(EDITORIAL from the Korea Times on July 3)

Acuter Pain
US Tightening Noose Around North Korea

North Korea has thrown itself deeper into isolation by ratcheting up tensions
with nuclear brinkmanship and other provocations.

It now faces tougher U.N.
sanctions, including an arms embargo and sea, air and land cargo inspections, for
conducting its second nuclear test on May 25. In addition, the United States on
Tuesday imposed financial sanctions on Hong Kong Electronics, a company located
on Iran's Kish Island.
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the firm has transferred millions of
dollars of proliferation-related funds to North Korea's Tanchon Commercial Bank
and Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. It is still not clear that a series of
international efforts against North Korea will produce successful results to
force the world's last Stalinist country to give up its nuclear program. Skeptics
at home and abroad point out that such sanctions will have only a limited impact
on the recalcitrant communist state.
Pyongyang's increasingly bellicose rhetoric and mounting military threats against
South Korea, the U.S. and other countries have much to do with its leader Kim
Jong-il's health problems and a reported move to facilitate a power succession to
his third and youngest son, Jong-un. In this context, some pundits claim that
North Korea will never abandon its nuclear weapons program. They even say that
the North's ultimate goal is to acquire nuclear power status in a bid to defend
itself from external threats, tighten Kim's grip on power and smooth the
hereditary succession.
The defiant North may succeed in achieving those goals by developing atomic bombs
and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). But it should realize that it
will have to pay the price for its nuclear gambling and other provocative acts.
First of all, people are feared to suffer from an acute shortage of food in North
Korea that has already been hit by famine and economic hardship. They are
groaning under the yoke of a military dictatorship with their basic human rights
often trampled on by the brutal regime.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the Korea Development Institute and the
Korea Rural Economic Institute predicted Thursday that the North's food shortage
will range from 560,000 tons to 840,000 tons this year. The shortfall could rise
further to 1.17 million tons after Pyongyang refused to accept 330,000 tons of
grain from the U.S. in March. It is really regrettable that the Kim Jong-il
regime has spent more on the development of nuclear bombs, long-range missiles
and other weapons of mass destruction than on relieving food shortages.
More bad news for poor North Koreans is that the U.S. will not supply additional
food to the impoverished country. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a
news briefing in Washington Wednesday, "We currently have no plan to provide
additional food to North Korea." He added that any additional food aid would have
to have assurances that it would be appropriately used, although the U.S. remains
very concerned about the well-being of the North Korean people.
Pyongyang should put top priority on the well-being of its people instead of its
"military first" policy. We hope the North Korean regime will change itself and
return to the six-party talks for denuclearization, and get out of isolation. And
it should restart inter-Korean talks to put an end to hostility and move toward
reconciliation and peace. This step is the only viable option for the North to
survive and bring prosperity to its people.
(END)