Wednesday, March 14, 2007

IAEA Back from the DPRK

As we noted when the deal was concluded, the IAEA was to visit North Korea and begin the process of getting reaquainted.

Well, Mohamed El Baradei made his trip today (depending on your choice of hemisphere). Seeing as it was only a one-day affair, it was apparently not as comprehensive as we guessed it might be. (Can we call it a "nuclear meet and greet"?) He's called the visit "quite useful." I guess that's better than "quite useless," right?

Baby steps, I know. But if the deal was signed Feb 13th and the North had 60 days to shut Yongbyon down, by my reckoning we're already at the halfway point. The article above says there's a meeting in Beijing on Monday to kind of check up on the progress that's made. So I guess we shall see....

PS-Am I the only one who, after reading mention of Beijing, is suddenly stricken with a craving for dumplings? I love dumplings. Especially potstickers!

1 comment:

Eric said...

Just a note - I believe the steps required by the agreement to "shutdown" the reactor are just the initial steps and could probably be done in a matter of days, so I'd expect the North to use the rest of the 30 days for additional leverage and then shut it off at the last minute.

We'll see.