After the February 13 announcement that an agreement had been struck at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing, the American public was eager to know its details and what it meant for the larger diplomatic process. At an early March briefing co-presented by the Japan Society and The Korea Society, America’s lead negotiator at the talks, Ambassador Christopher Hill obliged the public by laying out the deal’s details and his thoughts on the prospects for further progress.

After an introduction by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Hill explained that the February 13 agreement was only a set of initial actions. Repeatedly emphasizing that this agreement represented only the very beginning of the denuclearization process, he described its terms: as a first step, the United States had agreed to supply 50,000 tons of fuel oil to the DPRK and set up a number of working groups in which to discuss issues such as the freeze on North Korean funds at Banco Delta Asia and normalizing U.S.–DPRK ties. The DPRK committed to shutting and sealing its reactor at Yongbyon within 60 days of these steps having been taken, in effect stopping any production of new plutonium. Once Yongbyon was verifiably closed, the U.S. would deliver another 950,000 tons of fuel oil to the DPRK.

Implementation of the deal is well underway and the working groups are having their first meetings. If these initial steps are successful, Hill continued, he’s hopeful that the parties will be able to deal with larger and more complicated questions, such as dealing with the plutonium that the DPRK has already produced and obtaining a full accounting of its highly enriched uranium program.

Hill fielded questions from the audience on implementation, verification and the ultimate conclusion of the Six-Party Talks process. Kristof asked whether, given the history of fruitless agreements between the U.S. and DPRK, a fair degree of skepticism about the current deal is warranted.

“Skepticism is healthy,” Hill replied, recounting criticism the February 13 deals has received from both Left and Right. “But this is the first time that [the U.S.] has gotten all the players together…the mechanism we’ve got in place now is the right one.”

< strong>Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Amb. Christopher Hill Discusses Progress & Next Steps in the 6-Party Talks