North Korean H Bomb Test - A cynical view

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Translation:
USA refused to guarantee the security of North Korea
in the first phase on nuclear disarmament and is described by RIA <novosti>. At the six-party talks, which started on February 8 in Beijing, the North Korean delegation put forward the conditions under which country is ready to stop the nuclear reactor, which is used to produce weapons-grade plutonium, in return for energy assistance and the conclusion of all participants in the negotiations by non-aggression guarantees from the United States. In addition, North Korea demands that all American aircraft carriers and fighter jets, calling South Korea, should be tested for the presence of nuclear weapons. And Washington, and Seoul those claims rejected. <In the current situation, the United States could not provide assurance that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea again failed to apply sanctions or not phrase military strikes>, - wrote prophenyanskaya newspaper in Japan. In the highest echelons of the North Korean dominated by the view that the nuclear crisis is the <vrajdebnaya politika> USA, and its demands to North Korea only to a change of attitude towards themselves, but in the talks, his delegation learned that, that the policy of the United States will remain the same.

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Agreement reached at North Korea nuclear talks, U.S. envoy says
Last Updated: Monday, February 12, 2007 | 8:28 PM ET
The Associated Press

Six countries reached a tentative agreement Tuesday on initial steps toward North Korea's nuclear disarmament, which could usher in the first concrete progress after more than three years of talks.

The U.S. envoy to the talks, Christopher Hill, emerged in the early morning hours of Tuesday looking weary after a marathon 16-hour negotiating session and announced that a tentative deal had been struck at the latest round of six-party talks on the North's nuclear program.


The draft agreement contained commitments on disarmament and energy assistance along with "initial actions" to be taken by certain deadlines, Hill said. Working groups will be set up, hopefully in a month, laying out a framework for dealing with regional tensions, the assistant secretary of state added.

He declined to give further details of the draft.

The agreement could herald the first step toward disarmament since the talks began in 2003. The process reached its lowest point in October when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion, alarming the world and triggering UN sanctions.

In the last few days, the talks had appeared to be on the verge of foundering, and envoys made clear that their frustration was increasing and their patience growing thin. The current round was to conclude on Monday but as they progressed toward a deal, negotiators extended it late into the night and then into the early hours of Tuesday.

Hill said the draft agreement still must be reviewed by the home governments of the six countries at the talks, but he was upbeat about its chances. He said he was in "constant communication" with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"We feel it's an excellent draft; I don't think we're the problem," he said.

North Korea did not immediately make any public comment, but South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo said he believed the proposal would be acceptable to Pyongyang.

Chun said the five other countries agreed to evenly share the
energy aid outlined under the deal.

However, Japan and Russia were more noncommittal. Japanese envoy Kenichiro Sasae said it was "too early to tell" whether Tokyo was satisfied. And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said there were "many questions regarding details," Russia's Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Hill said the parties to the talks will meet again later Tuesday.

In September 2005, North Korea was promised energy aid and security guarantees in exchange for a pledge to abandon its nuclear programs. But talks on implementing that agreement snarled on other issues and that plan went nowhere.

Hill has repeatedly said he hoped a resolution would help improve stability in a region filled with bitter historical disputes. The two Koreas remain technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

"We're trying to do more than just do denuclearization for energy," Hill said. "We're trying to address some of the underlying problems."

Though he did not provide specifics, a key demand from North Korea has been improved relations with the United States. Japan and North Korea remain fiercely antagonistic, in part because of North Korea's acknowledged but unresolved abductions of Japanese citizens.

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 on two nuclear reactors that would be able to generate two 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.

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North Korea has agreed to take the first steps towards nuclear disarmament in return for fuel aid. Chinese envoy Wu Dawei said an important consensus had been reached at the end of six-party talks in Beijing.

He said Pyongyang had agreed to close its Yongbyon reactor in return for 50,000 metric tons of fuel aid. Under the deal, North Korea will eventually receive another one million tonnes of fuel oil when it permanently disables its nuclear operations.

The latest round of talks - involving the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia - have been running since Thursday. Delegates worked late into Monday night to hammer out the final details of the deal.

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Some of the most contentious issues, though, have been put aside for later talks, giving Pyongyang ample time to get up to its all too familiar tricks. - Donald Kirk (Feb 13, '07)

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Talks agree nuclear disarmament in North Korea


EVENT
Six-party talks ended on 12 February in an agreement to work towards nuclear disarmament in North Korea.


Given the history of disappointments in bilateral and multilateral agreements, scepticism surrounds the current accord. North Korea has 60 days in which to shut down and seal its Yongbyon nuclear facilities, in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. Future incentives include the provision of 950,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, normalisation of relations with Japan and the US, and discussion of a permanent armistice with South Korea.

FORECAST
The vagueness of the current accord underlines its fragility. The current agreement only forces Pyongyang to shut down and seal its primary research reactor at Yongbyon, without mention of dismantlement or disposal of nuclear materials. No details have been provided on North Korea's nascent uranium enrichment programme.

© 2007 Jane's Information Group

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"I find it difficult to believe that this is a strategic decision to dismantle its nukes. I see this as a tactical way of getting the heat off, getting concessions and keeping the Chinese happy," said Michael Breen, Seoul-based consultant and author of "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."
With nuclear weapons, impoverished North Korea gets a seat at the table with global powers including the United States -- the nation it argues is trying to topple it and causes it to sacrifice so much to maintain its 1.2-million man military.
Without nuclear arms, North Korea is just a poor country with failed economic policies, analysts said.

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CNN did an interview today with former UN ambassador John Bolton and (not surprisingly!) the guy was visibly pissed off by the news from Beijing. Although Bolton is rightly criticized for his rude behaviour and diplomatic blunders his remarks regarding the deal were quite correct: North Korea is indeed rewarded for her ´bad´ (well that lies in the eyes of the beholder!) behaviour and all the ´tough´talk in recent years from Bush jr. administration was apparently only exactly just that: cheap talk. Of course Iran is watching closely and and will soon draw the necessary conclusions and this iranian reaction will certainly not further US nonproliferation interests.

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Finn McCool said:

I was watching a TV show on the History Channel last night and they interviewed several people from some geological monitoring center in Colorado that is the headquarters for some network with a bunch of sensors all around the world. Sorry I can't be more specific but I don't remember. Apparently they were the first people to detect the blast. Anyway they said that it was only a half a kiloton and was similar in size to many detonations related to mining that take place in the surrounding area (in Colorado, not North Korea.) It seems to me that it is likely that this blast was not even nuclear at all.

Perhaps one of North Korea's underground arms stockplies exploded and they decided to claim it was a nuclear blast. I mean rather than admit to something that that paranoid regieme would find embarassing they could have turned it into a positive.

Or perhaps I have been spending too much time on Above Top Secret.

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