nuclear-news

North Korea likely to continue “nuclear blackmail”

The best way to squeeze aid from the outside world is to use contradictions between the great powers and a bit of nuclear blackmai

NKorea unlikely to alter strategy toward world, Google hosted news, By KELLY OLSEN (AP) – 30 Sept 10, SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s ailing leader Kim Jong Il has laid the groundwork for a transition of power to his youngest son but it remains to be seen if the reclusive nuclear-armed regime will soften its combative stance toward the international community.

The impoverished nation has long used both carrots and sticks to get what it wants: offering dialogue and promises to dismantle its nuclear program to get aid, and when it runs into resistance, conducting missile and atomic tests and threatening to destroy rival South Korea……

.Despite its impoverishment, North Korea has active nuclear and missile programs that are the key focus of security concerns in Northeast Asia. The United States stations close to 30,000 troops in South Korea, which remains in a technical state of war with the North after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a formal peace treaty…..

..The best way to squeeze aid from the outside world is to use contradictions between the great powers and a bit of nuclear blackmail,” said Andrei Lankov, a Russian expert on North Korea at Seoul’s Kookmin University. “This is absolutely a rational policy and it has worked quite fine for the last few decades and I don’t see that they would ever consider changing it in the near future.”

The Associated Press: NKorea unlikely to alter strategy toward world

September 30, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, politics international | antinuclear, nuclear secrecy, nuclear spin, nuclear weapons