The United States was developing a set of measures to cut off North Korea's remaining revenue streams in February 2005, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began consulting allied governments following Pyongyang's announcement that it possessed nuclear weapons and was withdrawing from multilateral negotiations.
Rice met South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon in Washington, with North Korea's nuclear program and the future of the US military presence on the peninsula topping their agenda. She was also scheduled to meet Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura later that week.
According to the New York Times, the Bush administration had been assembling a toolkit of pressure tactics before Pyongyang's declaration, targeting financial flows linked to counterfeiting, drug trafficking, and weapons sales attributed to Kim Jong Il's government.
Officials said the measures could expand into a broader containment strategy, particularly if China and South Korea, both of which had resisted using economic leverage against Pyongyang, could be persuaded that North Korea's announcement required a firm response. The six-party talks involving both Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia, and China had stalled over disagreements on how to engage Pyongyang.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in February 2005, in its own words.