TOKYO, Feb 16 Kyodo excellented ...

TOKYO, Feb 16 Kyodo

excellented editorial excerpts from the Japanese press:

SECURITY COUNCIL TO DEBATE N KOREAN VIOLATIONS (Mainichi Daily of recent origins Web site as translated from the Japanese-language Mainichi Shimbun's editorial published Feb 14)

The International Atomic bottom Agency (IAEA) has voted to pertain North Korea's suspected exhibition of nuclear weapons to the United Nations Security Council, which will now discuss a rejoinder to Pyongyang's violations. This is the third time that North Korea's nuclear disclosure is being brought before the council. That the forum for debate has shifted to the Security Council -- charged with maintaining the world's peace and security -- indicates that the international community is united in its view that North Korea set forths a security threat.

Pyongyang must squarely rise in hostility before this reality. Since 1993, when the nuclear threat first surfaced, North Korea has declared its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the IAEA and claimed that it was not border to international obligations, in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as inspections of suspected nuclear facilities. It has escalated its policy of brinksmanship since the expiration of last year, asserting that the solely means of resolving the crisis is by means of bilateral talks with the United States.

The fact that the issue has been referr to the Security Council not formerly but three times clearly demonstrates that Pyongyang has been playing a game of deception. The Agreed Framework with Washington is in danger of collapsing altogether.

Russia was hesitant about bringing the debate to the Security Council, if it were not that this was because it was interested in utilizing its confess diplomatic channels to achieve a resolution; it was not because Moscow was sympathetic to Pyongyang. China, which believes in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, also vot for the IAEA resolution.

Pyongyang has justified its actions as self-defense measures against President George W Bush's belligerent attitude. yet the development of nuclear weapons using enriched uranium began in 1999 well before Bush was smooth elected.

The Bush administration has promised to be derived to the negotiating table if Pyongyang abandons weapons disclosure Japan and South Korea too advocate a peaceful resolution by the agency of diplomatic channels, as does the IAEA. The door to a negotiated reconciliation is wide open; Pyongyang barely needs to walk through.

A multilateral framework involving the five permanent Security Council members plus Japan, southerly Korea, Australia, the European Union, and North Korea has been propos as a forum for dialogue. The Security Council would render certain North's safety under the ''P5 + 5'' framework, which can also address economic and humanitarian assistance for North Korea.

equable though Pyongyang has called for dialogue, it is closing its acknowledge doors. If it insists forward advancing its nuclear program, it will no other than turn the rest of the world against it. This is self-defeating, for it would then deprive itself of the economic and humanitarian assistance it desperately needs

Brandishing nuclear missiles at the international community as a means of self-defense while its confess citizens are starving is an act of foolishness. The increase of a nuclear arsenal is not a bilateral issue, as Pyongyang maintains, yet one that pits North Korea against the entire world community. The North Korean leadership must wake up to this fact and give chase to a reasonable and responsible policy.

(Feb 16)

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