Key step forward on North Korea

Agreement on funds frozen by US paves way for North Korean shutdown of its nuclear program.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
and Donald Kirk | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the April 12, 2007 edition

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WASHINGTON and SEOUL, South Korea - This week's settlement of a dispute between the United States and North Korea over $25 million in tainted cash held in a Macao bank may be remembered as the key to full dismantlement of Pyongyang's nuclear program.

Or it may be recalled as a retreat by a White House beset by one too many foreign fire and as a signal to troublemaker regimes, including Iran, that world powers can be forced down from tough sanctions and uncompromising positions.

Many Democrats and foreign-policy experts are joining the Bush administration in hailing an agreement Wednesday that gave North Korea immediate access to deposits the US froze in 2005 as part of a crackdown on counterfeiting in Pyongyang. The settlement paves the way for the North to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear power plant – a first step toward dismantlement of its nuclear program, to which the North agreed in February with the US and four other countries.

But hard-liners are calling the accord a bad precedent for dealing with regimes that threatenglobal stability, particularly with nuclear development.

Either way, the lesser-evil-for-greater-good agreement is emblematic of the kind of diplomatic compromise President Bush eschewed in his first term but appears more prone to accept in his second.

"Is this deal going to leave a bad taste in a lot of mouths? You bet," says Jon Wolfsthal, a nonproliferation expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. "But we have yet to determine if North Korea is really ready to give up its nuclear arms program, and if we had to jump this hurdle to find that out, it's worth the risk."

Even as US officials said the issue of the $25 million was "resolved," North Korea suggested it would need perhaps a month to shut down Yongbyon – a step that under the February agreement was to take place by Saturday.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, leading a bipartisan entourage that had just spent four days meeting senior North Korean officials in Pyongyang, said that there was no reason it should take that long for North Korean technicians to go through the whole procedure.

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