MEDIA REACTION ON NORTH KOREA

UNCLAS AMMAN 007753 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN USAID/ANE/MEA LONDON FOR TSOU SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KMDR JO SUBJECT: MEDIA REACTION ON NORTH KOREA Editorial Commentary -- "The Korean earthquake" Columnist Jamil Nimri writes on the back-page of centrist, independent Arabic daily Al-Ghad (10/11): "North Korean shook the international community, and while the nuclear explosion registered a 4.5 degree earthquake on the Richter scale, the political earthquake is much larger.... The problem with the nuclear weapon is that its exceptional enormity is exactly its weakness and deficiency. It is the last resort that is almost useless. It was used only once by the United States during World War II when no one else had it, but the moment others started to own it, it became useless in war because it means mutual annihilation.... The nuclear weapon in North Korea's hands can be considered a means of defense in extreme cases of attack against the regime. Otherwise, it provides no privileges. North Korea is a regime in a crisis. It suffers from backwardness, weak economy and low standard of living. America is very much able to maintain its policy of economic siege against it and the ownership of a nuclear weapon will do North Korean no good. The weapon in North Korea's hands is an isolated incident that can be coped with.... The most serious thing however is that North Korea may pass this weapon to friends who have not been able to own it yet, like Iran. This is what is going to worry the United States. This is where the strategic political earthquake lies, in the fact that a country like North Korea owns that weapon." -- "Veering off dangerous course" Centrist, elite English daily Jordan Times editorial (10/11)opines: "So, North Korea goes through with its declared intention to conduct a nuclear explosion and gets immediate condemnation from the US and its allies. Israel, on the other hand, is a renowned and accomplished member of the nuclear club, but does not admit it possesses the nuclear weapon. It does not only escape condemnation but is rewarded by the expression of Western "understanding" of its need for an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent. One is to understand that some countries have the right to test and develop nuclear bombs while others, rated as second-class states, do not. This preferential treatment is the crux of the problem facing the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Pyongyang is accused of violating. Of course, North Korea should not have acted on its threat to conduct a nuclear test, because the last thing that the international community needs is to add a new member to the seven-nation nuclear club. But neither should the other nuclear states have been allowed to embark on the using science to develop weapons of mass destruction. The US, in particular, cannot claim the high moral ground and lecture other nations on developing nuclear weapons, having been the first and only nation on the face of the earth to have deployed them on civilian targets, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.... This being said, we join the other countries of the world in protesting, in the strongest possible terms, North Korea's decision to test a nuclear device." RUBINSTEIN