It's Not the Size That Counts

More on North Korea, this time from Reuters:

An international consortium building a multi-billion-dollar light-water nuclear power project in North Korea is expected to decide next month to formally suspend the venture, U.S. officials said Tuesday, the eve of crucial talks with Pyongyang.

Momentum has been building for some time to suspend the project, which the United States and its allies in the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization agreed to fund as part of a 1994 nuclear agreement with the isolated communist regime.

But taking a formal decision now could affect six-party talks that open Wednesday in Beijing in an effort to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Damn right it could — and that’s the whole point. Negotiations require a carrot and stick. This public musing about whether to scrap the North’s promised light-water reactor (for which Kim promised to scrap his nuclear weapons program) is just one of the many small sticks.

Read the previous post to see what a great big stick looks like.