NP splitting hairs or fabricating excuses for belligerence?

[pynchonoid]

Hey, Keith - here's a case where splitting hairs about
who said precisely what might make a real difference:

Kelly's 'fairies' threaten peace
By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times
CAMBRIDGE, England -- Last October, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State James Kelly set off an
international crisis by claiming that North Korean
officials had told him that Pyongyang was developing
nuclear weapons. The officials denied saying that.

The North Korean officials claimed that in response to
Kelly's "highhanded and arrogant" display of a
"hardline policy of hostility" they had simply stated
that North Korea had a right to develop such
capability. 

Kelly now appears to be at it again, setting off
another crisis based on what he says a North Korean
said to him. This time he claims that Li Gun, deputy
director of the North Korean Foreign Ministry's U.S.
Affairs Office, told him that North Korea "has atomic
weapons and that it might test, sell or use, depending
on U.S. actions."

Li is supposed to have made this comment on the second
day of a planned three-day meeting. Unfortunately for
Kelly, this time there were witnesses to the exchange.
Two officials who participated in the conversation,
one American and one Asian, told reporters that Li did
not say what Kelly said he had said. According to the
two, Li said only that Pyongyang might respond to U.S.
moves by "taking physical actions." More senior
officials in Pyongyang have since confirmed that Li
did not say that North Korea has nuclear weapons.

So what is Kelly up to? Why did he break off the
path-breaking meetings in Beijing on the basis of a
statement that he alone heard and that others deny was
made? Why did he not go back into a formal meeting
with the North Korean delegation and challenge them to
confirm or deny the statement he says he heard Li
make? [...] 

...continues:
<http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?eo20030501a1.htm>



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