North Korea Nuke Deal Advances

Six Nations Make Tentative Agreement On How To Disarm North Korea's Nuclear Program

(CBS/AP)  Six countries reached a tentative agreement Tuesday on initial steps toward North Korea's nuclear disarmament that could usher in the first concrete progress after more than three years of talks marked by delays, deadlock and the communist country's first nuclear test explosion.

The U.S. envoy to the talks, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, emerged in the early morning hours of Tuesday looking weary after a marathon 16-hour negotiating session and announced that a tentative deal had been struck at the latest round of six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.

The draft agreement contained commitments on disarmament and energy assistance along with "initial actions" to be taken by certain deadlines, Hill said. Working groups will be set up, hopefully in a month, laying out a framework for dealing with regional tensions, he added.

Essentially North Korea would shut down its nuclear reactor within 60 days and inspectors would be able to return to the communist nation to monitor its nuclear program, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod. In exchange, North Korea would get electricity and a million tons of fuel oil, which they desperately need.

The agreement could herald the first step toward disarmament since the talks began in 2003. The process reached its lowest point in October when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion, alarming the world and triggering U.N. sanctions.

"Pyongyang has made clear that it expects concrete results in the delivery of electricity and oil during the two months in which it will halt the operation of the Yongbyon nuclear complex," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk. "And after four years of failed talks, there is widespread skepticism that this agreement will move forward smoothly. But, if approved by all six nations, this is at least progress."

In the last few days, the talks had appeared to be on the verge of foundering and envoys made clear that their frustration was increasing and their patience growing thin. The current round was to conclude on Monday but as they progressed toward a deal, negotiators extended it late into the night and then into the early hours of Tuesday.

Hill said the draft agreement still must be reviewed by the home governments of the six countries at the talks, but he was upbeat about it. He said he was in "constant communication" with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"We feel it's an excellent draft, I don't think we're the problem," he said.

This is only step one of a potential deal to disarm North Korea, Axelrod reports. The key question is: What kind of shut-down would North Korea undertake – would it be just a freeze or would something be done to disable the nuclear reactor so that it couldn't be easily restarted?

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed the progress but urged North Korea to make further efforts toward denuclearization.

"We are closely watching the development to make sure North Korea makes the right decision toward nuclear abandonment," Abe told a Parliamentary committee session Tuesday morning.

North Korea did not immediately make any public comment, but South Korea's envoy Chun Yung-woo said he believed the proposal would be acceptable to Pyongyang.

Chun said the five other countries agreed to evenly share the energy aid outlined under the deal.

Russia was more noncommittal. Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said there were "many questions regarding details," Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Hill said the parties to the talks will meet again later Tuesday.

In September 2005, North Korea was promised energy aid and security guarantees in exchange for a pledge to abandon its nuclear programs. But talks on implementing that agreement snarled on other issues and that plan went nowhere.

Hill has repeatedly said he hoped a resolution would help improve stability in a region filled with bitter historical disputes. The two Koreas remain technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

"We're trying to do more than just do denuclearization for energy," Hill said. "We're trying to address some of the underlying problems."

Though he did not provide specifics, North Korea has demanded improved relations with the United States. Japan and North Korea remain fiercely antagonistic in part because of North Korea's acknowledged but unresolved abductions of Japanese citizens.

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., harshly criticized the deal and urged President Bush to reject it, saying it made the U.S. look weak.

"I am very disturbed by this deal," he told CNN. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: 'If we hold out long enough, wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded,' in this case with massive shipments of heavy fuel oil for doing only partially what needs to be done" to dismantle the nuclear program.

"I think this deal with North Korea undercuts the sanctions resolution with respect to them, and I think the Iranians have only to follow the same example."The current talks began Thursday on a promising note after the United States and North Korea held an unusual meeting last month in Germany and signaled a willingness to compromise.

But negotiations quickly became mired on the issue of how much energy aid the impoverished and isolated communist country would get as an inducement for initial steps toward disarmament.

