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GUEST: John Feffer, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies

US food aid arrived in North Korea earlier this week in a move that signaled an about-turn in relations between the two countries. Just days earlier, North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program – the cooling tower at its main atomic reactor. The demolition underscored a 60 page report submitted by North Korea, describing in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In response, President Bush announced that he was removing North Korea from a list of terrorism-sponsoring nations. The US has lifted restrictions on trade with North Korea and released Pyongyang’s assets that were frozen under the Trading with the Enemy Act. These dramatic events unfolding in the last few weeks now mean that North Korea is slipping off the “axis-of-evil,” and are being cautiously heralded by the White House as a success story for the unpopular Mr. Bush.

International negotiations with North Korea had been taking place within the context of the so-called six-party talks. This is a multilateral mechanism chaired by China that also includes Russia, South Korea and Japan, and is aimed at dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for normalized relations with the US, among other things.

Read John Feffer’s articles online at www.fpif.org.