North Korea nuclear talks shift focus to energy

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - Talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions shifted focus on Saturday to U.S. energy aid for the impoverished state as delegates circulated a text of a proposed joint statement.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday authorized $25 million in aid for the North, which would provide up to 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, as a reward for Pyongyang's commitment to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of the year.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said he had seen the draft text which Kyodo news agency reported include steps North Korea must take by the end of the year.

"It's a pretty complete draft and we made some comments, but I don't know what the others think about it," he told reporters. "So I don't know if we will have a joint statement or not."

North Korea, which tested a nuclear device last year, shut down and sealed its Yongbyon nuclear plant and allowed U.N. monitors back to the site in July.

Those were its first steps in carrying out a breakthrough agreement reached in February at the six-party talks, which group the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China.

But it must now disable its atomic facilities and make a declaration of all of its nuclear programs, in return for a huge injection of fuel aid and an end to diplomatic isolation.

China and South Korea have delivered initial fuel shipments and Russia is expected to do so too, but Japan has indicated it will not participate unless North Korea addresses the issue of Japanese citizens the North abducted in the 1970s and 1980s.

"The issue of abductions by the DPRK poses a serious challenge to human dignity," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura told reporters at the United Nations on Friday.

ROAD MAP

Hill had initially said this round of talks would aim to set targets for disablement to the end of the year. He later scaled back expectations, saying negotiators hoped to agree to a "road map".

Hill stressed that disablement of the nuclear facilities, a step towards complete dismantling, had to mean that it would be a long and costly process for Pyongyang to restart its reactors.

"We have a common definition, which is the idea that if there were a return -- and of course we're not planning a return -- to plutonium production, that it should be made difficult by process of disablement," Hill said.

"Our definition of difficult is several months and we would argue it should be 12 months."

In 2002, North Korea was able to restart the Yongbyon reactor in two months, after a previous disarmament agreement fell apart.

South Korea said the issue of North Korea's nuclear ambitions should not be allowed to drag on.

"This problem, if not resolved soon, will seriously undermine the NPT regime," said South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, referring to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

"It also has significant implications for peace and security in Northeast Asia and beyond," he told the U.N. General Assembly.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in New York)

U.S. and North Korea Reach Nuclear Deal

By DAVID E. SANGER

The top American negotiator with North Korea said yesterday that the country had agreed to disable its main nuclear fuel production plant by the end of the year and to account to international monitors for all of its nuclear programs, including what American intelligence agencies say they believe was a second, secret program purchased from Pakistan.

At the end of a two-day meeting in Geneva — exactly the kind of one-on-one session that the Bush administration had refused to hold in recent years — Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, said the two sides had agreed on what would be a speedy next step, following action by North Korea this summer to turn off its main nuclear reactor.

“One thing that we agreed on is that the D.P.R.K. will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” Mr. Hill told reporters in Geneva, according to The Associated Press. He was using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s formal name.

But in a separate news conference, his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, who heads the North Korean negotiating team, made no mention of an end-of-the-year deadline. He spoke instead of an accord to disable North Korea’s equipment and provide an accounting of its facilities, fuel and weapons in return for what he called “political and economic compensation.”

If the North Koreans meet the schedule and disable their equipment, it would be a major victory for the Bush administration, at a time when it is eager to claim progress on some diplomatic front to offset its problems in Iraq. Whether to offer the North rewards, including oil and, eventually, removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and diplomatic recognition, has been the subject of a six-year struggle within the Bush administration.

But most of the hawks who have opposed such offers are now gone, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has given Mr. Hill far more latitude to strike a deal, and to meet the North Koreans outside of “six party talks” — the discussions that have also included Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. Those talks are expected to resume in mid-September, and the weekend meeting was cast as a prelude to any agreement reached there.

The hawks are still unhappy, and have suggested that Mr. Hill is giving away too much.

“There is still simply no evidence that Pyongyang has made a decision to abandon its long-held strategic objective to have a credible nuclear-weapons capability,” John R. Bolton, the former American ambassador to the United Nations and, in President Bush’s first term, the top State Department official on counterproliferation, wrote in The Asian Wall Street Journal this weekend.

