Via MSNBC/the AP: Negotiators: N. Korea to halt nuke programs

North Korea pledged to drop its nuclear weapons development and rejoin international arms treaties in a unanimous agreement Monday at six-party arms talks, the first ever after more than two years of negotiations.

The North “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date� to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, according to the agreement by the six countries at the talks.

Negotiators agreed to hold more talks in November, where they were expected to move on to concrete discussions about implementing the broad principles outlined in Monday’s agreement. The main U.S. envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, has warned that could still be a long process.

No doubt. Of the countries whose public pronouncements I find the least useful in the long term, North Korea would be at the top of the list. Still, this is interesting.

However, since the matter of nuclear power for non-weapon usage remains on the table, it would seem that this is far from over. They are demanding a light-water nuclear reactor as part of the deal that has yet to be struck–”a type believed to be less easily diverted for weapons use.”

In many ways, we seem to be back to the 1994 deal that eventually fell apart. We shall see how it all develops.

Further, there is the question of exactly what they will do with the weapons they currently have, and the weapons-grade materials they likely still possess:

The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged plutonium program, but hasn’t performed any known nuclear tests to prove its capability. In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons.

The NYT version of the story has more details:

The United States, North Korea and four other nations participating in negotiations in Beijing signed a draft accord in which the North promised to abandon efforts to produce nuclear weapons and re-admit international inspectors to its nuclear facilities.

Foreign powers said they would provide aid, diplomatic assurances and security guarantees and consider North Korea’s demands for a light-water nuclear reactor.

The agreement is preliminary and will require more rounds of negotiations to flesh out because it does not address a range of issues like timing and implementation that are likely to prove contentious. China announced that the nations taking part in the talks would reconvene in November to continue ironing out the details.

Even so, the agreement marks the first time since the United States accused North Korea violating a previous accord in 2024 that the two countries have drawn up a road map for ending their dispute through peaceful means.

The text of the agreement can be found here.

WaPo notes the role played by the Chinese in crafting the compromise:

The agreement was reached on the basis of a compromise proposal put forward by China in an effort to bridge differences between the United States and Pyongyang over a North Korean demand for a light-water nuclear reactor to produce electricity. The compromise suggested that North Korea be accorded the right in principle to peaceful nuclear energy, but only after dismantling its nuclear weapons program and rejoining the U.N. nuclear inspection regime and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.