Financial Times Editorial - From the axis of evil to a grand bargain

Financial Times Editorial - From the axis of evil to a grand bargain
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: February 14 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 14 2007 02:00



The six-party talks hosted by China have finally produced a detailed if preliminary agreement pointing towards the eventual denuclearisation of North Korea. After the latest, 16-hour session of horse-trading between officials from the US, Japan, Russia, China and the two Koreas, the regime of Kim Jong-il has pledged to shut down its nuclear programmes in exchange for diplomatic recognition, oil and other aid.

Sceptics - and there are plenty of those in the US and Japan - will point out that this is not the first time that North Korea has reached such an agreement. A US-North Korea deal in 1994 eventually came to nothing after the US accused Pyongyang of pursuing a secret uranium enrichment programme alongside the suspended plans to build plutonium-based weapons.

But everything changed last October after North Korea detonated its first nuclear device, giving a new urgency to the faltering talks. President George W. Bush, who branded North Korea in the second year of his presidency as part of the "axis of evil", now runs an administration as eager to compromise with this residual Stalinist regime as his first team was to confront it.

At the core of yesterday's multilateral deal is a bilateral "grand bargain" between the US and North Korea, brokered by China. All those tonnes of heavy fuel oil are not half as important as talks between Washington and Pyongyang aimed at "moving towards full diplomatic relations", US moves to stop designating North Korea as a "state sponsor of terrorism" and the intention to negotiate separately a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula.

This encouraging deal - while still tentative and fragile - is constructed to maintain momentum, lock in multilateral pressure, and provide regular rewards for the progressive abandonment of each and every phase of North Korea's nuclear programme. Christopher Hill, the US negotiator, dealt skilfully not only with Washington's North Korean enemy but also with China and Russia, its great power rivals, and South Korea, its awkward ally.

Some big questions remain. A key difference from the Agreed Framework negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1994 - so derided by the first-term Bush team - is that Pyongyang now has the bomb. From now on, each stage of negotiations is going to get even tougher. Second, if the US can treat with North Korea, which has the bomb, can it reach a grand bargain with Iran, which (so far) has not? Third, was it ultimately China that persuaded North Korea to strike a deal, and can Beijing therefore use its growing influence to resolve other international problems? Above all, does Kim Jong-il, the "Dear Leader", really intend to implement the outline agreement that his representatives have accepted in Beijing? Only if he does will yesterday be remembered as a milestone in the struggle against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.