"It's always 3 yards, 3 yards, 3 yards, and it's always fourth and one. Then you make a first down and do 3 more yards," Hill said early Tuesday, using a football metaphor. "It's painful."

During the days of arduous negotiations, he said "everybody has had to make some changes to narrow the differences."

Some delegates at the talks — which also include China, Russia and South Korea — had called North Korea's demands for energy excessive.

South Korean and Japanese media reports gave varying accounts of how much energy North Korea was demanding, including up to 2 million kilowatts of electricity or 2 million tons of heavy fuel oil.

Chinese envoy Wu Dawei told a visiting Japanese lawmaker that North Korea had agreed to shut down its main nuclear reactor and submit a list of its atomic facilities. But the size of the energy aid Pyongyang would get in return was still undecided, the lawmaker, Fukushiro Nukaga, told reporters Monday.

Under a 1994 U.S.-North Korea disarmament agreement, the North was to receive 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year before construction was completed of two nuclear reactors that would be able to generate 2 million kilowatts of electricity.

That deal fell apart in late 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of conducting a secret uranium enrichment program, sparking the latest nuclear crisis.

[thgdriver]

kreuz4

I know that, thanks, now add up the years, do the math, whatever---62 years is long enough. I repeat it's time (they changed their constitution) they stopped hiding behind Uncle Sam and started fighting their own battles.

[kreuz4]

"It's also about time Japan stopped hiding behind Uncle Sam and started fighting their own battles."

Actually, after 1945, we decided we didn't want Japan fighting their own battles, that's why we do it....

[pwrslm]

John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., harshly criticized the deal and urged President Bush to reject it, saying it made the U.S. look weak.

"I am very disturbed by this deal," he told CNN. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: 'If we hold out long enough, wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded,' in this case with massive shipments of heavy fuel oil for doing only partially what needs to be done" to dismantle the nuclear program.


face it, they are jerking our chains

again

[pwrslm]

Actually, if you look at the balance sheet, it would appear that the Korean's held Bush accountable more than Bush did the Koreans.

They have 10 more nukes than they would have and a sweeter deal.

So, who held who accountable?
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 07:33 PM : Feb 12, 2007

That has nothing to do with Bush idiot.

Do you really try hard to miss the point, or do you get help?

[thgdriver]

Well, I would sooner have President Bush listening to god, then most of the posters here.

[alalkan]

"It all depends on what God tells him to do....."
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 08:21 PM : Feb 12, 2007

Maybe the God he hears is the one that speaks to him through his Vice President or foreign agenda filled advisors.
If that is the case and Bush starts pushing out a Deed toward the middle of the International Nuclear Poker Table... I hope it is not the one that has YOUR and MY grandchildren's names written on it.

[thgdriver]

President Bush can tell the N.Koreans that THGDRIVER said they can kiss his Irish as$, The USA does not pay blackmail.

It's also about time Japan stopped hiding behind Uncle Sam and started fighting their own battles.

[kreuz4]

"Also, since you're so certain this is the same deal Clinton gave North Korea, you know-the one without any checks or balances?"

Someone else who drank the neocon kool-aid

Terms of the 1994 agreement:
- North Korea agreed to freeze its existing plutonium enrichment program, to be monitored by the IAEA;
- Cooperation to replace N Korea's graphite reactors with light water reactor (LWR) power plants
- Cooperation to store safely the spent fuel from the five-megawatt reactor and dispose of it in a safe manner that does not involve reprocessing in North Korea;
- Two sides agreed to move toward full normalization of political and economic relations, to work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime

The problem was, the 1994 agreement was negotiated under Kim Il Sung, who died several months before implelmentation. The Chonger never fully lived up to his father's terms, so the IAEA never went in and we never helped them replace their reactors. North Korea did, however, freeze their nuclear programs, and when concerns were raised about specific sites, notably the Kumchang-ni incident in 1998, they allowed inspectors in briefly to inspect and resolve the issues. To ease ongoing concerns, Perry called for a new framework to resume in 2000. Bush renounced this framework, and the North's enrichment resumed immediately thereafter.

[formrusmcsgt]

I for one, hope he thinks before he strikes.

