NK Hedges on Deal

From Yahoo! News

The disappointing details:

North Korea insisted Tuesday it won't dismantle its nuclear weapons program until the U.S. gives it civilian nuclear reactors, casting doubt on a disarmament agreement reached a day earlier during international talks.
ADVERTISEMENT

Washington reiterated its rejection of the reactor demand and joined China in urging North Korea to stick to the agreement announced Monday in which it pledged to abandon all its nuclear programs in exchange for economic aid and security assurances.

North Korea's new demands underlined its unpredictable nature and deflated some optimism from the Beijing agreement, the first since negotiations began in August 2003 among the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

"The U.S. should not even dream of the issue of (North Korea's) dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing (light-water reactors), a physical guarantee for confidence-building," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

U.S. officials dismissed the demand.

"This is not the agreement that they signed, and we'll give them some time to reflect on the agreement they signed," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in New York on Monday.

The announcement Monday that North Korea would dismantle existing weapons and stop building new ones, culminating two years of bargaining, contained no deadlines and few details. The six parties in the talks agreed to meet again in November, when the difficult questions of verification and timetables would be on the table.

North Korea only undermines its own credibility when it makes demands in exchange for promises already made free of those same demands. Even China insists that NK abide by the agreement reached yesterday. Without the leverage they'd have dealing with the US alone--as seen in their negotiations with the Clinton Administration, they'll have few options. Stunts like this only limit them further.

None of the nations involved with the talks wants a nuclearize Korean Penninsula. The sooner NK understands this, the better.