It seems unfortunate that the Korean peninsula has been historically in turmoil except 36 years during which it was annexed to Japan from 1910 to 1945. The Korean peninsula has been split into two states (North Korea and South Korea) since 1945 as a result of power struggle among US, Soviet (now called Russia), and China. The peninsula is situated, surrounded by the Sea of Japan日本海 to the south, and the Yellow Sea黄海to the west, bordering Japan's territorial waters near the Tsushima Strait対馬海峡. As clearly described in Wikipedia, until the end of World War II, Korea was a single political entity---, tacitly suggesting that it was the same as the Imperial Japan.
According to Yonhap News, South Korea seeks bilateral talks on nukes now possessed by its counterpart North Korea who seems so preoccupied with an idea of standing on the equal footing with US by showing off its nuclear arsenals to the rest of the world. In a sense, South Korea benefits from the fact that its counterpart has now been practically recognized as a nuclear state since none has observed any significant progress in six-party talks which could be taken only as a pacifier to North Korea while giving wrong impression to South Korea and its people that their wrongdoings can be fully supported by the world.
Yonhap News further reports an official as saying that a dialogue with South Korea would pave the way for restarting six-party talks designed to compensate the North for denuclearization.
This statement simply suggests that North Korea has been given a special status of receiving compensation for material and/or non-material damage whenever it brings up its nuclear arms programs on the negotiating table.
It is so clear that North Korea has chosen an option of possessing nukes when it decided to withdraw from Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003. The world has to face it and deal with it accordingly. Otherwise, the Korean peninsula will remain a nuclear peninsula forever even after two Koreas may get united.
Related article: http://bit.ly/fvn7TA S. Korea presses N. Korea for bilateral talks on nukes
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