Eleventh-Hour Breakthrough Ends N.Korean Nuclear Talks Four-Nation Talks Could Discuss Korean Peace Treaty Seoul Saved Six-Party Talks: Unification Minister N.Korea's Reactor Dreams Should not Grow Further N.Korea Agreement Hits Snag Already The Going Gets Rough One Day After N.K. Agreement Pyongyang’s Antics Continue to Baffle Pundits Potential Hurdles on Road to Nuclear-Free N.Korea N.K. Starts on Long Road to Normal Ties With U.S., Japan

The South Korean government spent the last week engaging in last-moment negotiations to find an agreement over the light-water reactor issue, which North Korea would not abandon to the end, despite considerable tensions between Seoul and Washington.

Some, however, are wondering whether Seoul’s assumption of a mediating role between the United States and North Korea might become a burden on South Korea-U.S. cooperation on the North Korea nuclear issue.

The last-minute Chinese draft presented, in fact, South Korean ideas. It includes giving a change to North Korea to receive light-water reactors in the future, and the wording resembled that of the actual joint declaration. When U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill first saw the modified draft on Friday, however, he said he could not accept the vaguely worded agreement.

The U.S. delegation’s attitude on the matter, however, changed in just one day. Hill said Saturday that the participants had a good draft, and he’d engaged in much discussion with Washington.

There are many interpretations of this. Firstly, some say that to kill an agreement agreed to by South Korea, China and Russia with U.S. opposition would have been burdensome for Washington. The interpretation runs that the Bush administration, facing trouble at home and abroad, wished to avoid responsibility for a rupture in the talks.

The United States, however, has through the agreement virtually broken with the principle it had been most bombastic about. The Bush administration had been saying it could not reward illegal actions, calling it the “fundamental of fundamentals” of a resolution to the nuclear issue. Washington had also claimed that North Korea, which had already misused its peaceful nuclear program, could not be allowed another light-water reactor. Through this agreement, however, both principles have been shaken. Accordingly, some say its possible that U.S. neoconservatives, who take a hard-line against North Korea, will unleash an attack on the architects of the agreement, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.

Some point out that should there be criticism within the U.S. unsatisfied with South Korea’s mediation role, tensions and fissures may arise between Seoul and Washington.

(englishnews@chosun.com )