U.S. Official Defends Korean Nuke Deal

As conservative critics sound off on the Bush administration's latest agreement to implement the phased denuclearization of North Korea, State Department officials are vigorously defending the deal as offering solid progress and say that North Korea's intentions will continue to be tested each step of the way.

"None of this process is based on trust," a State Department official says. The arrangement announced this week would have North Korea verifiably "disable" its plutonium-producing complex at Yongbyon and deliver a complete and accurate declaration of all its nuclear assets by the end of this year. The Bush administration, in tandem, will be working on the process of removing the North from the list of state sponsors of terrorism and on ending sanctions that flow from the Trading With the Enemy Act. Fuel aid shipments will also continue to arrive in North Korea. Critics, though, have said the deal is vague and leaves important details unclear. State officials beg to differ.

"There have been some rather specific discussions," says the State Department official, speaking of disablement requirements and expectations that the declaration will account for a second nuclear fuel program based on uranium enrichment. A technical team from the United States, adds the official, is expected to go to North Korea next week and "work on the practical nuts and bolts of disabling. We're beyond vagueness." The official says the nature of disablement has been the subject of three sets of conversations with the North Koreans.

On the uranium front, U.S. officials have said that they believe the North has acquired at least some sophisticated aluminum tubes and even whole centrifuges from the former proliferation ring run by Pakistani nuclear physicist A. Q. Khan.

"They're going to have to explain things that they're doing," says the official. "It has to be credible."

—Thomas Omestad