(CNSNews.com) – Washington’s decision to remove North Korea from its terror-sponsor list, not an unexpected step, is aimed at salvaging a fragile denuclearization deal that had begun to unravel.
 
The move announced Saturday came after the Stalinist regime threatened to throw out five years of painstaking multi-party negotiations, by starting to reverse the work done over the past year to dismantle its main nuclear plant at Yongbyon and kicking out recently readmitted nuclear inspectors.
 
Last week, South Korea’s top military officer told lawmakers Pyongyang was believed to be developing a nuclear warhead small enough to be carried by missile. In non-proliferation circles, concerns were raised about the possibility of another nuclear weapons test – possibly even before the U.S. presidential election.
 
Against that background, the announcement of a decision to delist North Korea after two decades was seen by some critics as capitulation to Pyongyang’s storied brinkmanship.
 
But State Department officials defended the agreement hammered out during a visit to North Korea by Christopher Hill, the administration’s point man on the nuclear standoff.
 
It is built around a protocol laying out how the international community will verify that North Korea has met its commitment  to declare – in documents handed over last June – all of its nuclear programs.
 
Under the deal, North Korea has agreed to allow outside inspectors to visit, conduct surveys at, and take samples from, its declared nuclear sites – the locations of its plutonium-based program. Inspections at undeclared sites, however, will be “based on mutual consent.”
 
A key element of the agreement is that it covers two areas in which North Korea has until now refused to cooperate – its alleged uranium-based program, and proliferation activities.
 
According to a fact sheet released by the State Department on Saturday, the two sides agreed that the verification measures “will apply to the plutonium-based program and any uranium enrichment and proliferation activities.”
 
Uranium-enrichment could provide another route to nuclear weapons. The U.S. says North Korea in October 2002 admitted to the existence of a covert uranium-based program – a violation of a 1994 agreement reached with the Clinton administration – but Pyongyang continues to deny this.
 
Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said last February the intelligence community had “a medium confidence level that they [the North Koreans] have and continue to operate a uranium-enrichment program.”
 
The proliferation worry is that North Korea may have provided – or may still be providing – nuclear know-how to countries of concern such as Syria and Iran.
 
Even assistant secretary of state for verification Paula DeSutter, who told a Saturday press briefing that verifiers by their nature tend to be skeptical – “we don’t trust anybody; we want to see the data” – called the inclusion of uranium and proliferation in the new agreement “exciting.”
 
North Korea on Sunday responded to the U.S. announcement with a foreign ministry statement saying it would now resume the disabling of the Yongbyon facilities.
 
The statement, issued through the official KCNA news agency, said North Korea would cooperate, although it did not mention the details of the verification agreement, including the references to uranium and proliferation.
 
Next steps
 
The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the road ahead will not be an easy one.
 
“This is the most secret and opaque regime in the entire world,” said acting assistant secretary for international security and nonproliferation, Patricia McNerney
 
The next step is to get the agreement reached between Washington and Pyongyang endorsed by the other four countries involved in the six-party talks framework – China, Japan, South Korea and Russia – according to Sung Kim, the department’s special envoy for the talks.
 
The administration’s concern that one party in particular may rock the boat was reflected in the numerous references in U.S. statements supportive of Japan in its unresolved dispute with North Korea over the abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 80s, apparently to train spies in Japan’s language and culture.
 
President Bush discussed the delisting and the politically sensitive abduction issue with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso by phone, and a State Department statement said the U.S. has “not forgotten and will never forget the suffering of the abductees and their families.”
 
Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, in the U.S. for G7 talks on the financial crisis, called the U.S. decision “extremely regrettable.” In Tokyo, however, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone in a statement confirmed that Japan remained committed to the six-party process and would work towards having the latest agreement adopted by the grouping.
 
In comments to reporters, Aso also played down Japan’s disappointment, voicing understanding for the U.S. move and saying it would not deprive Japan of “leverage” – as argued by a Japanese association representing the families of the abductees, as well as critics further afield, like U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)
 
Although North Korea’s delisting does bring Pyongyang some economic benefits – the U.S. will not be obliged to vote against loans by international financial organizations – it remains targeted by other U.S. sanctions, imposed for human rights violations, proliferation activities, and for carrying out a nuclear test two years ago.
 
Japan has its own sanctions in place against North Korea, including a ban on port calls by North Korean-registered vessels and imports of North Korean goods. Tokyo on Friday renewed them for another six months.
 
’Modest’
 
The U.S. move brought mixed reactions in Seoul, where Hill’s South Korean counterpart, Kim Sook, praised it and expressed the hope that it would put the six-party talks back on track towards their eventual goal.
 
But the country’s conservative JoongAng Ilbo daily called the decision “unprincipled,” adding “there are many who are surprised by how the United States repeatedly concedes to North Korea in negotiations.”
 
In the U.S., GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain voiced skepticism, saying he would not be able to support the move before the administration explains “exactly how this new verification agreement advances American interests and those of our allies.”
 
His Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, called it “a modest step forward” and “an appropriate response, as long as there is a clear understanding that if North Korea fails to follow through there will be immediate consequences.”
 
Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, wrote that “preliminary indications of the outline appear generally positive” and said it would mark “a surprising reversal by Pyongyang” on the uranium-enrichment and proliferation issues.
 
But he also said much remained to be revealed about the agreement’s parameters, and noted that the U.S. “appears to have watered down its requirements for short-notice challenge inspections, allowing Pyongyang to obfuscate on suspect sites.”
 
The U.S. put North Korea on the list in January 1988, based on its involvement in the Nov. 1987 bombing of a South Korean jetliner, which cost 115 lives.
 
A North Korean agent under interrogation said she and an accomplice had been tasked by Kim Jong-il to plant the device, to provoke unrest in South Korea ahead of upcoming Seoul Olympic Games.
 
Pyongyang’s removal leaves just four countries listed – Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. Libya, Iraq and the former Southern Yemen were delisted in 2006, 2003 and 1990, respectively.