The Two Koreas_ A Contemporary History - Don Oberdorfer [201]
In view of this situation in Seoul, Gallucci in Geneva was instructed to insist that the U.S.-DPRK agreement include a clause committing North Korea to resume the dormant North-South dialogue. His opposite number, Kang, adamantly refused, on grounds that North-South relations were intra-Korean business and outside the legitimate concern of the United States. North Korean negotiators said flatly that they had instructions to break off the negotiations and return home if the U.S. side insisted on North-South issues as a precondition for the nuclear arrangements. Gallucci insisted that without a North-South commitment, there would be no agreement.
After threats from both sides to leave Geneva in failure, the North Koreans finally agreed to negotiate on the North-South issue. Several days of haggling over wording produced a paragraph declaring, "The DPRK will engage in North-South dialogue, as this Agreed Framework will help create an atmosphere that promotes such dialogue." The two sides had deadlocked on a timetable phrase, with the United States proposing the commitment to dialogue "at the earliest time." North Korea insisted on the "as" clause, which it later used as an excuse not to perform. Gallucci finally accepted these compromises, believing that no language could compel Pyongyang to negotiate with Seoul and that "the exact words were a matter of Talmudic significance to all those who lived on the Korean peninsula."
Although it was virtually a treaty in form and substance, with binding obligations on both sides, the accord was styled an Agreed Framework because the Clinton administration worried that it might not win approval if submitted to the Senate as a treaty. The North Koreans were gravely concerned that Congress would balk and that Washington would fail to uphold its end of the accord. The day before the signing, as agreed in Geneva, Clinton sent a letter to "His Excellency Kim Jong II, Supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" confirming that he would "use the full powers of his office ... subject to the approval of the U.S. Congress" to arrange for light-water reactors and provide "interim energy alternatives" during the construction period. The North Koreans complained about the less-than-ironclad language, but the Americans explained that under the U.S. separation of powers, even a president cannot act independently of Congress.
The agreement was signed in ceremonies in Geneva on October 21 by Gallucci and Kang for the United States and the DPRK, respectively. According to its main provisions:
• The United States would organize an international consortium to provide light-water reactors, with a total generating capacity of 2,000 megawatts, by a target date of 2003. In return, North Korea would freeze all activity on its existing nuclear reactors and related facilities, and permit them to be continuously monitored by IAEA inspectors. The eight thousand fuel rods unloaded from the first reactor would be shipped out of the country.
• North Korea would come into full compliance with the IAEA-which meant accepting the "special inspections"before the delivery of key nuclear components of the LWR project, estimated to be within five years. The DPRK's existing nuclear facilities would be completely dismantled by the time the LWR project was completed, estimated in ten years.
• The United States would arrange to supply 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil annually to make up for energy forgone by North Korea before the LWRs came into operation.
• The two states would reduce existing