“This inconvenient fact should make it impossible for the State Department to concede on other issues, even if it were inclined to do so,” he said. “Creative minds are therefore working on ways to explain that any forthcoming North Korean declaration of its nuclear capabilities is ‘full and complete,’ thus eliminating the remaining troubling obstacles to full normalization of relations.”

When the Bush administration came into office, North Korea was still appearing to abide by a nuclear freeze that it had negotiated in 1994 with the Clinton administration. But that deal fell apart after the Bush administration accused the North of cheating on the agreement, purchasing uranium enrichment equipment from Abdul Qadeer Khan’s nuclear network, based in Pakistan.

While Mr. Khan and his associates have confirmed they made such sales, it is unclear what, if anything, the North did with the equipment. Mr. Hill said yesterday that that question would have to be answered as part of any full declaration. American intelligence agencies said earlier this year that they were uncertain what progress the North had made with that program, if any.

The North Koreans conducted a nuclear test last October, though it was not entirely successful. It is unclear how many other nuclear devices they have produced, though intelligence agencies have estimated that they may have the material for between eight and a dozen. The administration’s critics, including Mr. Bolton, have said it is almost impossible to imagine that the North would say how many weapons it had or where those weapons, or the fuel to manufacture new ones, were situated. So far, there is no agreement for an intrusive inspection system.

Still, if the facilities at the Yongbyon nuclear plant are truly “disabled,” a term no one has yet defined, it would probably prevent the North from manufacturing new weapons and expanding its arsenal. Mr. Kim said yesterday that “we made it clear, we showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities.”

Mr. Hill said that “we have to work out some of the details” on exactly what facilities would be disabled. “We will have a declaration in time to disable what needs to be disabled,” he said, adding that “for example, the Yongbyon reactor would have to be included.”

North Korea agrees to declare, disable nuclear programs by end of year

From the Associated Press

9:07 AM PDT, September 2, 2007

GENEVA — North Korea has agreed to declare and disable all its nuclear facilities by the end of this year, the chief U.S. negotiator said today.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said two days of talks between the United States and North Korea in Geneva had been "very good and very substantive" and would help improve chances of a successful meeting later this month with Japan, Russia, South Korea and China in six-nation talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program and improving relations between North Korea and other countries.

"One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all of their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007," Hill told reporters, using the initials for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Hill said the declaration will also include uranium enrichment programs, which the United States fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

Kim Gye Gwan, the head of the North Korean delegation, did not comment immediately to reporters outside the North Korean mission.

Hill said earlier Sunday that improving U.S. relations with North Korea will depend on other progress in the talks, saying it "is a relationship that we will continue to try to build step by step with the understanding that we're not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea."

"To the extent that we can move quickly to denuclearization, we can move quickly to normalization," he added.

Hill said both sides also discussed what needs to be done for North Korea to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

He said they also had a good discussion of what North Korea wants to achieve and how it can improve relations with Japan.

He said he expected the next full session of the six-nation talks would be held in mid-September and that it would produce a "more detailed implementation plan for 'disablement"' of North Korea's nuclear facilities.

The meeting in Geneva was part of a flurry of "working group" sessions called for in February's six-nation accord in which North Korea agreed to disable its plutonium-producing nuclear reactor and declare and eventually dismantle all its nuclear activities.

In exchange, the economically struggling North will receive oil and other aid. The U.S., as part of the agreement, promised to begin the process of removing the country from the terrorism list and work toward full diplomatic relations.

North Korea has already received 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from Seoul in return for the shutdown of its plutonium reactor in July. The energy-starved country will eventually get further energy or other aid equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in return for irreversibly disabling the reactor and ending all its nuclear programs, but has yet to set a date by when it will disable its nuclear facilities.

Another point of disagreement has been over allegations that North Korea has a second, undeclared nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium. North Korea said recently it was willing to discuss the issue, although it did not acknowledge having such a program.

Years of tension and deadlock over North Korea's nuclear program -- which peaked with the country's nuclear test last October -- have started to ease in recent months as the talks have made progress.

N. Korea Talks Fizzle With No Disarmament Timetable

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 21, 2007; A08

BEIJING, July 20 -- After three days of upbeat talks, negotiators from six nations announced Friday that they had failed to agree on a schedule for North Korea to take the next steps toward nuclear disarmament. They plan to meet again in September.

