North Korea agrees to nuclear freeze in return for foreign aid

North Korea and the United States have taken a step back from nuclear confrontation after the reclusive Communist state agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons programme in return for foreign fuel aid.

The deal, reached at six-party talks in Beijing, was hailed by the US President George Bush as "the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programme". His spokesman described it as a "very important first step" towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

But amid bitter memories of similar agreements that later fell apart, there were suspicions that North Korea had successfully blackmailed the world without totally renouncing its nuclear weapons programme. Announcing the agreement yesterday, the official Korean Central News Agency said Pyongyang had only agreed to a "temporary suspension" of its nuclear facilities.

Under the pact, reached after week-long negotiations involving the US, North and South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, Pyongyang agreed to mothball its Yongbyon reactor complex in return for $300m (£154m) worth of aid. South Korea, China, the US and Russia - but not Japan - will provide 100,000 tonnes of fuel oil or an equivalent value of economic or humanitarian aid.

Isn't that remarkably similar to the deal that Clinton had with North Korea, which Bush ripped up saying that it was rewarding a blackmailer?

I love how when Bush does U-turns we are all supposed to pretend that we suffer from amnesia and that we don't know that the glorious leader once held an opinion the complete opposite of the one he is now espousing. There are many on the right who have not forgotten Bush's stance and I notice that John Bolton is up in arms about it.

One Bush administration hawk, the former UN ambassador John Bolton, criticised the decision to "reward" North Korea. "It sends exactly the wrong signal to would-be proliferators around the world," he told CNN yesterday.

Tony Snow, however, was at pains to point out that North Korea is not in fact being rewarded for what Bush once referred to as "blackmail".

Tony Snow, yesterday denied North Korea was being rewarded and said the current deal, which could face hurdles before it is ratified, is stronger than earlier agreements as it committed six parties to the terms.

What a load of baloney Snow talks. The deal is almost identical to the one that Clinton worked out with North Korea and Bush's idiotic stance - backed by the most seriously deluded man ever to occupy the position of Vice President - succeeded only in turning North Korea into a nuclear power.

On Bush's watch North Korea acquired nuclear weapons and Bush has had to perform a 100% u-turn in order to rectify that serious error. In the early days Bush planned pre-emptive and possible nuclear strikes as a way of keeping other countries in order.

Indeed, typical of the arrogance that the administration oozed was the comment by Christopher R. Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, when North Korea announced it's plan to test a nuclear weapon:

“It can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both.”

I am glad to see that the administration has reversed it's disastrous policy regarding North Korea, but do we all have to pretend that it wasn't Bush's bad policy that led to a nuclear North Korea in the first place?

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tag: neo-cons, Bush, North Korea, nuclear, tests, bomb, containment, policy, failure, Kim Jong Il