We Urge North Korea

There truly is method to their madness. Lunatic and delusional they may be, leading the sane and the practical to plead with them to restore a level of sanity to their governance, to relieve the threat they represent to the world community, let alone their geographical neighbours, yet their delusions lead them to places where even while assuring they are to be trusted, promises huge upheaval.

The world's sole superpower because of its status as a Western democratic diplomatic stick-handler of peaceful relations between political ideologies has been brought time and again to the brink of compromise with North Korea and with Iran. Compromise, granted, is always preferable to the breaking off of relations and sounding the drumbeat of aggression.

Yet both compromise and war fall into the traps laid by the provocateur states that wield threats against peace and security. States like Iran and North Korea are themselves uncompromising, yet their bellicose demands insist on compromise from others. Where others attempt enticements and promise aid to balance off the surrender of potential weapons of mass destruction, North Korea and Iran flaunt their potential to upset the peace of the world.

They revel in the attention given them, even while they claim to be victims. Their complicity with one another in mutual encouragement of nuclear weaponry production and sharing nuclear tests to avert detection by monitoring agencies gives them a sense of power over the nations that shudder at their unrestrained and dedicated agenda at destabilization.

Knowing that fear gives them power and power lends them protection.

Yet another agreement with the United States and North Korea has gone into the full and rusty bucket of failure. Failure for the world community to bring a halt to North Korea's continual bellicose stance against its neighbours. Famine may be a fact of life for North Koreans, but groomed since childhood to view the successive Kims as semi-gods, they endure and they die.

The exchange agreement to provide food aid to North Korea for their agreement to halt nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches, and to permit nuclear inspectors entry to their facilities was bruited about as holding great potential. Hope does spring eternal. It took less than two weeks for North Korea to announce its plans to launch a long-range rocket with a "working" satellite.

Provoking the United States to warn that such a launch would be in stark violation of Pyongyang's agreement to agree to a halt in such missile launching. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, urged compliance with UN Security Council resolutions banning launches using ballistic missile technology. Since North Korea has contempt for South Korea to begin with, that appeal certainly fell flat.

South Korea, Japan, Britain, France, China and Russia along with other nations have expressed their concern. Which is entirely satisfactory for North Korean, accustomed to having concern expressed and lavishly so, as a result of its many unexpected and startling announcements. Kim Jong-il placed his trust in his son, Kim Jong-un, and under the tutelage of the North Korean generals he has been a fast learner.

Just as South Korea plans to hold their parliamentary election, and after a global nuclear security summit to take place in Seoul, the North Korean launch is scheduled to take place. The government of Japan is singularly disconcerted, pointing out that ballistic missile technology violates Security Council resolutions.

"We urge North Korea to exercise restraint and refrain from the launch", was the advice proffered by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura, in remembrance of fairly recent missile launches that crashed down into the Sea of Japan.