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N. Korea shifts toward engagement with world
Kim Jong Il agreed to disable 'all' nuclear facilities by Dec. 31 and met South's President Roh this week.
from the October 5, 2007 edition
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But Bush is now so enthused about the North Korea deal – despite its detractors among conservative analysts – that he held it out as a potential model for reaching an accord with Iran.
"If it means we are ready to sit down at the table with Tehran and seriously talk about our interests and resolving a crisis, then fine," says Mr. Kimball. "But if the president means we should follow the North Korea precedent and wait until Iran sets off a nuclear explosion before we get serious about diplomacy, then it's an unfortunate statement."
In South Korea, analysts find hope in the inclusion of the nuclear issue in the two presidents' summit statement.
One day after North Korea agreed to disable critical facilities at its main nuclear complex by year-end, Kim and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun stated that "With regard to the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula, the South and the North have agreed to work together to implement smoothly" the agreements reached at six-party talks.
"To put in the nuclear issue represents a concession," says Han Sung Joo, the South's foreign minister at the time of the 1994 nuclear agreement with the North, even though "everyone thinks it's going to be very difficult" to get North Korea to make good on its promises.
The reference to the nuclear agreement appears in the same paragraph in which the two profess "the need to end the current armistice regime" – a reference to the armistice that ended the Korean War in July 1953 – and "build a permanent peace regime" – a reference to a peace treaty long sought by North Korea.
In an unscripted exchange between Bush and Mr. Roh at last month's gathering in Sydney, Australia, of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Roh pressed Bush to endorse the idea of a treaty. Bush responded by saying US support for a treaty would come after North Korea had verifiably abandoned its nuclear program.
While North Korea moved closer to that goal this week, talks on a treaty could be lengthy and controversial. They are not likely to begin until the US has taken the North off its terrorist list.
"Two problems have to be solved," says Paik Ha Soon of the Sejong Institute, a think tank with close government ties. "The first is taking North Korea off the list of sponsors of terrorism."
The second, he says, "has to do with concrete measures to make North Korea fully declare the nuclear program it has."
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