North Korea Adopts Accord For Nuclear Weapons Free Peninsula

North Korea has agreed to scrap all its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs and rejoin an international non-proliferation regime in exchange for political and economic benefits a joint statement, Yonhap News reported on Monday.

According to Yonhap's Beijing-datelined dispatch, the six-point statement summing up a week of tough negotiations involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia, confirmed that the realization of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula in a verifiable way is their ultimate goal.

China's top envoy, Wu Dawei, hailed the agreement as "the most successful outcome" ever since the six-nation talks began a year after the dispute erupted in 2002. All delegates stood up and clapped when Wu made the announcement.

South Korea welcomed the agreement, saying that it "has made an important turning point in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue." "We hope that the adoption of the statement would serve as an opportunity to advance practical means of helping peace take root on the Korean Peninsula," Yonhap quoted Kim Man-soo, a presidential spokesman, as having said South Korea's chief negotiator in the six-nation talks, Song Min-soon, said in Beijing that the agreement was a victory of South Korea's diplomacy.

Considering that the news in the US has been squarely focused on Katrina, this might not get as wide coverage as it should. This is a huge win for the Administration, since it sought to engage North Korea in six-way talks, instead of direct talks. China was instrumental in corralling North Korea's nuclear weapons intent, and South Korea wasn't giving away much by maintaining a nuclear weapons-free zone on the peninsula.

The key to this accord, as with all WMD-related international agreements is the verification phase. We know that North Korea has violated agreements not to acquire nuclear weapons in the past. We know they have the technological means to produce nuclear weapons, missile technologies, and their leadership is crazy enough to consider ownership of nuclear weapons to be superior to the need to keep their people fed. North Korea has been struggling to deal with famine for years - all due government meddling in food production.

The China-drafted statement calls for North Korea to rejoin the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as soon as possible and come under the control of the U.N. nuclear monitor, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The North, in return, will be given security guarantees plus fuel oil and electricity aid, it said.

The participants have pledged to honor the North's claim to peaceful use of nuclear energy and agreed to start discussions on providing it with a power-generating light-water reactor at "an appropriate time," the statement said.

The sequence of those agreements was not specified in the statement but North Korea has publicly stated that it would never give up its nuclear weapons program before getting promised benefits.

Major points covered in the statement include: -- The goal of the six-nation talks is the peaceful realization of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula in a verifiable way.

This is far from an ideal situation. North Korea's government maintains its control through blackmail at all levels - the local and the international. It would appear that its blackmail has worked to its advantage once again, by getting the world to give the North Koreans food and energy aid before the North Koreans give up a single thing.