| | POLITICS: North Korea Deal Seen as Starting Point Only (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-09-23) |
 | | This provision was deemed so politically sensitive that the State Department and its top negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill, sent it all the way up to Bush for final approval before the agreement was announced by Beijing, which has chaired the talks. |
 | | The agreement provides that North Korea will give up all of its nuclear weapons and programmes, return "at an early date" to the NPT, from which it abruptly withdrew three years ago, and submit to inspections and safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. |
 | | While Pyongyang's statement was seized on by hawks here as evidence that North Korea was not acting in good faith, Hill vowed not to get "hung up on" these kinds of details at this point in the process. |
| www.ipsnews.net /news.asp?idnews=30371 (1076 words) |