Posted by alalkan at 08:14 PM : Feb 12, 2007

It all depends on what God tells him to do.....

[alalkan]

I wonder if the policy of the administrative branch of our Federal Government is encouraging many foreign countries besides N. Korea and Iran to think about using the "nuclear type" of "Detante Defense" and try to become another nuclear weapon power state.
This "Bush Mistake" is like Bush "pushing hard" for elections in the Palestinian Territories only to get an opposite result than he expected. Now we find his Iraq war went against Bush's predictions and his expectations.
Will his so called "open possibility" of a USA - Iranian nuclear bombing offensive "to protect USA interests" have the the same opposite unexpected results he had before... only this time with a horrendous worldwide WWIII Muslim push back. What are USA interests anyway?
Could a nuclear detante HELP the Middle East... as it did with the USA and Russia? Should we take sides in the Middle East?
These seem to be questions most citizens here are beginning to have strong opinions about and our nation must answer in opinion polls and in the next Presidential Election... unless of course... Bush uses his Executive Powers to strike first.
He would then test whatever he tells us will happen (again) to see if whatever he predicts will happen next. Maybe when Iran then blocks the Straits of Hormuz it will make Big Oil, Cheney and other friends a profit. Will local terrorism here be less??
I for one, hope he thinks before he strikes.

[formrusmcsgt]

pwrslm-

Where'd you go? Don't you want to keep talking about how Bush held the N. Koreans accountable?

Maybe you did the math......

[formrusmcsgt]

Face it, Bush was in a situation that demanded N Korean accountability, not blackmail.
Posted by pwrslm at 07:16 PM : Feb 12, 2007

Actually, if you look at the balance sheet, it would appear that the Korean's held Bush accountable more than Bush did the Koreans.

They have 10 more nukes than they would have and a sweeter deal.

So, who held who accountable?

[formrusmcsgt]

I just have to wonder why the libs love dictators so much.
Posted by Rico_Halo at 07:25 PM : Feb 12, 2007

It's not about "loving dictators". It's about stupidity in the White House that gets us less than common sense would.

[formrusmcsgt]

Bush could have capitulated to N Korean demands for free food and free energy and anything else they demanded, just like Clinton.
Posted by pwrslm at 07:16 PM : Feb 12, 2007

OR, check this out - Bush could have continued to negotiate instead of slamming the door in their face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They made him pay (and us) through the nose to reopen the door. Some Bush victory!

[TheNewDamage]

I just have to wonder why the libs love dictators so much.

[formrusmcsgt]

Wake up, dont play the fool, there are plenty of them already in congress.
Posted by pwrslm at 07:16 PM : Feb 12, 2007

There is obviously no shortage of them on these boards, either.

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid. Pretty soon you'll be the only one in line for it.

[formrusmcsgt]

Face it, Bush was in a situation that demanded N Korean accountability, not blackmail.
Posted by pwrslm at 07:16 PM : Feb 12, 2007

And what did Bush get for this "accountability". A higher price for the deal and a N. Korea with 12 nukes instead of 2.

Some accountability......

[formrusmcsgt]

No wonder he was a failure in business!!!!

[pwrslm]

Bush's banty rooster stupidity will cost us more than the deal he cancelled and they now have 10 more nukes to boot.

Talk about a joke!
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 07:10 PM : Feb 12, 2007


Bush could have capitulated to N Korean demands for free food and free energy and anything else they demanded, just like Clinton.

Face it, Bush was in a situation that demanded N Korean accountability, not blackmail. Bush didnt play the fool, NK would have had a dozen nukes with or without Bush's opposition.

Wake up, dont play the fool, there are plenty of them already in congress.

[formrusmcsgt]

What a joke that was.
Posted by pwrslm at 06:42 PM : Feb 12, 2007

The joke is paying more for what Bush had inherited fron Clinton in 2002. At that time, N. Korea had 2 nukes, now they have 12.

Bush's banty rooster stupidity will cost us more than the deal he cancelled and they now have 10 more nukes to boot.

Talk about a joke!