You can’t trust North Korea.
North Korea missed a year-end deadline to give a full account of its nuclear weapons under a disarmament-for-aid deal struck with regional powers and the United States.
“It’s unfortunate, but we are going to keep working on this,” said U.S. State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey as Monday’s deadline of midnight North Korean time (10 a.m. EST/3 p.m. British time) passed.
But the United States seemed to temper its disappointment.
“The important thing is not whether we have the declaration by today,” said Casey. “The important thing is we get a declaration that meets the requirement of the agreement, which means it needs to be full and complete.”
Tom Casey is being too nice. Does this mean we can wait another year? Five years? Me thinks the Bush administration has plans to stow this hot potato until late January 2009. That’s too bad.
Tags:
North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Disarmament