This Is Not Good

Asia Times has published an op-ed piece from Kim Myong-chol, an "unofficial" spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea.

The remarks and the tone used by Kim give little reason to hope that North Korea is finally ready to act responsibly:

"Two things combine to make this 65th birthday [of Kim Jong-il] anniversary and the Lunar New Year most auspicious. The first is that Kim has led the DPRK to score a fifth straight bloodless victory over the world's sole superpower by "outsmarting the US in the game of nuclear bluff" as The Sunday Times in London put it on February 4. He has emerged the first national hero in the 5,000 years of Korean history to fulfill the long-elusive ambition of the Korean people to acquire military capabilities to take the war from the Land of Morning Calm to the heart of the metropolitan USA.

"The second is the little-known fact that the birthdate of Kim Jong-il, February 16, 1942, coincides with the Lunar New Year universally observed in East Asia.

"The most significant fact about the six-party talks that ended this Tuesday is US President George W Bush waving a white flag, offering to allow the DPRK to retain its nuclear arsenal as it is. It means the shared recognition of the five parties and the DPRK as a nuclear-weapons state and the US notice that it would lift its financial crackdown on the Korean state.

"The five parties - the US, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia - agreed to provide the DPRK with a huge amount of energy, up to a million tons of fuel oil, in compensation for the suspended operation of an outdated and expendable nuclear site. The DPRK government of Kim Jong-il renews its determination to use its nuclear umbrella to contribute to maintaining peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in the rest of the world."

This rhetoric sounds pretty ominous but, then again, did anyone really believe that Kim Jong-Il could be trusted for long?