Mitchell Reiss
Mitchell Reiss
Mitchell B. Reissis a senior American diplomat who is now the President and CEO of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Virginia. Immediately prior to this post, he served a tenure of four years as the 27th president of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. He served as Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State under Colin Powell. He also served as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland, with the diplomatic rank of Ambassador, until stepping...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDiplomat
CountryUnited States of America
All the options are pretty unattractive right now except for continuing to talk.
And it's time for Sinn Fein to be able to say that explicitly, without ambiguity, without ambivalence, that criminality will not be tolerated.
And it's not surprising that there should be disagreement - it'd be a little surprising if there was complete consensus on any foreign policy issue.
And I think they realize that the other five countries are lined up against them, because all five are opposed to North Korea having nuclear weapons.
And so there has been a lot of diplomatic movement.
And it has to do with having no inventory or stockpiles on the shelf, but items arrive as you need to build your product. What that means is that it's much more difficult to actually find stockpiles of already built weapons.
It is fundamentally, existentially, in their own interest that they and their neighbors do not acquire nuclear weapons.
The Nuclear Suppliers Group is one area the president highlighted in his speech that's extremely important and that needs to be improved.
Again, I think we have much greater diplomatic weight by having all of us sit on the same side of the table wanting the same thing, and putting it to the North Koreans.
Everyone I have spoken with so far recognises the need for the IRA to respond positively and every has said sooner is better than later and I think there is some concern if it does continue to delay much longer that the situation isn't going to remain the same.
You are either going forward or you are not.