Window of lost opportunity

North Korea | Pyongyang just can’t leave a good thing alone | Priya Abraham

For a brief window—less than 24 hours, to be exact—it looked like a diplomatic breakthrough. After two years, four rounds of talks, and six parties at the table, North Korea signed a statement Sept. 19 agreeing to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in return for aid and security guarantees.

But the feted news soon turned embarrassing for the United States and fellow negotiators China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan. The next day North Korea demanded it receive light-water nuclear reactors—supposedly for energy needs—before it dismantled its weapons program. "The U.S. should not even dream" of North Korean nuclear dismantlement, an official government statement read, until the nation had received the reactors as "a physical guarantee for confidence-building."