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WASHINGTON : The United States hailed a landmark deal struck with North Korea on Tuesday to rein in its nuclear programme as a sign the erratic communist regime may finally be ready to abandon its 30-year quest to be a nuclear power.
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cautioned that tough negotiations remain ahead for the complex multi-phase agreement, which in the first stage only requires Pyongyang to freeze a major nuclear facilty and let in UN inspectors.
The key steps requiring North Korea to reveal the full extent of its nuclear programme, dismantle all facilities and hand over its atomic arsenal are to be dealt with in later phases - a process critics say is unlikely to succeed given Pyongyang's poor record of honouring agreements.
"This is an important initial step toward the goal of a denuclearised Korean peninsula and a stable and secure Northeast Asia," Rice told a hastily arranged press conference after the deal was struck overnight in Beijing.
"This breakthrough step was the result of patient, clear and tough diplomacy," she said of the negotiations with North Korea carried out jointly by China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
The deal requires North Korea within 60 days to shut down and seal "for the purpose of eventual abandonment" its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon and readmit UN nuclear inspectors.
In exchange, the five other parties will provide Pyongyang with 50,000 tonnes of fuel oil as "emergency energy assistance".
In a second phase, North Korea is to reveal a list of all its nuclear programme and materials while the US will begin a process of normalising relations with Pyongyang and Rice will, for the first time, meet her North Korean counterpart in the context of a six-party ministerial meeting.
In tandem, North Korea's five partners will provide Pyongyang with the equivalent of one million tonnes of fuel oil in the form of economic and humanitarian assistance - twice the economic reward offered by the US in a 1994 bilateral denuclearisation pact which collapsed in 2002.
President George W. Bush welcomed the deal, saying in a statement: "I am pleased with the agreement reached today at the six-party talks in Beijing."
"These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programme. They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons."
But Conservative critics, led by former UN ambassador John Bolton, slammed the agreement as a climbdown for Bush that offers North Korea rewards in exchange for "very minimal commitments".
Rice rejected the criticism and suggestions Tuesday's agreement was virtually identical to the 1994 deal reached under president Bill Clinton and which she and Bush have both strongly criticised.
She argued that as a multilateral agreement, which includes key North Korean allies China and Russia, the new deal is far more enforceable than Clinton's bilateral approach.
"All the major players in the region now share a stake in its outcome as well as a demand for results and accountability," she said.
She also stressed that while the text of the agreement does not explicitly mention North Korea handing over its nuclear weapons - believed to number up to 10 bombs - the meaning is clear.
"The joint statement covers the fact that North Korea must declare and abandon all of its nuclear programs, and everybody understands what 'all' means," she said.
Rice also rejected suggestions the deal essentially rewards North Korea for developing nuclear weapons in defiance of the global community and thus undermines US-led efforts to keep Iran from doing the same.
"This should be seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources" to confront proliferators, she said.
Rice said Tuesday's deal was a result of talks she held with her six-party counterparts on the sidelines of an Asian summit in Vietnam in November at which they worked out what she called the "early harvest" formula linking rewards to nuclear "disablement" steps by North Korea.
Rice said she was closely involved in the final stages of the negotiations, speaking numerous times Monday with chief US negotiator Christopher Hill and then waking at 4:15 am on Tuesday to call him for confirmation of the deal.
But she used a reference from her favourite sport, American football, to express caution about the final outcome.
"This is still the first quarter, there is still a lot of time to go on the clock, but the six parties have now taken a promising step in the right direction," she said. - AFP/de
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