BEIJING: The following are comments on the nuclear disarmament deal reached with North Korea at six-party talks on Tuesday.

Lee Jong-won, Korean expert and international politics professor at Tokyo’s Rikkyo University:

“This is a product of compromise that meets the minimum requirement of both the United States and North Korea ... The United States had demanded a ‘shut down’, and North Korea had wanted substantial aid.”

Lee added that the Bush administration can say that they’ve achieved more than the Agreed Framework as the agreement calls for a shut down of Yongbyon within 60 days, while the North Koreans can stress the fact that they would be receiving a total of 1.0 million tonnes of energy aid, double what was offered under the Agreed Framework.

Zhang Liangui, expert on North Korea at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Party School, a key thinktank:

“This is a step forward. But freezing, suspending, disabling isn’t necessarily the same as abandonment. So we still need to discount the possibility that North Korea will really abandon nuclear weapons. That’s a much more difficult and long-term issue.”

Peter Beck, Seoul-based Korea analyst with the International Crisis Group:

“I’m a bit under whelmed. But it’s one small step forward. I’m disappointed if this is all they agreed to. We’re in for many more long and painful negotiations before this becomes more than a piece of paper.”

Though he welcomed a proposed freeze of the nuclear plant he said it remained far from the demand that North Korea completely dismantle its nuclear programme.—Reuters