The issues that had in the past made Pyongyang an unworthy negotiating partner –clandestine enrichment of uranium and possible nuclear sharing or proliferation dealings with other states – appeared to have been set aside for future resolution.  And verification of Pyongyang’s declaration concerning its ‘known’ nuclear facilities seemed to have been left hanging.  President Bush was obliged to make public statements to the effect that the US expected the DPRK to be forthcoming on all these issues.  When that did not happen, Washington stopped short of completing the deleting the DPRK from legislation dealing with state sponsors of terrorism and ‘trading with the enemy’.  Pyongyang declared that the US had reneged on its written agreement (that is, President Bush had made invalid additional oral demands) and ostentatiously began to reverse the disablement of its plutonium reprocessing facility at Yongbyon.

The byword for these negotiations has been action-for-action.  But the two sides are dealing in very different commodities, and the precise rate of exchange has often been left somewhat vague.  Pyongyang may have blustered itself to a mini coup on this front. Expectations that the delisting referred to above would occur after all its declared nuclear facilities had been disabled collapsed into the view that only the three facilities at Yongbyon had to be disabled to ‘earn’ delisting.

This latest episode in an excruciating saga has probably strengthened the view that, in the case of the DPRK, being seen to be eager for an agreement and giving a senior bureaucrat authority to seek a deal is a recipe for being taken to the cleaners.  In addition, an already devastated administration is now being washed away by the worst financial crisis in a quarter of a century and facing the prospect of a Democrat landslide in November that could take several presidential terms to overcome.  Pyongyang appears to have its own diversions in the form of a serious health issue with Kim Jong-il.  Hill was back in Pyongyang earlier this month, reportedly armed with a proposal for a diplomatic sleight of hand to finesse the issue of the eventual verification of Pyongyang’s declaration without anyone losing face. Certainly, there is no room on the radar screens in Washington for another hiccup in the talks with North Korea.  We can only hope that China  ensures that Pyongyang limits its reversal of the disablement of the re-processing facility so that the new administration can say, with political safety, that the DPRK is a viable negotiating partner.