That's the report from the Guardian:
Talks due to start this week on the dismantling of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been postponed, it was announced today.
The six-party talks between Russia, China, the US, Japan and North and South Korea were aimed at setting a timetable for final decommissioning of the state's nuclear capabilities. They were arranged after experts from the US, China and Russia visited North Korea's nuclear facilities and reportedly reached a deal on how to dismantle them.
No reason was given, but might it have something to do with the mysterious Israeli air strike in Syria? There is increasing suspicion that the facility the Israelis struck was in some way connected to North Korea. Administration officials have confirmed a relationship between North Korea and Syria, but we already knew that--Syria has long been a customer for North Korean arms. The Israeli press has been prevented from reporting on this story by the country's military censors, but Haaretz has reported that a North Korean flagged ship had docked in Syria three days before the strike following the release of similar information in the Washington Post. And the North Korean Press Agency did lash out over Israel's violation of Syrian airspace. A lot of coincidences.
Is it possible that the North Koreans were selling nuclear material to Syria as some reports would have it? Joseph Cirincione at the left-wing Center for American Progress calls such reports "nonsense," claiming that this story is being pushed by the White House for purely political reasons. As evidence, Cirincione states that "if North Korea gave them anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence. Syria does not have the financial, technical or industrial base to develop a serious nuclear program anytime in the foreseeable future."
That's one way of looking at it (and perhaps a preview of a Hillary administration counter-proliferation policy?), but such a statement assumes that Syria isn't also acting as a conduit for the shipment of material from North Korea to Iran--just as it acts as a conduit for the transfer of Iranian weaponry to the Lebanese Hezbollah. Or perhaps the Syrians were warehousing North Korean nuclear material in advance of new international inspections that are to be reinstated as a result of the Six Party talks.
If the Israelis merely struck a depot containing weapons destined for Lebanon, why so much secrecy? And why did the North Koreans postpone the six party talks? It's hardly clear that hardline administration officials would have been able to foresee this sequence of events: Israel bombs Syrian desert and rumors of North Korean involvement lead to collapse of talks? If, as Cirincione says, this is all part of some neoconservative ploy to derail the talks--well that's a pretty big conspiracy, but apparently very well played.
