U.S. Removes North Korea From Terror Blacklist - Download Free Phim, Nhac, Phan Mem, Karaoke

conmeo · #1 (**permalink**) 10-11-2008, 12:19 PM

U.S. Removes North Korea From Terror Blacklist

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration announced on Saturday that it was removing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism and said the country had agreed to adhere to concessions on its nuclear program, in a bid to salvage a fragile nuclear deal that seemed on the verge of collapse.

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that North Korea had agreed to resume disabling its plutonium plant at Yongbyon, replace the seals on its nuclear equipment and allow international inspectors to return.

But almost immediately, the move brought expressions of concern from Republican lawmakers, including the presidential nominee, Senator John McCain.

In the most significant part of the agreement, North Korea agreed to a verification regime that would allow United States inspectors access to all of its declared nuclear facilities. But the deal puts off decisions on the thorniest verification issue: what happens if international experts suspect the North is hiding other nuclear weapons facilities.

The deal also salvages an agreement that the Bush administration hoped to trumpet as one of major foreign policy achievements.

The United States wanted the North to agree to inspections at sites that raise suspicions, but North Korea balked. The new agreement calls for United States inspectors to be granted access “based on mutual consent” with North Korea.

Experts on North Korea say that the concession by the United States was probably necessary to achieve a deal, but that it no doubt will lead to more fights since the North’s leaders will not want to give inspectors free rein to travel the country.

The agreement follows weeks of intense negotiations and high-stakes brinksmanship, as North Korea, furious that the Bush administration had not removed it from the terrorism list as it agreed last summer, threatened to restart its plutonium-based weapons program and barred international inspectors from the Yongbyon plant. In Washington, State Department proponents of the deal, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top North Korea envoy, Christopher Hill, battled critics both within and outside the administration who castigated them for trying to salvage the accord.

Ms. Rice convinced President Bush last week that this was the best the administration could get in the time remaining in office. But as late as Friday, things remained up in the air, said one administration official who, like other officials and diplomats interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity. Another senior administration official described the internal deliberations as a “close call.”

Senator McCain said in a statement that he wouldn’t support the deal until he got some questions answered. “I expect the administration to explain exactly how this new verification agreement advances American interests and those of our allies before I will be able to support any decision to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism,” he said. He added that he was “concerned that this latest agreement appears to have been reached between Washington and Pyongyang, and only then discussed with our Asian allies in an effort to garner their support.”

Diplomats said that Japan had initially had reservations about removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as Japanese officials complained that the North still had not addressed all of their concerns over abductions of Japanese citizens decades ago.

On Friday, Ms. Rice spoke to Japan’s foreign minister, urging him to endorse the accord, administration officials said.

Bush administration officials have also been in consultations with China, South Korea and Russia, the other members of the group of Six Parties, which have been seeking to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

The Bush administration has been eager to get a deal with North Korea before President Bush, who once famously labeled North Korea a part of the Axis of Evil, leaves office in January. The administration had dragged its feet about nuclear negotiations with North Korea for years, but in 2006 the North exploded a nuclear device. Shortly after that, Washington redoubled its efforts at negotiations, finally reaching an agreement this year.

Gary Samore, a nonproliferation expert in the Clinton administration, characterized the deal as probably the best that the administration could get at this time, but warned of stormy times to come. “Every agreement you ever have with the North Koreans always contain certain ambiguities, and that ends up being the basis for which you have the next round of talks,” he said. “It’s always two steps forward and one step back.”

For instance, he said, besides the issue of access to suspected nuclear sites, the United States and North Korea appear to have fudged the critical issue of whether American inspectors will be allowed to take samples out of the country to foreign laboratories for inspection. According to a fact sheet issued by the Bush administration, the two sides agreed “on the use of scientific procedures, including sampling and forensic activities,” although the sheet doesn’t say how.

North Korea wanted samples tested in the country and had even asked the United States to build expensive laboratories to do so; the Bush administration wanted to be able to take samples out of the country.

“We have discussed with them the fact that sampling must include taking things away to be analyzed,” a senior administration official said. As for the ability to inspect undeclared sites, he conceded that the agreement could cause disagreements in the future.

“We need to work things out,” he said.

John Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations under President Bush and a strong critic of the deal, said that the Bush administration had “punted” the hardest issue. “This means that North Korea has a veto over everything beyond Yongbyon,” he said, “so that’s a clear victory for North Korea.”

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