By L. Gordon Flake
February 13, 2007

If implemented, the agreement announced Tuesday from the latest round of six-party talks in Beijing appears to represent the first real, if still tenuous, opportunity in years for a negotiated settlement to the vexing challenge of North Korea’s nuclear program. While far short of a “breakthrough”-let alone a resolution of the nuclear issue—the agreement delegates to a working group the most difficult challenge of negotiating away North Korea actual nuclear weapons. The current agreement does appear to leverage a freeze of North Korea’s nuclear production capacity and corresponding energy aid to create an environment conducive to more serious negotiations.

In the coming days the agreement is certain to be carefully parsed and critics have already begun to decry the apparent willingness of the Bush administration to compensate North Korea for a freeze of its nuclear production facilities without any firm commitment on the disposition of its existing nuclear weapons or fuel stock. However satisfying it may be to stand on principle, it was simply unrealistic to expect North Korea to make all the compromises without any movement, even if only of the face-saving variety, from the United States. More importantly, the U.S. ability to build the firm consensus among the other four parties at the talks-China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea-at the last round of talks in Beijing in December 2006 appears to have been contingent upon the U.S. willingness to demonstrate some flexibility in contrast to North Korean rigidity. It was arguably this united approach, coupled with financial pressure from the U.S., Chinese influence, and the close cooperation between the U.S. and the ROK, that brought North Korea back to the table. In contrast to deeply disconcerting early reports from the talks that seemed to indicate that North Korea would be given significant rewards for an initial freeze, the first stage of this deal appears to represent a more commensurate less for less and more for more approach.

While shutting down the Yongbyon reactor and other related facilities is a positive symbolic step, it is of limited substantive value. In 1994, the shut down and placement under IAEA inspection of the Yongbyon reactor was understood to be freezing North Korea’s known nuclear program. In its current form, freezing the balky Yongbyon reactor and readmitting IAEA inspectors has far less meaning and value since the previously monitored and now presumably reprocessed spent fuel rods are no longer at Yongbyon, and North Korea has already tested a nuclear weapon. Offering a mere 50,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil in compensation for this first step is also appropriately symbolic. In order to receive the more significant 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil, North Korea will have to not only “disable” the core components of its program but also “provide a complete declaration of all nuclear programs,” presumably including their highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. Again, a little for a little and more for more.

However, even in the early harvest stages of this agreement, the devil will not only be in the details, but also in the definitions. It appears that someone in Beijing was working overtime with a thesaurus to avoid the politically charged terms of “CVID,” the complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement that was a mantra in previous years. Following the initial “shut down” and “sealing” of the Yongbyon facility, North Korea has apparently agreed to the “disablement” all its existing nuclear facilities, immediately leading to questions as to what that “disable” means. Will the core components be shipped out of North Korea? What of the fuel currently in the Yongbyon reactor? What of the HEU program, which while not specifically mentioned seems to be key given the role it played in the collapse of the Agreed Framework. Along these lines North Korea’s “complete declaration” will be of particular focus in Washington and an early test of North Korea’s sincerity.

In one of his many post-agreement comments, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill rightly summed up the current effort saying, “This is only the end of the beginning of the process.” This agreement may get the negotiating process back on track, but the hardest work lies ahead. Each of the working groups will face complex and interrelated challenges that will test the will of the six parties to make progress in the five working groups independently. Most importantly from Washington’s perspective, the parties haven’t even begun to negotiate the price North Korea will certainly attempt to extract for the final abandonment of its nuclear weapons, materials, capabilities, and ambitions. More difficult still will be negotiations over the inspections and other verification procedures necessary to give reasonable assurance of North Korea’s compliance with any future agreements that might be reached.

Given the challenges that lie ahead, one key question will be the role of Assistant Secretary Hill. As tired as he appeared after Monday’s marathon sixteen plus hour negotiating session, the months ahead must appear more daunting still. One criticism of the 1994 Geneva Agreed Framework was that shortly after its conclusion, its chief negotiator Ambassador Robert Gallucci moved on and the implementation of that agreement greatly suffered. While no man is indispensable, it seems key that the nascent process continue to be guided by Secretary Hill or someone of similar or greater rank, particularly given the relatively short tenure remaining of the Bush administration. Perhaps this agreement will provide President Bush the opportunity to belatedly name the North Korea policy coordinator mandated by the Congress.

In difficult negotiations, it has become almost trite to quote the Chinese proverb that “A journey of ten thousand li begins with a single step.” The application of this proverb is particularly questionable in the case of negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program where that same initial step seems to have been taken over and over again. Yet, after a difficult set of negotiations and some generally alarming developments, foremost of which was the testing of North Korea’s nuclear weapon last October, it appears that this latest agreement in Beijing at least puts us back on the road.