N KOREA DISARMAMENT DEAL DOESN'T COVER CHEMICAL, BIO WMD

by Antoaneta Bezlova

(IPS) BEIJING -- Perhaps more than anything else, the deal on denuclearizing North Korea, drafted by China and agreed to by all six parties in Beijing, has scuttled the United States' intentions of engineering a 'regime change' in the 'Hermit Kingdom.'

The Feb. 13 agreement marks the first real breakthrough in three years of tortuous disarmament negotiations involving the U.S. and North Korea and neighbors China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Under the terms, Pyongyang will shut down its main nuclear reactor at the Yongbyon complex and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return for energy aid, and allow international inspectors to verify its actions.

Despite being described as the 'implementation' document of an earlier 2005 denuclearization agreement among the parties, the current deal has more specifics and a precise timetable.

Pyongyang has 60 days to seal the Yongbyon plant, admit UN International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and disclose all its nuclear programs. In return, it will receive 50,000 tons of fuel oil or economic aid of equal value.

The next phase, which has no timeframe, requires the North Korean regime to disable all its nuclear facilities and list its reserves of plutonium, the fuel that fed Pyongyang's first nuclear test last October. It will receive another 950,000 tons of fuel when it completes that process.

Under the agreement, Japan and the U.S. would take the first steps towards normalising relations with Pyongyang, with Washington also agreeing to begin the process of clearing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism. According to the agreement, Washington will also lift its freeze on North Korean bank accounts in Macao's Banco Delta Asia within 30 days.

President Bush welcomed the deal as "a very important first step" towards implementing a plan to make the Korean peninsula nuclear-free. "The talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programs. They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons," he was quoted as saying.

China, which hosted the talks for over three years, declared the outcome a "breakthrough" in a very arduous process, and the result of "powerful diplomacy."

"Not so long ago, there was doubt over whether the talks could move beyond stalemate,' said an editorial in the official 'China Daily' on Wednesday. "The successful end of the fifth round will rebuild the international community's confidence in the mechanism."

Despite both the U.S. and China praising the success of the multilateral negotiations, some Korean watchers say the outcome would have been impossible without a direct dialogue between North Korea and the U.S. preceding the talks.

Last month, the U.S. held one-on-one talks with North Korea in Berlin, discussing ways of ending the stalemate that has impeded the disarmament negotiations, since 2005, when Washington imposed financial sanctions on Pyongyang.

"The important progress made during these bilateral meetings in Berlin lessens the necessity of a multi-party forum like the six-party talks," Li Dunqiu, a Chinese expert on the Korean peninsula at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

China has been eager to use any diplomatic tool to forestall a crisis on the Korean peninsula. After North Korea's underground nuclear test in October, China showed unusual solidarity with the key countries that have a stake in the North Korean crisis, by voting in favor of mandatory non-military sanctions under the UN charter.

But ever since signing on the set of tough sanctions, Beijing has been under scrutiny on its commitment to enforce them effectively, that ran the risk of causing the collapse of a strategic neighbor. The UN resolution called on North Korea to abandon all nuclear programs and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in a "complete, verifiable and irreversible" manner.

By comparison, the agreement reached this week in Beijing appears less comprehensive and unequivocal as it omits reference to North Korea's biological and chemical weapons programs. It also postpones a resolution of Pyongyang's suspected clandestine uranium enrichment program.

China was quick to pledge its commitment to enforcing the provisions of the new deal. ''The Chinese government firmly supports the document and will spare no efforts to take on its responsibilities," State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan said at the end of the talks, according to the state-run Xinhua News agency.

The deal however, has been criticized by some as a "sell-out," which preserves the status quo of the reclusive North Korean regime. Human rights activists have documented the regime's long history of rampant abuses against its own people -- from imprisoning mentally ill and disabled in special camps to ruthlessly persecuting refugees. More than two million North Korean people are believed to have perished during the man-made famine of the late 1990s.