BRUSSELS -- One of the last best hopes for securing a solution to the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula is being killed by U.S. politicking and EU penny- pinching. U.S. neoconservatives are determined to drive North Korea into a corner, while the European Union bickers over "small change"' rather than take the initiative in providing an alternative vision for Northeast Asia.
The Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was a product of the 1994 Framework Agreement reached between North Korea and the United States. In exchange for North Korea's freezing its Yongbyon heavy-water reactor, which was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, the U.S. agreed that it would:
*Normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea.