North Korea ‘to allow nuclear monitoring’

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New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who’s been visiting North Korea, says Pyongyang agreed to allow international inspectors to resume monitoring its nuclear facilities. Governor Richardson said the communist state was also willing to negotiating a deal for a third party to buy its fresh nuclear fuel rods. Meanwhile, the United States has praised North Korea’s decision not to retaliate after a military exercise by South Korea near their disputed sea-border. Lisa Mullins get’s the latest from The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. Download MP3

• In pictures: Korea’s day of tension
• FAQ Korean crisis
• North Korea affects US-South Korea relations

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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World.  The Korean peninsula was heating up again this past weekend.  South Korea was planning to conduct a military exercise near the disputed border with the North.  Today, it made good on that threat.  But, North Korea did not make good on its threat to retaliate.  Not only that, officials in the Communist state told visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson that they have agreed to allow international inspectors to resume monitoring North Korea’s nuclear facilities.  The World’s Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing says the North Korean response comes as a surprise.

MARY KAY MAGISTAD: It sort of begs the question of, is this yet another, very dramatic example of North Korea making big threats, saying, you know, “We can make your lives very difficult.  We have the weapons.  We have the potential to, you know, turn the whole peninsula into an island of fire.  You need to deal with us.”  Bill Richardson comes in, they talk and they agree to move forward in a new direction.  And then it’s really interesting the way the Chinese media are spinning this.  They’re basically saying, “Look, North Korea is emerging as the great statesman here.”  They’re quoting the North Korean high command saying, “We don’t need to respond to South Korea’s provocations.  You know, we’re going to see here who’s the real peacemaker and who’s the provocateur.”

MULLINS: So, as you say, North Korea has sometimes been willing to play ball, sometimes it hasn’t in the past.  So, who’s to say now that even though we’re told that they will allow in U.N. weapons inspectors once again that they will actually do that and give them unfettered access?

MAGISTAD: Excellent question.  North Korea has in the past played ball but it hasn’t always been the same game of ball that those on the other side would like it to play, and it doesn’t always play all the innings.  It might agree to a package of things that it’s going to do in exchange for aid that it’s going to get and it will do some of those things, get a lot of the aid and then, perhaps, the aid doesn’t come in on schedule and so it stops or, perhaps, it just decides it’s going to stop.  It feels that there’s bad faith on the other side or so it says in its official media, and so changes its policy.  You know, at this stage, North Korea has every incentive to … the North Korean government has every incentive to try to get more aid in.  It’s been a bad harvest this year.  The economy is in a shambles and there’s a succession coming up where the father Kim Jong Il is trying to pass on power to his son Kim Jong Un over time, and he would like to, you know, be able to resolve the differences that North Korea has long had with the United States and get North Korea into a sustained position of more power than it has at the moment.

MULLINS: And just to be clear, Kim Jong Il, presumably, is still the one calling the shots, not his son who is going to be taking power?

MAGISTAD: Right. I mean it’s certainly assumed that Kim Jong Il will be the leader of North Korea until he dies.

MULLINS: Mary Kay Magistad, The World’s Beijing Correspondent speaking to us from Beijing, China.  Thanks, Mary Kay.

MAGISTAD: Thank you, Lisa.

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