Two Cheers for Ambassador Lee

He’d get three if we weren’t talking about the most fundamental expectations of international law:

In unusually direct language, South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Lee Tae-shik on Tuesday called North Korea’s counterfeiting of U.S. dollars and other illegal activities “unacceptable” and said he had made this clear to Pyongyang.

Speaking at the invitation of the Korean Economic Institute, Lee said the North “must completely wash its hands of the illegal activities. The envoy made the remarks when asked about North Korea’s boycott of six-party talks on its nuclear program in protest at U.S. financial sanctions, adding, “This is our stance.

The problem with Lee’s statement, of course, is that it doesn’t reflect the views of the elected president of the Republic of Korea (last item), meaning that one could easily interpret this as strictly for external consumption. Still, let’s give some credit where it’s due.