From: Rakesh Bhandari (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Thu Feb 08 2007 - 20:57:03 EST
February 8, 2007 North Korea, U.S. Appear Closer to a Nuclear Accord By EVAN RAMSTAD February 8, 2007; Page A6 WALL STREET JOURNAL SEOUL, South Korea -- With talks set to begin again today on North Korea's nuclear program, a deal appears more likely -- despite repeated failures in the past -- because the North's top negotiator has signaled it is willing to compromise and the U.S. has settled on a more conciliatory approach. U.S. officials said they are cautiously optimistic North Korea will agree to take the first steps in abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons, ending an 18-month negotiating stalemate and six years of intensified acrimony between the two countries. The U.S. said it expects North Korea to agree to turn off its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which it uses to produce the core material needed for atomic weapons, and allow international inspectors to visit it and other weapons-related facilities. In return, the U.S., along with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea, would begin to deliver on economic assistance that was broadly offered in an agreement made in September 2005. The result would be a start to stabilizing a major threat to regional security. Officials caution that nothing is certain, however, and that North Korea has walked away from previous deals. In the U.S., the election of a Democratic Congress and the departures of John Bolton, the ambassador to the United Nations, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- both of whom took a hard line against North Korea -- have given moderates in the State Department more leeway to compromise. Meanwhile, impoverished North Korea grows more desperate. The U.N. imposed more economic sanctions after North Korea tested a nuclear device in October. Food rations last month in Pyongyang, the capital and most prosperous city, amounted to three days of rice for ordinary citizens and 15 days for the elite, according to aid agencies in South Korea. Upon arriving in Beijing for the talks yesterday, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said "real success" for the six-party process would be ending the North Korean nuclear program under the terms of the September 2005 agreement. At the time, North Korea agreed to give up nuclear weapons in return for economic assistance, normalized relations with Japan and the U.S., and a start to a peace process that formally ends the Korean War of the 1950s. The North balked at the deal soon afterward, citing banking restrictions imposed by the U.S. that are still unresolved. That set up the negotiation stalemate. In October, North Korea further challenged the pact by testing its first nuclear device. The U.S. delegation is upbeat after Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea's envoy, positively responded in a meeting with Mr. Hill in Berlin last month to some of the proposals the U.S. made at the last round of talks in December. Neither country has disclosed details, though Mr. Hill referred to the meeting again yesterday. "We did have some good signs in Berlin, but I think we also know that there is going to be some rather hard bargaining, so we'll see how we do," he said. If the North agrees to freeze production at its nuclear plant, U.S. officials envision the six nations will meet as often as once a month to work on details for full-scale denuclearization. --Jason Dean in Beijing contributed to this arti
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