N. Korea negotiations. Would you negotiate with someone who insults you?

(CNN) -- North Korea has vowed not to return to the nuclear bargaining table unless it receives an apology from the United States for making hostile remarks about its leadership.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney called North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "one of the world's most irresponsible leaders" in an interview with CNN on Monday.

In reponse, North Korea said Cheney "is hated as the most cruel monster and blood-thirsty beast," according to a report carried in the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday.

The two countries have long been engaged in a war of words, and the tone of Cheney's latest comments was not unusual for the Bush administration.

John Bolton, now Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, as undersecretary of state in 2003 labeled Kim as a "tyrannical dictator," while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labeled the communist country "an outpost of tyranny" and Kim a "dangerous person."

In the KCNA report, North Korea said it was willing to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks if U.S. officials retracted their remarks and apologized.

Rice has previously refused to apologize for her remarks about North Korea, stating she was just telling the "truth."

According to South Korea's Yonhap news agency, in the KCNA report a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman is quoted as saying: "What Cheney uttered at a time when the issue of six-party talks is high on the agenda is little short of telling (North Korea) not to come to the talks."

Why should North Korea or anyone negotiate with a power which clearly has chosen to lambast them at every turn?

U.S:You guys are idiots and bastards...oh by the way, we have some requests.

Yeah right.

Why in God's name aren't they keeping their mouths shut?

Theory 1: Because they're so removed from any common sense that they believe everybody should just bow down and accept their demands unilaterally regardless of any insults and deragatory comments.

Theory 2:They don't really care about negotiations and are just deliberately ticking them off to justify a war.

Thoughts?

Why would Bush and Co. make remarks like this that have NO chance of doing anything whatsoever OTHER than hurting negotiations?!!!!!

(and no one give me any crap about whether or its true or not because that's TOTALLY irrelevant. You make think someone you're negotiating with is a bastard but I challenge anyone to tell me that saying that at the table would ever help matters.)

Are Bush and Co. really so far removed from reality that they couldn't forsee these effects?

Either Bush and Co. are idiots or they've got darker agendas then I care to speculate on.

Thoughts? Anyone gonna defend this as a GOOD negotiating move?

Please someone elighthen me? Why are these people doing this?

with the index up and running, it never hurts to double check.

 

Try here:

North Korea, nukes, and what will/should happen next?