http://www.breitbart.com/news/2007/02/12/D8N8CB980.html [rquoter] BEIJING (AP) -- Negotiators reached a tentative agreement on initial steps for North Korea's nuclear disarmament, the U.S. envoy to the talks said Tuesday. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the agreement outlined specific commitments for North Korea and would set up working groups to implement those goals to begin meeting in about a month. He declined to give other details. "I'm encouraged by this that we were able to take a step forward on the denuclearization issue," Hill said. The agreement could mark the first step toward disarmament in more than three years of inconclusive negotiations and deadlock. The process reached its lowest point in October when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion. The draft agreement came after 16 hours of what Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang called "extraordinarily intensive consultations" on the fifth day of talks. "Some positive results have been achieved," Qin said, but added that the negotiators would have to meet again later Tuesday in Beijing. Japan's chief envoy said it was "too early to tell" if his government was satisfied with the deal. "I believe that countries have compromised somewhat toward an agreement," Kenichiro Sasae said, declining to give any specifics. The current round of six-nation talks began Thursday on a promising note after the United States and North Korea signaled a willingness to compromise. But negotiations quickly became mired on the issue of how much energy aid the North would get in exchange for initial steps of disarmament. Other delegates at the talks _ which also include Russia and South Korea _ had called North Korea's earlier demands for energy excessive. South Korean and Japanese media reports gave varying accounts of how much energy North Korea was demanding, including up to 2 million kilowatts of electricity or 2 million tons of heavy fuel oil. Under a 1994 U.S.-North Korea disarmament agreement, the North was to receive 500,000 tons of fuel oil a year before construction was completed of two nuclear reactors that would be able to generate 2 million kilowatts of electricity. That deal fell apart in late 2002 when the U.S. accused the North of conducting a secret uranium enrichment program, sparking the latest nuclear crisis. The apparent progress came after the U.S. envoy said the meetings that began Monday would be the last day for this round of talks, saying the possibility for a breakthrough was solely in North Korea's hands. [/rquoter]
Diplomacy only works when you are poor and have your biggest benefactor breathing down your neck because you made them look like morons on the international stage. Unfortunately, Iran has no China to exert pressure on them.
At the moment no but they get a lot of technical expertise from Russia. Russia has stood by Iran but themselves aren't likely going to sit back and accept a belligerant Iran with nukes since that destabilize the Caucacuses even more.
I heard on the news today that John Bolton has come out to criticize this agreement. To think not that long ago this guy was this Admin's top diplomat.
Irony abounds! You just summed up Bush Administration foreign policy... or the lack of one. D&D. Irony Abounds!
if bush hadn't sh!tcanned the clinton deal when he took office we would be in a much better place than we are now with this weak deal. plus we've given time for the n.k. to stash a few bombs because there is no way that they are going to dismantle all of them at this point. another bush failure..................
this the same old routine from NK over and over again, how many times do we have a deal and only have NK breaking it or backing out? They will break the deal again when they want something else, this is how NK play their game. The deal won't last.
It still worth it to buy some time. Probably when Kim Jong-il is dead, we might see a change in leadership. Similar to our wait for Bush's time to pass...
On the BBC evening news they had an American guest (sorry, I don't remember who) that stated that he knew for a fact that Condi went to Bush about 2 months ago and said, "we need to have a foreign policy success no mater what it is" and this was it. Apparently the US was the one who 'blinked' by agreeing to the North Korean demand for bilateral talks. The guest also said the deal has been almost final for about a month but they were just working out some of the details. Not sure if this was 100% accurate but since this wasn't Fox News and the guy seemed so sure of himself, I personally feel fairly convinced of his account.
Like Sishir mentioned, Bolton criticized this agreement as our moment of weakness in rewarding Kim. Bush deserves some credit for the deal. While he did reinvent the wheel (and trashed Clinton's deal beforehand), there was no other way to get Kim to let up on his nuclear ambitions. Kim could still doublecross us, but he's getting older in the meanwhile. It's unfortunate for Bush to realize 6 years later that diplomacy has proven time and time again to be the most beneficial course of action.
If this really is a case of Bush "blinking" several years later than he could have, it's tragic this took so long. It's legacy time now and Bush is trying to claim credit for something. His diplomacy and foreign policy have been so catastrophic that I suppose it's a matter of "better late than never". Then again, if only there was never a Bush administration. I'm not enthused about this yet. DPRK government will probably get cold feet and torpedo the whole thing. Don't forget Kim and his cronies are complete schizos. I look for an "interpretation" problem very soon.
Now that I've had some time to integrate this deal two things stick out. Fiirst is the fact that they've been working on so long and second that is has been timed to become news right after Bush ramped up the rhetoric on Iran, thus seeming to disconnect it as cause-result. In other words, I begin to wonder whether this deal is the result of a decision to attack Iran and Bush wanting to 'shore up defense on his flanks' before an attack. My initial reaction was that Bush was trying to shore up his public perception, but I'm not sure that 'W' would approve of something like this to do that. He at times seems to take perverse pleasure in doing what the people don't want because he believes it to be right. Could this be part of the wind-up to an attack on Iran?
Honestly I think the NK issue is separate from Iran. NK isn't really in a position to do anything, all they can actually do is scream and yell and threaten, so if the US attacked Iran, it could still deal with NK. I do agree that the administration is on, or is close to, a slippery slope with Iran, at the bottom of which is war. Hopefully someone comes to their senses before they get to the bottom, but... neither Bush nor the ayatollahs have been known for being rational about such issues. It's always... "I must be right and I will prove it to everyone, come hell or high water."
You can't be serious about "W" not approving something purely for the sake of public opinion. Why do you think Iraq has been mishandled so badly since the invasion? The administration has ran it like an ongoing campaign event, complete with disinformation about not needing more troops and blasting the "biased" press for not reporting the "good" and "progress" that was going on. And the fact that right now this president has zero credibility except with it's most blind supporters lends credence that it would take actions purely for the sake of public perception. On the other hand, I do not believe we will attack Iran, especially before Bush leaves office. The Iraq disaster has completely removed Bush's warmaking ability (unless we are responding to a direct attack). His own party wouldn't support him. Another issue is he has also hampered the warmaking ability for all U.S. presidents in the forseeable future.
