“We did have a good set of meetings yesterday,” US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. “We went through all the issues that we really wanted to go through, except to have an expanded discussion on what could be the scope for this next phase.”

The Chinese delegation’s spokesman Qin Gang says that an announcement would be made “very soon” outlining the consensus.

Hill says that the US was not demanding “anything unusual” for the proper verification of North Korea’s dismantling of its nuclear program.
“We’re asking for things that are done all over the world,” Hill said. “We want basically standard kinds of package of how you verify this type of nuclear program.”

This understates the importance of what these developments have set the stage for. It is nothing less than the end of hostilities between the United States and North Korea after the Korean War and the beginning of the normalisation of North Korea’s relations with the rest of the world.

President Bush has already promised withdrawal of embargoes against North Korea under American Trading with the Enemy Laws and removal of North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The scene has been set for comprehensive settlement with North Korea, a settlement that will immediately ease North Korea’s food and energy problems but also promises long term access to finance and assistance to promote its open economic development.

Australia was once at the forefront of diplomacy on the North Korean issue, with active engagement and encouragement of moves that would help to prepare North Korea for the difficult and hugely-underprepared business of its opening up its economy and society to the rest of the world.

Over the last six difficult but active years of American diplomacy, Australia has played itself out of the game. The previous government didn’t just go into neutral on North Korea, it went into reverse.

Australia has assets (including experience with development cooperation and the internationally reocognised economic training programs, along with the UN and other international agencies, supported at the ANU) that can be brought into play. But the new Australian Government has yet to focus on deploying them.

Australia now needs to move quickly if it is not to compromise its strategic economic and political interests in what will likely flow over the next few years from developments in Beijing over the last few days.