Two Koreas meet, Bush defends nuclear deal
By Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea held talks on Thursday to mend fences broken by Pyongyang's missile and nuclear tests, buoyed by an energy-for-disarmament deal that U.S. President George W. Bush defended as a "good first step". Officials from the two Koreas -- technically still at war -- met in the North Korean border city of Kaesong to pave the way for resuming cabinet-level talks that have been frozen for seven months.
Underlining that the agreement clinched in Beijing this week has also brightened the outlook for relations between old foes Washington and Pyongyang, a South Korean news report said their two nuclear negotiators would visit each other's capital soon.
"It looks like the idea will become reality soon," a source in Seoul told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.
North Korea's Kim Kye-gwan and the U.S. State Department's Christopher Hill were the protagonists in the negotiations that also included South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
The deal signed would reward impoverished North Korea with energy aid in return for unwinding its nuclear arms programmes.
Bush said on Wednesday that critics of the breakthrough -- which came after more than three years of halting negotiation and a nuclear test by Pyongyang last October -- were "flat wrong".
John Bolton, his former ambassador to the United Nations, has criticised the deal because it relieves North Korea of financial pressure for only partially dismantling its nuclear programme.
"I changed the dynamic on the North Korean issue by convincing other people to be at the table with us," Bush said, citing the importance of having other countries party to the deal.
"So the assessment made by some that this is not a good deal is flat wrong," Bush said. "Now, those who say the North Koreans have got to prove themselves by actually following through on the deal are right, and I'm one."
Tuesday's agreement requires the secretive state to shutter its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent aid.
After the 60-day period, energy-hungry North Korea would receive another 950,000 tonnes of fuel oil, or equivalent aid, when it takes further steps to disable its nuclear capabilities.
The agreement also included provisions for the United States and Japan to discuss normalising ties with North Korea, and said Washington would begin the process of removing Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
NORTH-SOUTH TALKS
Ministerial-level talks between North and South Korea -- which have spurred economic cooperation, handouts from Seoul to Pyongyang and better relations -- broke down in acrimony last July after North Korea defied warnings and test-fired missiles.
South Korea's unification minister told reporters he hoped Thursday's discussions would help restore regular cabinet-level talks between the two and the delegates would also discuss the South's resumption of humanitarian aid to the North.
South Korea suspended its shipments of food and fertiliser to the impoverished North after the missile launches but said it could resume the aid, which typically includes a yearly 500,000 tonnes of rice, if the separate nuclear talks made progress.
Bush, who had previously bracketed North Korea with Iran and pre-war Iraq in an "axis of evil", said Pyongyang's agreement to a staged process of disarmament was "a unique deal" but he recognised it was only a first step.
"There's a lot of work to be done to make sure that the commitments made in this agreement become reality," he said.
Analysts agreed there were still serious challenges ahead.
"Freezing, suspending, disabling isn't necessarily the same as abandonment," said Zhang Lianggui, a North Korea specialist at the Chinese Communist Party's Central Party School, adding that full abandonment was a more difficult and long-term issue.
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