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N. Korea To Give Up Nuclear Facilities

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By HELENE COOPER, The New York Times

Published: October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON - North Korea has agreed to disable all of its nuclear facilities by the end of the year, a move that the Bush administration hailed as a diplomatic victory that could serve as a model for how to deal with Iran, which has defied U.S. efforts to rein in its nuclear ambitions.

The North Korea agreement, announced in Beijing on Wednesday, sets out the first specific timetable for Pyongyang to disclose all its nuclear programs and disable all facilities in return for 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid.

The accord is the second stage of a six-nation pact reached in February that critics say rewards North Korea for its test of a nuclear device last October. The agreement has not yet resolved the contentious question of when North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons.

The agreement came on the same day North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held talks in the communist nation's capital of Pyongyang with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun at the first summit between the two countries in seven years.

The agreement calls on the United States to 'begin the process of removing' Pyongyang from a U.S. terrorism list 'in parallel' with North Korea's actions. Conservative critics said the United States should not take North Korea off the terrorism list until it gives up all its nuclear weapons, and argued that the pact was far too conciliatory toward a nuclear power with alleged ties to international terrorism.

The Bush administration, however, has been eager to show diplomatic progress, and President Bush suggested that the deal should serve as an example to Iran, which has refused to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

During a Town Hall meeting on Wednesday in Lancaster, Pa., Bush told a questioner that he might hold direct talks with Iran if it first froze enrichment of uranium.

'If your question is, 'Will you ever sit down with them,' we've proven we would with North Korea, and the answer is, 'Yeah, just so long as we can achieve something, so long as we are able to get our objective,'' Bush said.

John Bolton, the administration's former ambassador to the United Nations, said the White House violated the original purpose of the diplomatic talks by agreeing to negotiate side agreements with North Korea about taking Pyongyang off both the terrorism list and another list of 'enemy' nations forbidden from trading with the United States.

'If they come off either or both lists, without any final verification of their performance on the nuclear issue, I think the president will have embarrassed his administration in history,' Bolton said.

Critics of the White House, including some Democrats, note that the February accord bears a strong resemblance to the 1994 agreement between North Korea and the Clinton administration, which Bush administration officials had denounced as a giveaway and which collapsed in 2002.

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