The United States and other countries pressed North Korea to accept a year-end deadline for fully disclosing all its nuclear activities and permanently disabling its main reactor, key moves toward the goal of the eventual complete dismantlement of its nuclear program.

But the North Koreans insisted on tighter coordination for what they would get in return for such steps, including 950,000 tons more fuel oil and progress toward better diplomatic relations, according to the chief U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill.

The outcome was another setback for the Chinese-sponsored negotiations -- including Japan, the United States, Russia and the two Koreas in addition to China -- that have been off and on for the past four years.

Diplomats had expressed hopes of keeping up the momentum generated by North Korea's closure Saturday of its main nuclear reactor in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil to power its electricity generators.

The shutdown and oil deliveries constituted the first on-the-ground compliance with an accord reached in Beijing on Feb. 13 laying out a choreographed series of North Korean nuclear disarmament steps to be matched by economic aid and friendlier diplomatic ties with Washington and its Asian allies.

North Korea's statements have indicated that it expects improved relations to include an end to economic sanctions, removal from the U.S. list of governments supporting terrorism and less hostility from Japan. Linking these goals to the disarmament steps was the issue that diplomats proved unable to resolve in Beijing this week -- and that they may find haunting them in the days ahead.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry warned Friday, for instance, that the six-party talks could go into another stall if Japan continued to link aid to the dispute over Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean intelligence agents. Japan has refused to contribute economic aid to North Korea until it gets more information about what happened to Japanese citizens whom North Korean agents took to the communist state in the 1970s and '80s.

As the talks broke up, the diplomats decided to hand off discussions to lower-level working groups, assigned to coordinate the next steps with corresponding moves by the United States, Japan and others. A communique from China said the chief negotiators and their teams would return in September to try again for a firm schedule, based on information to be generated by the working groups.

The abductees will be the subject of one of the working groups, the Chinese communique said. Another group will focus on normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea, raising the issue of how swiftly the Bush administration can deliver the politically sensitive diplomatic changes demanded by North Korea.

In addition, Hill noted, some of the sequencing between aid deliveries and North Korean steps to dismantle the nuclear program demands technical expertise beyond the reach of nonspecialists. North Korea's port facilities allow it to absorb only about 50,000 tons of oil at once, for instance, suggesting that other forms of economic aid may have to be substituted to keep the corresponding steps by North Korea up to speed.

Departing Beijing on his way home, Hill portrayed the delay as a minor hiccup rather than the harbinger of another prolonged stall by North Korea. "I'm still of the view that with a little luck we can wrap this all up by the end of the year, but it's obviously going to be difficult," he told reporters.

N. Korea nuclear talks shun deadlines for disarmament

From Reuters

July 20, 2007

BEIJING — Talks to end North Korea's nuclear arms program veered away Thursday from setting a deadline for the next phase of disarmament but settled on a set of tasks the United States said could be carried out this year.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said this week that North Korea had closed five main nuclear facilities, completing the first stage of a disarmament deal reached in February.

The six-nation talks in Beijing were seeking consensus on the second stage of disarmament: permanently disabling the Yongbyon nuclear complex and receiving a full declaration of Pyongyang's atomic arms activities in return for heavy fuel oil.

Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said the envoys broadly agreed on how that next phase will unfold but did not agree on a deadline. At the start of the latest talks Wednesday, he had proposed completing the steps by year's end.

Closure of the Yongbyon nuclear complex was delayed for many weeks by a financial snarl that held up North Korea's receipt of more than $20 million in frozen bank funds.

Hill said negotiators wanted to avoid more broken deadlines.

N. Korea puts new demand, may delay nuclear shutdown

Mon Jul 2, 2007 5:34PM EDT

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has said it wants to get promised shipments of oil before shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, delaying again a key obligation under a February nuclear agreement, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Administration critics of the agreement said the demand was further evidence of North Korean bad faith, but two other senior officials said they believe the agreement was on track and any delay in shuttering Yongbyon would not be prolonged.

Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said last week he wanted Pyongyang to shut down Yongbyon, which produces plutonium for the North's main nuclear weapons program, before holding a new round of six-country talks, expected next week.

