BEIJING: Now comes the hard part. It took more than two years and four rounds of talks, the latest a marathon 20 days, to finally get North Korea to agree to abandon all of its nuclear programmes.

Convincing unpredictable Pyongyang to actually dismantle them is another question entirely.

To be sure, the hard-fought accord marks a watershed in the three-year crisis: it is the first time the United States, North and South Korea, Russia, Japan and negotiations host China have been able to agree on a joint statement.

It prevents a collapse of the talks and a possible escalation of the crisis to the UN Security Council, where the United States may have led a charge for sanctions that the North had warned would amount to a declaration of war.

“When you think what might have happened if the talks had fallen apart, they have avoided a very serious situation,” said Masao Okonogi, Korea specialist at Tokyo’s Keio University.

But he added: “The statement consists only of targets and principles. It is only the first half of the battle. Implementation will mean they have to go through another set of equally tough negotiations.”

US chief negotiator Christopher Hill acknowledged the statement itself had not resolved the crisis but was a critical step towards an eventual resolution.

Indeed, the joint statement fails to resolve the chicken-and-egg debate over whether the North will get energy aid and security guarantees before or after it dismantles its nuclear programmes. Pyongyang wants the concessions first; Washington wants the programmes scrapped before the aid tap can flow.

It also leaves unresolved North Korea’s demand for a light-water nuclear reactor, a subject the parties agreed only to discuss at an ‘appropriate time’. That issue, analysts say, is certain to come back to haunt them.

Add to that the North’s patchy track record for abiding by international agreements, its near-pariah status and the prospect of instability in the poverty-stricken country, and the accord appears more sieve-like than watertight.

“The agreement allows participants in the talks to interpret it as they like, yet no issue has been resolved,” said Lee Dong-bok, Seoul-based senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“The discussion on the light-water reactor issue has been simply delayed and we don’t know when that will be. The issue may emerge again when they begin discussing details,” Lee said.

North Korea’s unpredictability and history of breaking accords will no doubt weigh on future talks — another round has been set for November — not to mention the implementation of any agreement.

For example, the current crisis itself erupted in October 2002 when Washington confronted the North with evidence it had a clandestine nuclear weapons programme in violation of international agreements.

And despite the smiles and handshakes in Beijing, there remains a deep-rooted mistrust between the two main protagonists in the crisis.

The United States has at various times during President George W. Bush’s tenure labelled the North as part of an ‘axis of evil’ along with Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and, this year, an ‘outpost of tyranny’.

The North has seen no shortage of anti-US rhetoric. After Bush’s axis of evil comments, one Pyongyang newspaper denounced him as ‘the kingpin of terrorists, the devil of the devils and a gangster of war’.

The crisis talks featured a 13-month gap after the third round in June 2004. Pyongyang first waited on whether Bush would be re-elected and then, after he was, spent months declining to return to the table and denouncing what it called the hostile policy of the United States.

“It will take a long time to truly fulfil the promises each side makes and to solve the problems considering that the US and North Korea still lack mutual trust,” said Tao Wenzhao, an expert on America at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think-tank.

Still, there was unprecedented contact between Hill and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, at the latest talks, with numerous bilateral meetings and even meals shared.

The test of whether that goodwill will last comes in November, when the negotiators get down to the specific steps that will lead to North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.—Reuters