AS Hill says North Korea will submit in days its declaration of activities:
I think they will be providing a declaration to the chair of the six parties, that is to the Chinese. And that will be addressed in the coming days and weeks, as soon as China is able to schedule a Six-Party meeting.
He later told a group in South Korea that he expected the declaration “in the next few days, certainly within the next week.”
This, by the way, will be a draft, on which the US will comment, as Hill explained in Japan:
Well, I think the complete listing of the nuclear programs is going to be a process. That is, I don’t think it will be done in one day. I think it will involve the DPRK giving us a draft. And then I think there will be discussions, and there will be adjustments to the draft. So I think it’s a process that will be completed this month, but not on this day.
Should be interesting.
So the US will accept an iterative process with North Korea’s nuclear declaration. That makes sense since we know from our experience with Iraq that, even when they are trying with all their might to answer questions—and Iraq certainly tried that with a number of issues if not all of them—that it takes a couple of tries for them to understand what is wanted.
But why can’t we accept an iterative process with Iran?
Let’s hope the DPRK’s “full, final and complete declaration” of its nuclear program can be reconciled more quickly than Saddam’s (1991-present, and still counting).
Hill had said at his Oct. 25 House hearing that an initial draft list was going to be submitted by at least mid November, which seemed good as it would give at least some time for wrangling over the specifics(ie.plutonium). With the next session likely to be held in early December, will this give the 6-Partys enough time to agree on a list to meet the end of the year deadline? Or are we going to see a “they met the deadline because the fact that they submitted an initial list technically counts” kind of thing where we then extend out final acceptance into next year?
Late-breaking news, probably needs confirmation:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/world/20071201TDY01306.htm
U.S. to set 3 more tasks for N. Korea / New hurdles for delisting as terror sponsor
Takashi Sakamoto / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
WASHINGTON—The U.S. government has decided to impose three new conditions for removing North Korea from Washington’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, sources close to the six-party talks said Friday.
Pyongyang must reveal the amount of plutonium it has extracted; the reality of its uranium enrichment program; and the alleged transfer of nuclear technology and materials to other countries such as Syria, the sources said.
These points should be made clear when North Korea completes its declaration of its nuclear programs by the end of this year, the sources added.
The new conditions will be in addition to the current U.S. requirement that North Korea complete the disablement of its nuclear facilities.
It is now likely that North Korea will not be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism anytime soon, since it is unlikely that the country will accept all four conditions, the sources said.
Latest:
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-30842120071205
North Korea moves to nuclear dismantling – U.S. envoy
By Chris Buckley
Wed Dec 5, 2007 8:41pm IST
BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea is moving towards disabling its key nuclear complex, but has not yet agreed with the United States what nuclear activities it must disclose, the chief U.S. envoy to disarmament talks said on Wednesday.
Speaking after a rare trip by a U.S. official to the old Cold War foe, Christopher Hill told reporters that he had visited the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which contains the reactor at the heart of Pyongyang’s atomic programme, and seen that dismantling was going forward at three key units of the facility.
But Hill also said he had cautioned Pyongyang that a declaration of the North’s nuclear activities promised by the end of the year had to be “complete and correct” and contain no surprises.
“We wanted to make sure that they would include all the facilities, materials and programmes,” Hill told reporters in Beijing. “There are definitely some differences there.”
Hill said he still expected Yongbyon to be disabled by the end of the year and for North Korea to issue its disclosure.
But he was not sure there would be time for six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China on the issue to be held by year-end.
Hill’s was the highest-level U.S. visit so far to the Yongbyon nuclear complex.