Not that Hill, so often overly
optimistic, was boasting of a
breakthrough. He was sure, he said,
that Kim had agreed to sampling
in October before Washington
removed North Korea from its list of
states sponsoring terrorism.
The point of the talks in Beijing
was to get all six parties to sign on to
a “verification protocol” –
diplomatic verbiage for a set of
guidelines to check out whatever
North Korea claims to have done
about giving up its nuclear weapons.
The Chinese side produced a
document for consideration at the
talks, but the North Koreans were
not about to agree to anything,
however artfully phrased, that might
be construed as removing samples.
Then why not, as some “experts”
suggest, agree on a separate memo
that provides for sampling after
North Korea has received the last of
the 950,000 tons of fuel oil
promised when it signed on to the
nuclear deal last year?
Under the rubric of “action for
action”, of course, the North
Koreans want every drop of that oil
or some other substitute to help it
rev up its collapsed economy.
After achieving that goal,
however, only an addled U.S.
negotiator would be foolish enough
to think Pyongyang would not find
new ways to put off getting rid of its
nuclear weapons.
So, now it’s up to Barack
Obama’s people, so deeply critical of
Bush, to see if they can do any
better than Hill. Incoming
secretary of state Hillary Rodham
Clinton will have to be a lot tougher
than was her husband, Bill, when, as
president, he fell for the first nuclear
deal with North Korea in 1994.
That deal was made to be
broken; in 2002, Pyongyang was
found to be conducting uranium
enrichment, entirely separate from
the plutonium program that was
sanctimoniously suspended at
Yongbyon.
As North Korea slows its
disabling of Yongbyon, then talks
about reviving it, it is clear the nation
poses the same threat as before its
removal from the U.S. list of states
sponsoring terrorism.
