U.S., N. Korea to Reopen Talks : Asia: Washington will put sanctions drive on hold in return for Pyongyang’s suspension of nuclear program. Accord is ‘opportunity to find a solution,’ Clinton says.

The United States and North Korea took a major step away from crisis on Wednesday, with the Clinton Administration agreeing to reopen direct negotiations and suspend its drive for sanctions in return for North Korea’s pledge to freeze its nuclear program and allow international monitoring of its reactor.

The accord is the “beginning of a new stage in our efforts to pursue a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula,” President Clinton said, announcing the talks’ reopening. “These developments mark not a solution to the problem, but they do mark a new opportunity to find a solution.”

Wednesday’s announcement firmed up an offer that North Korean leader Kim Il Sung made to former President Jimmy Carter during his visit to Pyongyang last week. White House officials had expressed caution about Carter’s announcement that North Korea would freeze its nuclear program and had insisted on seeing the pledge in writing directly from the Pyongyang government.

Under the terms, the North Koreans pledged not to place any new fuel in their nuclear reactor or to begin reprocessing of fuel rods withdrawn from the reactor last month. Reprocessing would free plutonium that could be fashioned into nuclear bombs. The freeze would last until the completion of the new round of talks, expected to begin early next month in Geneva.

The North Koreans also agreed to allow continued international inspections and monitoring of their facilities, which American officials say will allow the freeze to be verified.

But the agreement does not resolve the issue of North Korea’s past nuclear-related actions. The CIA believes North Korea has acquired enough plutonium, diverted from its reactor in 1989, to make one or two nuclear weapons, although North Korea has never conducted a nuclear test.

The new talks will let American officials answer a critical question--whether Kim’s regime has pursued a nuclear program to build an arsenal at any cost or whether the program is a bargaining chip to be traded away in return for international recognition and economic aid.

The broad outlines of a possible deal in Geneva are already clear. The United States wants North Korea to relinquish its capability to make nuclear weapons. In exchange, North Korea would like diplomatic relations, economic help, new technology for peaceful nuclear power and some form of security guarantees from the United States.

Carter, in an interview on Cable News Network, hailed the possibility of such a deal, saying “this was one of those perfect agreements where both sides won.”

But pessimists in the longstanding debate over North Korea believe the negotiations will end in frustration, as past rounds have. Even as the White House celebrated a rare piece of foreign policy good news, others were quick to denounce the new agreement.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), for example, asserted that the Administration had agreed to “throw in the towel” by reopening talks. “There is no basis in history or experience to believe more talk and more delay will limit North Korea’s nuclear ambitions,” Dole said in a statement.

The pessimistic view is that, after a delay of a few months, the United States and its allies may once again be forced to discuss some form of collective action against North Korea; Pyongyang, meantime, will have bought more time to develop its program.

Those in the cynical camp have long argued that North Korea has no intention of giving up its nuclear program. They contend that Kim wants weapons for their own sake--to ensure his regime’s survival and, perhaps, to help achieve the long-cherished goal of reunifying the Korean Peninsula by force. That would be the only means of overcoming South Korea’s huge and embarrassing victory over North Korea in the economic sphere.

The top priority for American officials in the talks will be to see if North Korea will agree to make its program freeze permanent and verifiable--effectively putting an end to the threat that the North will begin to develop a full arsenal of nuclear weapons.

One element of an agreement would be American assistance for North Korea’s stated desire to obtain a new, light-water nuclear reactor to replace its graphite reactor. Graphite reactors breed a ready source of plutonium that can be diverted to weapons, while light-water reactors do not.

If the program can be capped, American officials would then turn back to the issue that until recently had dominated U.S.-Korean tensions--whether North Korea already has weapons. Until Carter’s visit to Pyongyang, the Administration had insisted that tracking North Korea’s past behavior would be a precondition for new talks.

Last month’s removal of fuel rods from the reactor destroyed the most readily available evidence of the amount of plutonium that may have been diverted. The only way now to determine what occurred is through “special inspections” of sites where nuclear material may have been stored or dumped.

In their letter, delivered to American officials Wednesday afternoon, the North Koreans pledged, “in the context of an overall solution, that they will fully implement the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards,” a senior Administration official told reporters.

U.S. officials interpret that to mean an agreement to abide by special inspections. But the official conceded that the Administration cannot be sure North Korea meant that. Until now, the North Koreans have steadfastly refused to allow special inspections.

Wednesday’s announcement capped a period in which the United States and North Korea seemed to be moving inexorably toward a military confrontation. Tensions mounted rapidly after the removal of the fuel rods and the Administration announcement that it would pursue sanctions. North Korea has warned repeatedly that it would regard sanctions as an act of war.

It is possible this escalation may have caused Kim--who ordinarily leaves day-to-day management of North Korean affairs to his son, Kim Jong Il--to use the Carter visit as a chance to turn around the policies of the North Korean regime.

Washington specialists who follow the North Korean press say there are signs that the elder Kim, 82, may have improvised during the Carter visit, doing things not part of the regime’s original game plan. Carter said Wednesday that lower-level North Korean officials seemed surprised by the amount of time Kim spent with him and the pledges he made.

Alternatively, some analysts suggest, there was no turnaround, and Kim planned this all along. North Korea is famous for what American policy-makers call “salami tactics” in negotiations--cutting issues in thin slices and repeatedly adding new conditions that can later be given up in exchange for concessions from the other side.