'Smart diplomacy' and the Norks

Reuters/NY Times:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday told North Korea to stop being provocative and return to nuclear talks, warning ties could not improve with Washington if it continued insulting South Korea.

Clinton, calling the isolated state a "tyranny," repeated the new U.S. administration's offer of diplomatic relations, massive aid and a peace treaty if Pyongyang gives up efforts to build an atomic arsenal, which poses one of the biggest risks to security in North Asia and its giant economies.

"The most immediate issue is to continue the disablement of their nuclear facilities and to get a complete and verifiable agreement as to the end of their nuclear program," she told a news conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan.

Talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States on the North's nuclear ambitions have all but ground to a halt, most recently stuck on Pyongyang's refusal to allow nuclear material to be taken abroad for tests.

Clinton made clear the North also needed to tone down its increasingly furious rhetoric, which this week alone has included a threat of war with its wealthy neighbor South Korea and an accusation the United States plans a nuclear strike against it.

North Korea is also thought to be preparing the launch of a missile with the potential to reach U.S. territory.

"North Korea is not going to get a different relationship with the United States while insulting and refusing dialogue with (South Korea)," Clinton said in Seoul, the third stop of her Asia tour.

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She sounds like Bush in the early days of his administration, as opposed to the more recent deal making Bush which chose to ignore the rants. I suspect that neither policy will have much effect since the North Koreans usually wind up benefiting from their bad behavior by getting more charity. They seem to take the Attila the Hun approach to diplomacy.