Day after nuclear deal, Koreas say to resume talks

Reuters on Yahoo ^ | 2/13/07 | Lee Jin-joo

[NormsRevenge]

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea said on Wednesday they had agreed to resume ministerial talks, a day after a breakthrough energy-for-arms deal at six-party talks on the North's nuclear programs in Beijing.

The dialogue between the two Koreas -- still technically at war -- collapsed in acrimony after Pyongyang tested a volley of missiles last July. The South's Unification Ministry said delegates would meet in the North Korean border city of Kaesong on Thursday to discuss when to open new talks.

North Korea's state-run news agency said Pyongyang agreed to the proposal for renewed contact between the two countries, whose 1950-53 war ended with an armistice and left the Korean peninsula divided by one of the world's most heavily armed borders.

The talks signal renewed momentum following Tuesday's breakthrough toward dismantling the North's nuclear arms program, but chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill cautioned that difficult work remained to implement the accord.

The deal, hammered out in the shadow of North Korea's first nuclear test last October, requires the secretive state to shutter is Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent aid.

"I think we all need a rest in the next 24 hours, but we have so much work to do," a tired-looking Hill told reporters. "We have to begin the process of getting this agreement implemented."

"We have some ambitious time schedules," he added.

The marathon talks between the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia finally reached a compromise that Hill said hinged on the amount of energy aid offered.

"It was the energy issue, and it was our willingness to go bigger on energy in return for them going deeper on denuclearisation," he said.

After the 60-day period, energy-hungry North Korea will receive another 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil, or equivalent aid, when it takes further steps to disable its nuclear capabilities.

CHALLENGES AHEAD

Despite the long road ahead to overcome deep mistrust between the United States and North Korea and implement the deal, officials in Washington said it marked a major breakthrough.

President Bush, who once bracketed communist North Korea in an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, said the agreement represented "the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear program."

Analysts said the agreement was a step forward but that there were serious challenges ahead.

"Freezing, suspending, disabling isn't necessarily the same as abandonment," said Zhang Lianggui, a North Korea specialist at the Chinese Communist Party's Central Party School, adding that full abandonment was a more difficult and long-term issue.

The agreement also includes provisions for the United States and Japan to discuss normalizing ties with North Korea, and says Washington will begin the process of removing Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

"We have to start a process on that," Hill said of the terror delisting. " ... Some of it is just related to the basic proposition that when they get out of this nuclear business, everything will be possible and if they don't get out of the nuclear business, nothing is possible."

In Tokyo, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said resolving its feud with Pyongyang over Japanese kidnapped decades ago was one important factor for removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Some analysts said moves toward normalization were symbolically more important to the isolated North than aid for the impoverished country.

"Their ultimate goal is not nuclear weapons, but two things -- normalizing relations with the United States, especially economic and security ties, and becoming a normal state accepted in international society," said Xu Guangyu, an analyst at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association.

"That's their true goal."

(Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck in Beijing and Linda Sieg in Tokyo)

[NormsRevenge]

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il (C) visits a fish farm in Hamgyongpukdo in North Korea in an undated photo released by the Korea Central News Agency on February 8, 2007. (Korea News Service/Reuters)

[tomnbeverly]

What the six party talks yeild results... say it ain't so... So where are all the Dems that were on the wrong side of history with this... Calling John Kerry...

[zarf]

It ain't so. Don't tell me you bought this crap?

[SierraWasp]

This smacks of bogusity maximus... aka boolchit!!! Like "stopping short" just to cop a feel on the Seinfeld show, like was done with the tax reduction acts that were never and will never be made permanent!!!

[tomnbeverly]

Thats not my point. The point is that the Democrats berated Bush with this saying that it had no chance of success and that he needed to have unilateral talks with Il. Bush with the power of conviction stuck to his guns and hence we have results.. I have no doubt that Il will try and stick everyone with it after he gets what he wants but my broader point is to stick it in the eye of the Democrats because they are consistantly on the wrong side of history.. more or less like today in the House with their phony non-binding we support the troops until we don't policy.