



http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/08/26/north.korea.nuclear/index.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080826/ts_nm/korea_north_d...fJ33GATDVTKQoXqs0NUE