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N. Korea Nuclear Accord Reached
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"If they want a future in the region, they need to deal with Japan," Hill said.
North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan told reporters in Beijing that "the timing is specified" for exiting the list, but South Korean envoy Chun Yung Woo said there is no clear-cut schedule. He said there are references in the text to events taking place by the end of the year. "It's laid out so that it looks that way to North Korean eyes," he told reporters in Seoul.
A senior Japanese diplomat said that Japan has made clear its concern about a quick removal from the terrorism list, even though U.S. officials believe the abduction issue is not directly relevant to the criteria for inclusion on the list. "They would not sacrifice the U.S.-Japan relationship for the U.S.-North Korea relationship," the Japanese diplomat said.
Hill said North Korea is expected to make an initial declaration about its nuclear programs by the end of this month, though he predicted it would be incomplete. He said the various parties would negotiate over the text, with the aim that North Korea would make full disclosure by the end of the year.
He confirmed that North Korea is expected to reveal the extent of its plutonium production, including efforts in 2003 and 2005 that gave it enough fissile material for as many at 10 weapons. He declined to discuss the North Korean willingness to allow experts to examine the aluminum tubes.
Hill said that North Korea would begin disabling three facilities at Yongbyon -- the nuclear reactor, a fuel fabrication facility and a plutonium reprocessing unit. He said initial steps could be as basic as removing spent fuel rods from the reactor, but that North Korea would later do more to exceed the requirements of the 1994 agreement.
Hill said that when the 1994 deal collapsed, North Korea was able to restart the reactor in two months. "We want something more than two months but less than five years," the time needed to build a new reactor, Hill said. Other diplomats said the steps envisioned in the agreement would amount to a delay of about a year before North Korea could restart its nuclear programs.
"Our understanding is that disablement does not have to be 100 percent irreversible," the Japanese diplomat said.
