North Korea gets 25 million bucks, and a meeting with US envoy

So, the US released the $25,000,000 that it had frozen on charges of ‘money-laundering’ and ‘counterfeiting’, (read: political disagreements) since 2005, and passed it back to North Korea. And, the USA sent Christopher Hill, nuclear envoy, to engage in talks with North Korea regarding its nuclear plan.

Christopher Hill:

Now what the hell is going on here? Has the USA suddenly decided that playing cold fish doesn’t work and sent a bigwig over to talk for the first time in 5 year – with a little cash incentive on the side? (As this blogger noted, the visit comes before six-party talks to be held next month). Or is Bush simply trying to distract attention from his obstinate vetoing of the Stem Cell Bill and try his luck with ‘fixing’ a country outside of the middle-east?

Of-course, North Korea could just as easily take the money, have a cup of coffee with Mr. Hill, and then test another missile in July. In fact – hey! They tested a missile just two days ago, on June 19th! (See the bottom of the article for what I’m talking about). Not wanting to draw attention to how their approach might not be working, the countries engaged in talks with North Korea have played down the last few test-launches as routine.

North Korea will probably want to tread a fine line here so that they can keep the money, continue their nuclear program, and avoid attracting ‘regime-change’, (although there’s always Iran to distract the Powers-That-Be). Let’s hope that Kim John-il, (who reportedly buys $700,000 worth of Hennessey cognac per year) is up to the diplomatic challenge.

Then again, he could just give up the nuclear program.

- Nishant