North Korea: "Stop Bullying Us Poor Little NORKs - Then We Can Talk"

"And I want an NBA team, too"

Poor little old North Korea.

Stuck in the middle between its more successful cousin and its more successful Chinese neighbor and, well, according to the North Korean propaganda machine, the peaceful DPRK is vilified at every turn by the U.S. and South Korea, who it appears have little else to do but to "provoke" the NORKs.

Exactly what the U.S. and South Koreans gain by provoking the North Koreans is not explained. Perhaps it is one of those "just because" things.

You see, the DPRK says that if only outside forces would stop the "provocation" then they would be happy to be a peaceable dictatorship spreading love and joy among its people and turning swords into plowshares, etc. You can read about it at Yonhap News's "N. Korea says S. Korea, U.S. must stop provocations for talks". What provocations?

Here's a start:

The North's powerful National Defense Commission and the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council against the DPRK must be rescinded and on-going nuclear war exercises should be stopped. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

"Fabrications of truth, like blaming the North for the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010 and recent Internet hacking of financial institutions and media has to be discontinued," the commission's policy department said in a statement.

Dialogue and war cannot exist side-by-side and that Seoul and Washington need to proclaim to the rest of the world that they will never engage in making threats and carry out nuclear war exercises that target the North, it said.

"It is time to withdraw all nuclear war making capabilities from the region and officially proclaim such devices will not be reintroduced (back into South Korea) down the line," said the defense commission.

The CPRK, in charge of conducting dialogue with the South, echoed these views, saying enforcing of sanctions, taking part in measures to compromise the regime and challenging the country's space and nuclear development efforts, all constituted hostile moves and cannot be tolerated.

Introducing sophisticated military hardware into the region will be viewed as provocations, the CPRK said, adding that Seoul in recent days made remarks about the North making right choices that it claimed were impudent.

"If they had a true will to have dialogue, they should have halted all acts of hurting the dignity of the DPRK, and stopped the north-targeted war exercises and smear campaign and given assurance to the nation that they would not resort to such hostile acts in the days ahead," the CPRK's announcement said.

Ah. It is so simple. Disarm, quit telling the truth and let the DPRK do whatever it wants.

Yes, that is one way to peace.

Probably not the most rationale way, though.