During a press conference held yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice explained that the current administration will continue with its efforts to get North Korea to make a clear commitment for allowing inspections of its nuclear programs. The attempts will continue up until January 20, when President George W. Bush is scheduled to leave the office.

Last week in Beijing, the disarmament discussions between the six nations reached a dead end when North Korea refused to sign the agreement that would have allowed the inspections of its past nuclear activities. The written commitment is extremely important and will ensure the progress of the aid-for-disarmament agreement reached last year.

At this point, China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the U.S. have reached a full agreement and prepared a plan to properly inspect North Korea’s nuclear history.

"What happened in Beijing was that the North Koreans at this last session wouldn't write them down," said Condoleezza Rice. "But there is, in fact, a verification protocol and a set of assurances that the five are agreed to and that the North Koreans, at least privately before we lifted the terrorist designation, had also agreed to," she added.

There are many issues and unanswered questions related to North Korea’s activities and in order to move forward and cover all the aspects, the shutdown and disabling of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon is considered a major step. These efforts, even though have begun more than 5 years ago, advanced with great difficulty and in certain areas failed to reach the expected results – in 2006, Pyongyang tested its first atomic bomb. 

"But we have a lot of questions about the highly enriched uranium route for North Korea. We have a lot of questions about proliferation, and we believe that the mechanism of the six parties and an associated verification protocol will be the best way to resolve those questions and to get to the bottom of the entire nature of the North Korean program," Condoleezza Rice explained.
She also added that the Bush administration will deliver incoming President Barack Obama an overall good situation on this topic, but they will continue until the very last day to get North Korea to put their assurances on paper.

Christopher Hill, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, explained that North Korea would benefit from the decision to give up its 30 kilos of plutonium, as the action would relax economic sanctions, would lead to a peace treaty on the Korean Peninsula and also start a bilateral assistance program. He also added that one of the things understood by many countries in the past several years is that there is no need for nuclear weapons in order to protect a country, as good relations with the neighbors is much more important.

Weather the change will come now or after January 20 of 2009, remains to be seen.