Here are some of the major issues addressed – minus the fluff – although the agreement is very tentative at this point. Starting with the relatively innocuous issues, which are paraphrased from the text of the accord and not in order appearance in that text;

The U.S., South Korea, Japan, and Russia will provide energy assistance to North Korea. [COMMENT: No-brainer – that’s the major portion of the compensation for giving up nuclear programs and weapons.]

The U.S. offers security guarantees not to attack or invade with either conventional or nuclear weapons or forces. [COMMENT: A giveaway since the U.S. would not attack NK anyway. The U.S. announced the withdrawal of nuclear weapons worldwide in September 1991.]

South Korea will continue to refrain from pursuing nuclear weapons or related programs. [COMMENT: Also a giveaway; the South has too much to lose internationally by breaking NPT agreements, besides U.S. military-political support.]

The 1992 joint declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula should be observed and implemented. [COMMENT: Any new agreement should include this. Important to note that this agreement explicitly mentions Uranium, while the 1994 Agreed Framework (PDF) mentioned it only implicitly by mention of the 1992 agreement.]

Japan and North Korea will move towards normalizing relations, including reparations. [COMMENT: Huge bonus for NK, which was very close to normalization in 2002, before Kelly’s visit to Pyongyang, and new information about abducted Japanese shattered any chances for a Japan-NK deal. North Korea could be looking at well over US$10 billion in reparations and loans (PDF) if an agreement is reached.]

And moving on to the cons or stumbling block to reaching an actual operation agreement;

North Korea will ‘abandon’ all a) nuclear weapons and b) all nuclear weapons programs, will renter the c) nonproliferation of nuclear weapons (NPT), and d) re-implement IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards. [COMMENT: So far North Korea denies having a Uranium-based program, although Pakistan has independently confirmed this. The word ‘verifiable’ is in the text, but it does not yet mention CVID.]

North Korea claims the right to ‘peaceful uses of nuclear energy.’ [COMMENT: NK currently uses graphite-moderated reactors, which produce a relatively large amount of nuclear waste suitable to be reprocessed into weapons-grade Plutonium. This could be a major problem if/when NK decides to exit the NPT and throw out inspectors again.]

The issue of the provision of light-water reactors (LWR) to North Korea is not resolved either way and is to be discussed at some point in the future. [COMMENT: This is the major stumbling block – not resolved, just put off to cause headaches at a later date. Perhaps this is a face-saving measure for NK, but it likely will haunt those who want the overall issue resolved.]

So in the end, two major cons remain; CVID and LWR.

As an afterthought, I think I should make it very, very clear that there is a long way to go before any actual action occurs in North Korea, and that will be a later deal. South Korean President Roh is wildly exaggerating when he states this accord is ‘epoch-making’ (he should just step down already). Also, it was not the efforts of the ‘two Koreas’ that caused this to happen; North Korea has been fighting this the whole way, and China deserves more credit than the South. I hope that South Koreans do not become giddy with false hope, as the majority did after the June 2000 North-South summit. And this is not about the ‘Sunshine Policy,’ which I liken to a dead horse; it was great at first, but it died some time ago and South Korea is still trying to ride the bloated corpse.

This from the Asia Times sums things up well:

Lee Dong-bok, Seoul-based senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Reuters that, “The agreement allows participants in the talks to interpret it as they like, yet no issue has been resolved. The discussion on the light-water reactor issue has been simply delayed and we don’t know when that will be. The issue may emerge again when they begin discussing details.”