OCTOBER 10, 2006

Contact Gordon Clark, 301-565-4050 x 330, gclark@peace-action.org

North Korean Nuclear Weapons Test Highlights U.S. Hypocrisy,
Dismal Failure of Diplomacy by Bush Administration

Washington, DC – The director of the nation’s largest grassroots peace organization spoke out today against the latest escalation of an international crisis, laying blame directly on the White House.

“Once again, as with Iran, we have an adversary seeking direct talks with the U.S. government, and once again the Bush Administration refuses to hold such talks,” said Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace Action Education Fund. “Does Bush know what the word ‘diplomacy’ means? How can he say he is taking all possible steps to prevent conflicts, and yet adamantly refuse the most basic step, which is to talk, without preconditions, to one’s adversary?”

Martin continued: “All the ideas that have come out of the Bush Administration so far, including expanded “missile defense", ending humanitarian aid to North Korea, expanding NATO and encouraging Japan to develop nuclear weapons - are sure to isolate and anger North Korea and China and further de-stabilize the region. What is needed is calm, smart diplomacy, for which the Bush Administration has shown zero aptitude in its six years in office.”

If Monday’s test was indeed a nuclear weapons test – scientists are still studying the seismic data – it would be the first known test of a nuclear weapon in North Korea’s history. Analysts believe the regime may have a few nuclear weapons, but doubt it has the technology to launch them with missiles.

Martin also criticized the continued hypocrisy of the U.S. position. “The Bush Administration has called the North Korean test ‘an unacceptable threat to peace and stability,’ and while we agree, the threat from Pyongyang is nonetheless an understandable and predictable reaction to decades of equally unacceptable U.S. nuclear threats,” he added. “Our government continues to ignore its obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, yet reacts with surprise and alarm when other countries want what we have or act as we do. A policy of ‘do as I say but not as I do’ is unfeasible in the nuclear age, and North Korea’s nuclear weapons test is yet one more example of that.”

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Peace Action Education Fund is the sister organization of Peace Action, founded as Sane in 1957, is the nation’s largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with over 100,000 members and nearly 100 chapters in 34 states. Peace Action works for the abolition of nuclear weapons, a foreign policy that promotes human rights and democracy, and federal spending priorities that support human needs in the United States.
http://www.Peace-Action.org