Just a few years ago, the new Bush administration was berating the Clinton administration for making deals with North Korea to gain concessions in N. Korea's plans to pursue nuclear weapons. Today, however, things are decidedly different from the perspective of the Bush administration as their go-it-alone foreign policy doesn't seem to be working as well internationally as the neo-cons, the academics, and the idealists thought it would. SecState Powell met today with the N. Korean foreign minister to discuss ending the two nations' long-standing dispute over nukes, and to come to an agreement to agree, it would seem. As the Financial Times reports:
Before Friday’s meeting, bilateral contact between the US and North Korea had been limited to the sidelines of multilateral talks. Pyongyang has long insisted that one-on-one dialogue with Washington is the best way to resolve the dispute.
As a result, the meeting added to the momentum that has recently gathered behind efforts to resolve the dispute following Washington's decision last month to offer incentives for Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear programme.
The US has said it is prepared to offer political incentives to encourage North Korea to disarm and give its blessing to South Korean plans to provide energy aid in return for a freeze of the nuclear programme.
North Korea has offered to freeze the programme as a first step towards dismantlement in return for political and economic rewards.
Maybe Clinton foreign policy wasn't so bad, after all; huh, Mr. Bush?
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