In dealing with North Korea, nothing is written in stone

If the United States can cool tensions with one of the charter members of President Bush's Axis of Evil, that will be a good thing. So the announcement Monday that North Korea has agreed to abandon "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear" programs, to abide by the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and to allow U.N. inspectors access to its facilities comes as welcome news.
But it is far from a deal that anyone would want to try to take to the bank.
North Korea is a notoriously unreliable negotiator and the Bush administration has a well-established reputation of showing little patience for North Korea's transgressions.
Not 24 hours had passed before North Korea tried to read more into the tentative agreement that was there. So no one could accurately predict what will happen between now and November, when the parties are due to be back at the negotiating table.
The preliminary agreement signed in Beijing gives North Korea an affirmation from the United States and South Korea that there were no nuclear weapons in South Korea; a non-aggression pledge from the U.S., and a promise of energy assistance from its neighbors.
Under a 1994 no-nukes deal, North Korea had been promised two light-water nuclear reactors for civilian power generation -- and those plants would have been much closer to reality today if North Korea had not violated the agreement by continuing a secret nuclear arms program. North Korea still wants those reactors but, given its history of reneging, that decision has been postponed until there is convincing evidence that it is complying with terms of the agreement.
Six-nation talks
The Bush administration pulled the plug on the earlier pact and demanded that any new talks be six-party negotiations involving the United States North Korea, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
Students of international diplomacy will write doctoral theses on whether that was a wise or a stubborn position for the United States to take, but it appears now to be the basis on which future relations with North Korea will rest.
There is a side benefit to the United States in actively involving Korea's neighbors in the talks. They'll be expected to bear some of the costs of implementing the agreement. South Korea estimates it will cost as much as $15 billion to finance the energy aid promised to North Korea. The aid will come in three stages beginning with heavy oil supplies, electricity provision and finally reactor construction over a period of up to 13 years.
The people of North Korea will benefit when tensions are reduced to the extent that more aid can flow into the nation, which is starved not only for energy, but for food. This is a nation that has spent billions of dollars pursing a nuclear arsenal even as its own people died of starvation.
The world will benefit if North Korea's ambition as a nuclear power is stifled.
There are reasons for optimism today, but only of a very cautious variety.