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Nuclear Agreement with North Korea Is 'A Useful Initial Step'

Council on Foreign Relations

Interviewee: Gary Samore, Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman, Consulting Editor

June 26, 2008

Gary Samore, who was a senior arms control negotiator in the Clinton administration, says North Korea's submission of a declaration on its nuclear activities, and the lifting of sanctions on Pyongyang by the United States marks "a useful initial step." But considerable work still needs to be done to ensure that North Korea is confirmed to have disarmed in the nuclear field. "All of the remaining issues—accounting for the enrichment program, accounting for North Korean proliferation activity, disabling other nuclear facilities and, of course, removing their plutonium and nuclear weapons—are more difficult issues," he says.

North Korea has presented to the six-party conference in Beijing its report on its nuclear activities. And then almost immediately President Bush issued a statement saying he intended to rescind North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism and to lift the application of the Trading with the Enemy Act in regard to North Korea. What happened?

The basic core of the deal is that North Korea has taken the final steps to disable the Yongbyon nuclear facility and to declare how much plutonium it produced at that facility. In exchange, the United States has taken steps to lift economic and political sanctions against North Korea, in particular the Trading with the Enemy Act and the sanctions against North Korea for being on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

This was a statement North Korea was supposed to turn in at the end of last year, as I understand. A six-month delay in the world of diplomacy is not a huge thing, and I suppose the document that was received is rather detailed. Do we have any idea of what's in it?

There were two issues that caused the delay. The first was the abductee issue, which greatly concerns Japan.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.