ARTICLE:  U.S. To Send Food To N. Korea Under New Deal (Financial Times)…Demetri Sevastopulo, May 13, 2008

The US has agreed to give North Korea 500,000 tonnes of food aid under a new deal that would allow monitors unprecedented access to oversee distribution in the Stalinist state.

The food aid deal comes as the US holds separate negotiations with Pyongyang towards completing the second phase of the six-party talks aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula. Officials rejected suggestions that there was any link between the issues.

The US official said North Korea had agreed to the more intrusive inspection regime because there was a higher level of trust between the governments because of the six-party talks. He added that North Korea was also feeling pressure because of the global food crisis, and the fact that South Korea and China had curtailed aid. A second official said the food deal had been closely coordinated with the South Korean government.

Almost need a scoreboard. Does NK win if they get more than they give up?

ARTICLE:  The Right Path With N. Korea
(Washington Post)…Siegfried S. Hecker and William J. Perry, May 13, 2008, Pg. 15

The Bush administration’s North Korea strategy is being criticized from the right and the left for letting Pyongyang off the hook. Some advocate scuttling the six-party talks. Others suggest slowing our own compliance with the agreement to get North Korea to make a full declaration of its nuclear program first. We disagree with both positions. Our mantra should be: It’s the plutonium, stupid.

Aim is creating the conditions that will prevent nuclear export and lead to the peaceful elimination of nuclear weapons.  Authors recognize a transformation in the U.S. relationship with NK is needed starting with building trust.  

NEWS RELEASE:  Famine Predicted; Food Crisis Worsens
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution)…Unattributed

North Koreans are dying because of food shortages in rural areas, and a massive famine is just a matter of time, a South Korean aid group said Friday.

ARTICLE: Bush’s North Korea Nuclear Abdication
(Wall Street Journal)…John R. Bolton, May 8, 2008, Pg. 15

Despite rising Capitol Hill opposition to its North Korea policy, the Bush administration continues to find new and imaginative ways to accommodate Pyongyang’s sensitivities. Meanwhile, the administration’s Democratic congressional allies are urgently pushing to waive the Glenn Amendment, which bars essentially all U.S. economic and military aid to the North.

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of “Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations” (Simon & Schuster/Threshold Editions, 2007).

Application of SMART Power is challenging. One one side are advocates that are optimistic that dialogue and negotiation will lead to positive change. On the other hand, you have those that look at the history and take any promised change from NK with a great deal of skepticism and mistrust.

ARTICLE” Bush’s N. Korea Policy Draws Right Jab
(Washington Times)…David R. Sands, May 4, 2008

Conservative critics of the Bush administration’s North Korea policy — including former top security officials from the president’s first term — say they are not assuaged by the administration’s latest move to toughen the terms of a deal to end Pyongyang’s nuclear-weapons programs.

Critics of the proposed policy changes contend that concessions are synonymous with allowing North Korea a win in its Cold War with the West.

ARTICLE: White House Revises N. Korea Nuke Deal (Washington Times)…Nicholas Kralev, April 25, 2008, Pg. 1

The Bush administration is renegotiating a tentative deal with North Korea on a declaration of its nuclear activities to include better verification provisions, after the agreement upset some on Capitol Hill and even in the administration, officials said yesterday.

On April 8, 2008 the Bush administration changed the requirements on N. Korea from requiring them to acknowledge their nuclear related activities to just acknowledging U.S. concerns. This change, referred to as the Singapore Agreement, was criticized by some members of Congress and was unlikely to be approved – especially after the recent disclosure of N.K involvement with the Syrian nuclear facility that Israel destroyed on September 6, 2007.

U Bet? Will N.K. make the changes necessary to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism before President Bush leaves office?

ARTICLE: N. Koreans Taped At Syrian Reactor
(Washington Post)…Robin Wright, April 24, 2008
Pg. 1

A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today.

Israel bombed the suspected nuclear facility in Syria on Sept 6. N.Korea has not admitted their involvement with the facility. The U.S. as part of the Six Party talks, is expecting N. Korea to disclose all their nuclear related programs, materials and facilities.

ARTICLE: CIA To Describe North Korea-Syria Nuclear Ties
(Los Angeles Times)…Paul Richter and Greg Miller

…U.S. officials provided little explanation of why they want to brief lawmakers on the North Korean-Syrian links after declining to do so for months. A senior Senate aide said the timing appears driven by a Bush administration desire to apprise committee members of the latest intelligence on the reactor before releasing some of the information.

ARTICLE: U.S. To Link North Korea To Syria
Wall Street Journal, by Jay Solomon, April 23, 2008
Pg. 7

North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-producing nuclear reactor before Israel bombed the site last September, the Bush administration is set to tell Congress.

Expectations from the Six Party Talks with North Korea include:

Yongbyon nuclear reactor permanently disabled in exchange for shipments of heavy fuel oil and release of frozen bank funds. U.S. officials estimate that North Korea extracted between 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and 60 kilograms (132 pounds) of plutonium from its now-shut Yongbyon reactor

North Korea discloses all it’s nuclear activities at home and abroad in exchange for certain U.S. concessions, including removal from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors and lifting of U.S. trade sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act, a 1917 law.