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I Have a Bad Feeling ….

The chief U.S. and North Korean nuclear negotiators will meet this week in Geneva to seek a breakthrough in stalled disarmament talks, news reports said Tuesday.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill was to meet North Korean Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan during a visit to the Swiss city Thursday and Friday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported from Washington, citing sources there it did not identify. [AP, via IHT]

It’s rumored that Chris Hill will offer the North Koreans a 99-year lease on Hawaii and a gold-plated Escalade if they’ll agree to provide us a list of their X-ray machines now, with the remainder of their nuclear declaration to come in phases starting in 2012. Let’s all wish him success, because if you don’t, you must hate peace.

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  1. My guess from what I have heard/read is that this is going to be the point where Hill and FM Kim both issue statements that Syria and HEU are extremely important issues that are to be discussed but will not delay the talks further so they shall separate what is considered “current and future concerns” that progress can be made on (ie. the plutonium production+bombs) and “the past” (Syria and HEU). North Korea will probably offer up some sort of half-way confession on involvement in Syria (as they started to do earlier this week) and who knows about HEU. The U.S. will then accept the declaration of “current issues” and set a starting timetable for Phase 3 to begin negotiations.
    Hill better be able to produce some measurable progress on Pu and bombs pretty soon after this, or Congress is going to be pretty pissed off about the HEU and Syria diverting.
    Just one man’s take.

  2. I hope the two esteemed diplomats can take a break from the everyday rigors of negotiations, sit back, and enjoy an evening of calm and collected interchange of sophisticated sentiments on music and art. For instance, on the world-historical filmmaker/playwright/opera composer, Giuseppe Amadeus Shakespeare Kurosawa Kim, and his timeless masterpiece, “Il Mare di Sangue”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AslJfaYZ6AE

  3. Can we please stop talking about the 6 Party Talks!?!?

    I should qualify that —-

    —– my meaning is ——- they haven’t involved 6 parties in a
    L-O-N-G time.

    That is one of the primary areas in which Kim Jong Il has triumphed.

    For years, the Bush administration doggedly stuck to its demand that the talks not be one-on-one and for good reason. It bravely withstood even stiff challenge from our domestic press and think-tankers….

    …then it caved…

    So, can we please just freaken admit it caved and stop using that false label “6 Party Talks”????

  4. usinkorea, you really make an excellent point. Isn’t this the kind of unilateralism that’s beloved (or at least unobjectionable) to many of the same people who leveled that charge with such fury over Iraq?