But U.S. officials told Reuters Pyongyang had informed South Korea, which is providing the heavy fuel oil, and the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wanted at least some of the heavy fuel oil before the reactor is shut down.

"I think there's a sense that the North Koreans do want to start receiving elements of the 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil as they move toward shutting down Yongbyon," said one U.S. official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity.

After the February 13 announcement, a different senior official who briefed reporters said that there would be no shipment of the heavy fuel oil "until we're satisfied that the shutdown, the sealing, is occurring..."

U.S. officials say Yongbyon is continuing to operate and there are no signs of preparations for a shutdown.

"SLOW ROLLING"

A member of the administration who opposes the deal accused Pyongyang of "slow rolling us again."

But a supporter urged patience, saying the North Koreans just wanted assurances the fuel oil shipments would happen. "We are down to a couple of weeks" when the nuclear reactor will be shuttered, he said.

South Korea will begin shipping fuel oil in two weeks and try to complete the supply in 20 days, its unification ministry said on Saturday, after two days of talks with the North on the details of the energy aid.

Under the February 13 deal North Korea is to receive another 950,000 tons of fuel oil or other aid of equivalent value when it completes steps to disable all its nuclear facilities.

North and South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China struck a deal on February 13 under which Pyongyang would receive aid and security steps in return for moving to scrap its nuclear arms programs.

The deal was stalled for weeks by a dispute over some $25 million in North Korean funds frozen in a Macau bank under pressure from Washington. Following the release of the funds, North Korea agreed to implement the deal.

The IAEA, the guardian of international nuclear safeguards, will monitor and verify the disarmament steps.

After visiting Pyongyang last week, IAEA official Olli Heinonen said the negotiations had achieved an understanding on how to monitor the sealing and shutdown of Yongbyon.

But he said the timing of the long-negotiated shutdown still needed to be worked out between North Korea and its negotiating partners.

On June 21, Hill made a surprise trip to Pyongyang and predicted North Korea could shutter Yongbyon within three weeks, but that target now seems to have slipped.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Monday rejected a six-party meeting to set a date for sealing Yongbyon but said six-party talks to discuss next steps in the Feb 13 agreement would convene "around the time" the shutdown begins.

He said the administration did not have a specific date in mind, only that the shutdown should be "as soon as possible."

The Shape of the North Korea Agreement

The United States, North Korea, and the four other negotiating an agreement to suspend, and eventually end, North Korea's nuclear weapons programs have reported a tentative agreement pending acceptance in the six capitals.

It is supposed to look like the agreement under discussion, except for changes to the energy supply section. Until the North Koreans agree for certain, let's cross our fingers and think of what to do if the North Koreans won't sign off on the deal.

North Korea Returns to Nuclear Talks

Interesting things to note:

1. China set up the meetings that led to the breakthrough on talks. It is clearly taking a forceful, proactive approach to these negotiations. China has apparently reportedly even withheld diesel and heating fuel from North Korea in September.
2. The arrangement that led to the talks was three-way talks between the United States, North Korea, and China in Beijing.
3. The North Koreans are being hurt by American action against their money-laundering activities, as reflected by the priority the North Koreans placed on having U.S. Treasury action against a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, on the agenda of nuclear talks. (I think this also reveals the North Koreans' goals in exploding their nuclear device). The bank, which has previously been in the news, purportedly holds the Kim family's bank accounts and had placed North Korean counterfeited cash in circulation.

Politicians' and diplomats’ expectations for discussions to end North Korea’s nuclear programs are low. As David Straub, a former U.S. diplomat involved in earlier discussions stated:

"[B]oth [the United States and North Korea] will almost certainly take even tougher lines."

Straub stated that the U.S. and North Korea need to change negotiating positions, and Democrats say that the U.S. needs to negotiate directly with North Korea.

Today's Washington Post editorial page warns that this supposed breakthrough could simply allow the Chinese and the North Koreans to alleviate pressure on the North Korean regime and for China to control its wayward client while North Korea gives up nothing.

The problem is that this is always true when negotiating with the North Koreans. But if our only real choice is to negotiate, the editorial is correct to place the onus for continued movement by the North Koreans on China. They made these talks happen, and they should be the focus of American pressure to see that they succeed.