North Korea announces ‘certain agreement’ with U.S.
North Korea said Friday that it had reached a “certain agreement” with the top U.S. nuclear negotiator during talks in Berlin this week, as the American official, Christopher Hill, met South Korean officials here to discuss how to get the Communist state to abandon its nuclear arms program.Although Hill played down the North’s announcement, it brightened the prospects that the six-nation nuclear talks would make progress when they resume in Beijing, experts said. The six-nation talks may restart in Beijing in the week of Feb. 5, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported.
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“I’m not really sure what he’s referring to,” Hill told reporters on arrival in South Korea on Friday, referring to the North Korean spokesman.
But the American envoy added: “We had very useful discussions.”
Reading between the lines, as you almost have to do when processing news from diplomatic talks, it seems to me that North Korea is pretty much ready to cave on this issue, and what remains is to find suitable face saving techniques to disquise that fact. Obviously, the indications of some increased pressure from China we were starting to see a while ago have played out, and there is good reason to be hopeful here.
