Fw: North Korea--The Threat of Nuclear War is NOT the Answer!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie"
To: "Miriam Vieni"
Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 4:56 PM
Subject: FCNL: North Korea--The Threat of Nuclear War is NOT the Answer!

"The United States maintains significant -- and I want to
underline significant -- deterrent capability of all kinds in the
Asia-Pacific region. So I don't think there should be any doubt about
our ability to deter whatever the North Koreans are up to."
-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, May 2, 2005

The 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference opened this
week with U.S. calls for international pressure on North Korea to give
up its nuclear weapons program. While Secretary Rice did not attend the
NPT conference, she did escalate the rhetorical war with North Korea on
Monday with the above statement. Her message implies that nuclear
weapons are part of the U.S. strategy for challenging North Korea's
nuclear weapons program.

The threat of nuclear war, or even the threat of perpetual nuclear
stalemate, is not the best way to create an environment of peace and
stability on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea and China are committed
to economic and political engagement with North Korea, but the U.S.
government continues to advocate confrontation and isolation.

The U.S. and North Korea Share Blame for the Diplomatic Impasse:

While the U.S. and North Korea are both to blame for the current
diplomatic impasse, the Bush administration policy toward North Korea
has been a failure: In January 2003, North Korea announced its
withdrawal from the NPT. Since that time, North Korea restarted its
nuclear program and may have produced enough plutonium for up to six
nuclear weapons. The six-nation talk process - involving the United
States, China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and North Korea - has been
stalled for almost a year, with North Korea failing to respond to the
United States proposal that was presented in June 2004. North Korea has
cited "hostile" U.S. policy as a rationale for not attending
further rounds of talks.

This February, North Korea announced that it has nuclear weapons. In
April, Pentagon intelligence official Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby told
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea has developed
the capability to arm a missile with a nuclear device (although this
statement was later played down by the Pentagon and White House)

No one outside of North Korea knows for sure whether they have nuclear
weapons, but the longer North Korea is given to develop or expand its
nuclear arsenal the more difficult it will be for the U.S. and other
countries to convince North Korea to give it up. The U.S. needs to
focus its energy on dialogue, not threats.

The Bush administration has made North Korea a top priority at the NPT
conference, which meets every five years to discuss the status of
nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. We at FCNL support the Bush
Administration's goal of dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons
program and ushering North Korea back into NPT compliance. However,
simultaneously threatening North Korea with an overwhelming nuclear
deterrent and demanding that North Korea give up its own nuclear
weapons is not only hypocritical, it is also ineffective.

Secretary Rice's suggestion that U.S. nuclear weapons are a deterrent
to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons only rationalizes the
North Korean claim that they too need a nuclear deterrent - and thus
weakens the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

More Information:

Read FCNL's letter to Secretary of State Rice on North Korea:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/LJISEQTZCF/FEWUEQUAEZ/

Read more about FCNL's East Asia program:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/LJISEQTZCF/IMANEQUAFA/

Donate money to support the East Asia program and other work:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/LJISEQTZCF/DSYSEQUAFB/

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