North Korea to Shut Down Nuclear Reactor in Arms for Energy Deal

North Korea yesterday promised to shut down its nuclear reactor and re-admit international inspectors, as first steps towards eventual disarmament, in return for millions of dollars worth of oil.

The arms-for-energy deal clinched in Beijing represents a breakthrough after more than three fruitless years of talks involving six nations. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday it should serve as an example to Iran, which is currently under UN sanctions for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

Yesterday's deal, which the White House welcomed as "a very important first step" towards North Korea's nuclear disarmament, was only achieved after significant US concessions.

American negotiators agreed to bilateral talks that Washington had previously rejected and promised to "resolve" restrictions on North Korean-related accounts in Macau within the next month.

Furthermore, the deal - hammered out by both Koreas, the US, Japan, Russia, and China - does not require the North to dismantle its existing warheads, of which there are thought to be between eight and ten. Christopher Hill, the lead US negotiator, conceded the long-term disarmament of North Korea had "a long way to go".

Over the next 60 days, North Korea must seal its 5 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and make an inventory of all its nuclear programmes.

In return, the regime will receive 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, which it badly needs to keep functioning, or economic aid of equal value. The US will also begin the process of normalising diplomatic relations and removing North Korea from its list of state-sponsors of terrorism.

Conservative critics in Washington said it resembled the nuclear freeze negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1994, which was much derided by the Bush White House as naive, and which broke down in 2002 over US allegations of covert uranium enrichment.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, rejected the parallel with 1994, arguing: "This implementing agreement has the advantage of being multilateral" involving North Korea's powerful neighbours such as China and Russia who had the power "not only to make a deal to but to make sure one sticks".

She said it should be seen "as a message to Iran" that the international community can achieve important results when it worked together.

Diplomats from the region generally welcomed the agreement but said it left the most difficult decisions about denuclearisation still to be faced.

"This does not solve the problem in any fundamental way. But at the moment it is the best deal we can get. We must start somewhere," said Ham Seung Joo, a former South Korean foreign minister. "The most we can hope is that one day we will look back and say this is the deal that kept North Korea from strengthening its nuclear arsenal."

One diplomat said: "You could say the North Koreans have already achieved what they wanted to achieve. They have already acquired nuclear weapons, and the time is right for them to do a deal."

No deadline is set for North Korea to fully dismantle its nuclear stockpile, but if it takes irreversible concrete steps towards that goal it will be entitled to another 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil or an equivalent $290m in aid. Once it dismantles all its nuclear weapons programmes, South Korea has promised to supply 2,000 megawatts of electricity - worth $8.5bn - under an earlier agreement.

While today's document makes no mention of uranium, the subject cannot be avoided when the two sides begin to discuss the North's atomic weapons programmes in the next two months.

"We don't have an agreement at this point even on the existence of this programme but I certainly have made very clear repeatedly that we need to ensure we know the status of that," Mr Hill said.

In Washington, such loopholes could prove a problem when the deal comes before Congress for approval. Even before it was adopted, John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN, called on president George Bush to reject it.

"I am very disturbed by this deal," Mr Bolton said. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world: 'If we hold out long enough, wear down the state department negotiators, eventually you get rewarded.'"

Backstory

The deal is supposed to revive the September 2005 agreement that collapsed within four months - North Korea reneged because of US action over alleged financial scams. Nine months later Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test

The brinkmanship dates back to 1993 when North Korea threatened to build a bomb. Bill Clinton made a deal to help build two nuclear power stations in return for a freeze on nuclear weapons. That fell apart in 2002 when George Bush included North Korea in his axis of evil and the US accused it of developing a bomb in secret.