North Korea Demands Talks with U.S.

The North Korean government has come out today to damand that the United States hold bilateral talks with them.

North Korea has demanded bilateral talks with the United States to defuse the tension created by its announcement that it is a nuclear power, the communist state's U.N. envoy said in a South Korean newspaper Friday.

Han Sung Ryol, a senior diplomat from the U.N. delegation in New York, was the first North Korean official to speak to outside news media since Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry defied the United States and its allies by declaring Thursday it has nuclear weapons.

In the announcement - its first public disclosure that it has the weapons - North Korea said its arsenal is a deterrent against a U.S. invasion, and it does not intend to join six-nation disarmament talks anytime soon. The weapons claim could not be independently verified.

Gee, their demands aren't too lofty.

North Korea sees its nuclear programs as a way of ensuring the survival of leader Kim Jong Il's regime. In return for giving up its nuclear ambitions, it seeks massive aid, diplomatic recognition, an end to economic sanctions, and a nonaggression treaty with the United States.

North Korea's long-running strategy has been to try to engage the United States in bilateral talks, believing such meetings would boost the isolated country's international status and help it win bigger concessions.

There is probably a statue of former President Clinton in Pyongyang Square.

Former President Clinton forged a bilateral deal in 1994 obligating North Korea to freeze its nuclear activities in return for oil and other aid......North Korea flouted it by running a secret uranium-enrichment program.

If the United States gives in to bilateral talks with North Korea, it will have a cataclysmic effect not only with North Korea, but with Iran and every other nation with nuclear ambitions. The United States needs to keep its stranglehold on North Korea and Kim Jong Il's regime.

UPDATE: Apparently, the Bush administration has already given its answer.

The Bush administration said Friday that it wasn't interested in one-on-one talks with North Korea about its nuclear programs outside the six-party negotiations involving the communist nation's neighbors.

"It's not an issue between North Korea and the United States. It's a regional issue," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "And it's an issue that impacts all of its neighbors."

North Korea has plenty of opportunity to talk to the United States within six-party talks, McClellan said.