U.S., South Korea Propose "Grand Bargain" in Exchange for Denuclearization of North Korea

Barack Obama Calls on North Korea to End Nuclear Provocation - The Guardian [link]

• Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak pressed North Korea to end provocation and return to dormant nuclear talks, as the US president wrapped up his Asian tour with a brief visit to Seoul today.
• Lee said the two countries were offering a "grand bargain" of political and economic incentives in exchange for Pyongyang's irreversible de-nuclearisation.
• Obama added that his special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, would travel to North Korea early next month for bilateral talks aimed at reviving the stalled six-nation discussions

Iran Has Yet to Respond to IAEA, U.S. Says - Laura Rozen in Politico [link]

• "We have a policy of a dual track, both engagement and pressure," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said today. "We’re not going to close any door on the engagement track, but at a certain point I think we’re going to start paying a little more attention to the other track. We’re not quite at that point right now, but as I said before, I think that time is short."
• Kelly's remarks came as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was cited by an Iranian news agency saying Iran would not agree to send its low enriched uranium to be processed abroad, but would consider an exchange that took place inside the country.
• "As far as I know, the IAEA has not received a formal response," Kelly said. "Until the IAEA gets the response and formally says this is Iran’s response, I don’t consider a statement to the press necessarily a response."

U.S. Not Abandoning Czechs, Poles: Tauscher - Ceskenoviny [link]

• The USA has not abandoned anyone in Central Europe, neither Czechs nor Poles, certainly not within any framework of concessions to Russia, Ellen Tauscher, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, says in an interview for today's issue of daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD).

"They Have No Idea What a Nuclear Bomb Is": Americans' Changing Perception of Nuclear Weapons - Plutonium Page in Daily Kos [link]

• Several members of the 509th Composite Group were in Albuquerque, including Theodore "Dutch" van Kirk. As the navigator for the Enola Gay, he and his unit made history with the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.
• The Albuquerque Journal caught up with van Kirk and his colleagues as they toured the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History. The article's title says it all "Enola Gay Navigator Says People Should Be Educated on Nuclear War"
• "You know, you get all these people that go around saying things like, with Iraq, 'We ought to go and nuke those bastards,' said Van Kirk, a spry 88. "They don't know what they're talking about. They have no idea what a nuclear bomb is."

A View from the Dark Side 

Obama Has Achieved Nothing on the World Stage - Nile Fardiner on FoxNews.com [link]

• It is a monumental task trying to come up with any concrete foreign policy successes from the Obama administration. On the Iranian nuclear crisis, arguably the biggest threat to international security of the Obama presidency, the administration’s high-risk strategy of engagement with the mullahs of Tehran has only emboldened America’s enemies and renewed their determination to press ahead with their nuclear weapons program.