145;More than we could expect146;

The six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear issues have reached an agreement and a joint statement was made yesterday. It is for...

The six-party talks to resolve the North Korean nuclear issues have reached an agreement and a joint statement was made yesterday. It is fortunate the parties were able to reach a dramatic agreement after facing a crisis that almost threatened to end talks. If the participating countries had not been able to reach an agreement, the Korean Peninsula could have been heading toward a real crisis. The negotiators were able to detour North Korea8217;s demand for a light-water reactor, a major issue obstructing the talks. The most significant point of this joint statement is that North Korea and the US both accepted most of what the other country wanted. North Korea promised to abandon its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programme. The US made it clear that it had no intention to attack or invade North Korea. On this basis, both countries pledged to respect each other8217;s sovereignty.. and also to take steps to normalise ties. These points had been discussed in the Geneva Agreement in 1994 and also in the US-North Korea joint communique of 2000. But this agreement is more significant since it was made within a multilateral setting8230;Its binding power within the international community is much greater than that of the earlier bilateral agreement. It is also more significant because it is based on a North Korean pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons8230;.

8220;The 1992 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula should be observed and implemented,8221; the statement says, and this passage is also remarkable. The declaration bans North and South Korea from nuclear reprocessing and possessing uranium enrichment facilities. But North Korea had been violating the joint declaration. Now that the joint statement has become a promise on a multilateral level8230;North Korea cannot again break those promises as they desire, as they did in the past. 8220;The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum8221; also stands out in the statement. Establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula was discussed in the six-party talks for the first time. The joint statement can be seen as an opportunity to resolve the North Korean nuclear issues and also dismantle the Cold War structure on the peninsula8230;The statement should be a guideline for bringing peace to the peninsula. The problem is how faithfully the countries involved will observe the terms of the statement. North Korea did not make an issue of the light-water reactor, but if this becomes an issue again, other negotiations8230;could make slow progress. There is also the possibility that if a party hesitates to follow the statement with this excuse, everything would return to the starting point. Let8217;s hope North Korea and the US will think of this statement as the 8220;start of resolving the problems8221; and take great effort to make follow-up negotiations go smoothly.