Negotiations on a step-by-step deal that the Bush administration hopes will lead North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program appeared near collapse on Sunday over North Korea’s demands for huge shipments of fuel oil and electricity before agreeing to a schedule for turning over its nuclear weapons and fuel.

The chief American envoy, Christopher R. Hill, said he and North Korea’s envoy, Kim Kye-gwan, held a “lengthy and very frank” meeting on Sunday. But Mr. Hill seemed much less optimistic that a deal could be struck. Negotiators are planning to end the talks on Monday, and other envoys were pessimistic that any breakthrough would emerge on the final day. Meanwhile, a summary of the proposed agreement being circulated among senior policy makers in Washington makes it clear that even if the North agreed to take the listed first steps — sealing its main nuclear reactor and inviting international inspectors back into the country — there was no specified time period during which it would be required to turn over any nuclear weapons or weapons fuel that it has produced in recent years. And such a turnover would happen only after reaching another agreement.

In essence, the agreement Mr. Hill, an assistant secretary of state, is negotiating could prevent the North from producing more weapons, but defers discussions over the weapons and fuel it has stockpiled. Mr. Hill had earlier suggested that if there was agreement, follow-up talks could be set up in March and April. The summary calls for all six nations in the talks — the others are South Korea, Japan, China and Russia — to “create working groups for full and rapid implementation” of a September 2005 agreement in which the North agreed in principle to abandon its nuclear weapons.

But in the past, the North Korean envoys to similar working groups have proven to have no real negotiating authority. Furthermore, the proposed agreement sets no dates on nuclear action beyond shutting down the nuclear plant at Yongbyon and allowing inspectors in within 60 days; it leaves unresolved what the North would get in return. The summary was given to The New York Times by a person trying to explain the timing and vagueness of the deal’s elements. After months of preparation that created unusual optimism within the Bush administration, failure to reach even a preliminary agreement could cast doubt on the prospects of disarming North Korea in the administration’s last two years. Several Asian diplomats said they feared that North Korea had sensed the American distraction in Iraq and could be trying to run out the clock until the election of a new president.

At the same time, the North is under pressure because of the effectiveness of financial sanctions, particularly those aimed at Kim Jong-il and other North Korean leaders, and it may feel this is a good time to extract concessions from the South Korean government, which is clinging to economic ties to the North. Mr. Hill, a seasoned negotiator who played a critical role in the Dayton accords that ended conflict in the Balkans in 1995, made it clear that the United States would not sign a deal that provided North Korea with energy but failed to ensure that it gave up its nuclear material.

“We’re not looking to provide energy assistance so that they could avoid taking the further steps on denuclearization,” he said at a news conference late Sunday in Beijing. “We understand that you can’t just get there in one jump, you have to take several steps, so we’re prepared to take several steps.” He added, “But we’re not interested in providing that kind of assistance so that they don’t have to take the next step.” In the past, the North has always insisted that it get rewards before giving away the nuclear ability that Mr. Kim regards as his sole international bargaining chip.

Kyodo, the Japanese news agency, has reported that North Korea wants an annual energy package of two million tons of fuel oil and two million kilowatts of electricity for taking the first steps in the agreement. It quoted unidentifed diplomatic contacts who said the North also wanted a short-term infusion of hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel oil almost immediately. That presumably would be a reward for shutting down Yongbyon, even though it does not provide electric energy. Any deal would inevitably be compared with the 1994 agreement between the Clinton administration and North Korea. President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have criticized that accord because it involved a “freeze” on activity that the North could quickly reverse, and because it left the shipment of weapons and fuel out of the country to the very end. The agreement fell apart in 2002, and the North is believed to have then converted its spent nuclear fuel into weapons.

The North tested its first nuclear device in October, though with only partial success. Outside experts familiar with the outlines of the proposed deal say that the Bush administration would give up relatively little at the beginning, but it would also receive little. “Freezing and disabling Yongbyon is an important but modest step,” said Michael Green, who negotiated with North Korea as the top Asia expert at the National Security Council until he left a year ago. “It does not yet capture harvested plutonium and the existing weapons.” If a deal holds together, he said, “the key will be retaining leverage” on the North by preventing China, Russia and South Korea from increasing their economic cooperation so much that that their actions negate the United Nations Security Council sanctions on the North.

According to the outline, the proposed agreement would establish “tight timelines for actions that are measured in months, not years,” and would include a flurry of moves in the first 60 days, among them the closing of the Yongbyon facilities. Inspectors would return to the country for the first time in more than four years, and the North would have to declare “all of its existing nuclear programs.” That is a reference to the American accusation that the North has a hidden program to enrich uranium, purchased from the rogue Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The North once admitted to the existence of the program, American officials say, but has since denied it.

The working groups outlined by the proposed agreement would discuss denuclearization, economic and energy cooperation, normalization of diplomatic relations, and a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War. The North’s commitments, the document says, “are to all five other parties, including China,” and it says that “conventional energy assistance will be determined by the working group and will be commensurate with the steps” North Korea takes to fulfill its commitments. The huge annual energy package North Korea is demanding would eclipse the aid provided under the 1994 deal, when the North was promised light-water nuclear reactors with a generating capacity of two million kilowatts of electricity, as well as a temporary fix of 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil.

The chief Japanese envoy, Kenichiro Sasae, told Kyodo, “The problem is that North Korea has excessive expectations about this, and unless it reconsiders this issue, an agreement will be difficult.” North Korea’s insistence on the package deflated the optimism that had infused the early days of this round of talks and spread to senior officials in the White House, who said they expected a deal this weekend. By Sunday afternoon, diplomats had decided that Monday would be the final day of talks, agreement or no. According to Reuters, South Korea’s representative, Chun Yung-woo, blamed the size of the energy package “and the scope, pace and range of the North’s actions to denuclearize” for the stalemate.

The Russian envoy, Aleksandr Losyukov, suggested that the best outcome might be a “chairman’s statement” by China that summarized the negotiations. “It seems the chances to reach a joint statement are slim,” Mr. Losyukov said, according to Xinhua, China’s official news agency.
(Por Jim Yardley e David E. Sanger, The N.Y. Times, 12/02/2007)