North Korea to scrap nuclear plans

North Korea has agreed to fully disclose and disable its entire nuclear programme by the end of the year, the chief US negotiator said last night — the first time Pyongyang has offered a timeline to end its nuclear ambitions.

Christopher Hill, who has been negotiating with Pyongyang for months over its nuclear programme, said under the deal North Korea would fully disarm in return for aid and security guarantees — most notably the normalisation of ties with the US.
If North Korea is genuine in its pledge to detail and dismantle its nuclear programme, and if it can be fully verified with inspections, it will represent one of the biggest diplomatic breakthroughs of the Bush presidency and have enormous geopolitical repercussions.

North Korea, called part of an “axis of evil” by President Bush in 2002, conducted its first atomic test in October and has been enriching uranium and plutonium for more than a decade.

An agreement was reached with North Korea by the Clinton Administration in 1994, under which the North agreed to freeze its plutonium enrichment in return for aid.

But it fell apart in October 2002 when Pyongyang admitted that it had been secretly enriching uranium.

The US now believes that Pyongyang has up to six atomic weapons. The deal struck yesterday goes further than the 1994 Framework Agreement because North Korea has agreed to entirely reveal and dismantle both its plutonium and uranium programmes. “Full means full,” Mr Hill said. He said that six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia will continue, with the next session next month to produce “a more detailed implementation plan for disablement”.

The Times