UNITED NATIONS — Republican lawmakers yesterday expressed suspicions that as part of the Bush administration's attempts at diplomacy with North Korea, the State Department may have tried to cover up some Senate findings about the misuse of U.N. development funds by the communist regime of Kim Jong Il.
A Senate investigation, which detailed the North Korean government's manipulations of the U.N. Development Program and the use of its facilities as a backdoor channel for moving funds around the globe, also led some lawmakers to question America's contribution for the flagship development arm of the United Nations.
During a hearing yesterday of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Coburn, a Republican of Oklahoma, aired a suspicion that the State Department had tried to cover up some damning findings in the subcommittee's UNDP report in order to preserve the diplomatic process with Pyongyang, known as the six-party talks.
Although the Treasury Department had no problem releasing all parts of the Senate report to the public, Mr. Coburn said, the State Department's point man on the North Korean diplomacy, Christopher Hill, "wanted to keep classified" some of the report's findings. "Is there any other reason why the State Department authorized Ambassador Hill to censor the information, other than to protect the reputation of the six-party talks?" Mr. Coburn asked. "I'm not aware of any political reasons for doing that, senator," America's ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, said.
