North Korea, which has recently tested a nuclear explosive (a fizzle, it would seem), has now offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits, in exchange for Russia's backing of NK in the stalled six-party talks concerning sanctions against NK in response to NK's nuclear program:
http://news.yahoo.com/...
Exerpts after the jump...
North Korea has offered Russia exclusive rights to its natural uranium deposits in exchange for support at the stalled talks on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, a newspaper reported Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT
The two countries have been in talks since 2002 on a deal for Russia to import uranium, which it wants to enrich and sell as nuclear fuel to China and Vietnam, according to a report in the regional daily, Tokyo Shimbun, citing unnamed Russian officials.
North Korea recently offered Russia exclusive rights to the uranium in exchange for open support at the six-party talks on the North's nuclear program, which have stalled since last year, the report stated.
Heretofore Russia has stated that they support a "non-nuclear North Korea", so is this a gambit to change that position, or a try at gaining a better deal in exchange for NK giving up its nuclear program, the program that was halted by Clinton until our fearless leader screwed up and queered the deal (no homophobia intended there).
The offer seems rather strange, given that Russia has its own deposits that they currently mine, as well as many undeveloped deposits. However, annually Russia exports and uses about 10 times the amount they mine, with the difference made up by "watering down" their stockpile of highly enriched uranium from their weapons program. That stockpile would be depleted in about 20 years at the present rate of use: http://www.nti.org/...
Hmmm. What do you think?