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Rice: North Korea Not Rewarded for Bad Behavior NewsMax.com Wires U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the agreement reached at the six-party talks in Beijing is a "very good start" - but only an initial step - toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. Rice says the parties have ample leverage in case Pyongyang reneges on its commitments. Elements of the step-by-step disarmament plan, including the provision of fuel oil to North Korea, will require congressional approval. And there is already grumbling from some U.S. political figures that the incentives deal rewards North Korea for producing and testing a nuclear weapon. But Rice is defending the agreement as a qualitative advance from the nuclear freeze agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1994 but which later collapsed amid U.S. charges of North Korean cheating. In a talk with reporters, Rice dismissed a charge by former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, now a conservative commentator, that the deal rewards North Korea with massive oil shipments for only partly dismantling its nuclear program. She said the deal moves quickly from a suspension of activity at North Korea's nuclear sites to permanently disabling them: "We have here a suspension of their activities within a period of 60 days, working groups, and the emergency assistance," Rice says. "But then disablement, I think, is what everybody is going to be watching, because disablement is certainly what we are going to be concerned [with]. Because disablement is a different kind of step than suspension." Rice also brushed aside a suggestion that the deal might encourage Iran to press ahead with its nuclear program with the expectation the international community will eventually reward its bad behavior. She said it is to the contrary, a display of international cohesion and resolve: "Why shouldn't it be seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources - particularly when regionally affected states work together - and that the strong diplomacy and the cohesiveness of the five parties in the six party talks has finally achieved results," Rice says. "I think that would be the message." Story Continues Below
Rice said the benefits going to North Korea under the Beijing agreement are more modest that those under the ill-fated 1994 "Agreed Framework" with Washington, under which an international consortium was to have built North Korea two light-water power reactors. She said while the deal offers Pyongyang a million tons of fuel oil if it completes the disarmament process, it is a finite amount, unlike the previous accord which committed to an indefinite series of yearly shipments. She said the other parties in Beijing agreed to eventually discuss provision of a safeguarded nuclear power plant to North Korea, but only after it has dismantled its existing nuclear programs and has, as she put it, "gotten back in the good graces" of the world community. Rice said if there was sufficient progress in implementing the accord after 60 days, the six parties would convene for a review at the ministerial level, which would provide for her first meeting ever with her North Korean counterpart.
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