U.S. Takes N. Korea’s Word On Nuclear Pact, (Washington Times)…Nicholas Kralev, Nov 24, 2008.

Current and former U.S. officials say the Bush administration has put unprecedented trust in North Korea’s regime – a charter member of its “axis of evil” – and accepted verbal agreements that Pyongyang has disputed, with potentially unsettling implications for arms control. 

Most recently, the administration has taken as sufficient an oral commitment by North Korea to allow sampling and other scientific activities to verify its nuclear history – a pledge the North says it never made.

The Flight That Wasn’t, (Newsweek)…Mark Hosenball and Christian Caryl, Dec 1, 2008.

Only weeks before dropping North Korea from an official U.S. blacklist of countries that support terrorism, the Bush administration apparently thwarted the transfer of missile parts (possibly including gyroscopes for guidance systems) from Pyongyang to Iran, U.S. officials tell NEWSWEEK.

Shultz: Bush Defense Policy Should Stay…Donald Lambro, Nov 18, 2008.

In the wide-ranging interview, Mr. Shultz also said setting a troop-withdrawal date in Iraq is dangerous, and that North Korea’s refusal to let international inspectors conduct tests for nuclear materials is part of a pattern.

“They are endless bargainers. There is no such thing as a firm agreement with them. You make an agreement, you make a compromise and then they immediately break it in some fashion,” Mr. Shultz said.

Bush Criticized On Iraq, N.Korea, (Washington Times)…Sara A. Carter and Nicholas Kralev, Nov 18, 2008.

President Bush’s efforts to resolve two major foreign-policy challenges in his waning days in office have prompted double-barreled criticisms, with leaders here and abroad questioning concessions his administration has made to Iraq and North Korea.

On the North Korean front, the Bush administration is drawing fire for removing North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring nations without obtaining a firm agreement allowing outside inspectors to take samples from nuclear sites.

Here, public criticism has come from South Korea and Japan over an agreement on outside nuclear inspections in North Korea.

“Washington itself admitted a lot of ambiguities exist,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told the South Korean parliament last week. “Through consultations with other countries, we will ensure that sampling is an essential part of verification.”

Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso has said that the situation will be “tangled” if the U.S.-North Korea verification deal was only a verbal understanding.

Tokyo’s top envoy to the six-party talks, Akitaka Saiki, said after meeting his Chinese counterpart that Beijing is not ready to call the group’s next meeting because of differences “over how to put the U.S.-North Korea deal on paper,” Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported.

Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher R. Hill returned from a visit to Pyongyang in early October with what the State Department said was an “agreement” to verify a nuclear declaration submitted by the communist state in June.

The department has not released the main document, but only an accompanying “fact sheet” with “U.S.-North Korea understandings on verification.”

The “understandings” outlined specific verification measures, such as “the use of scientific procedures, including sampling and forensic activities,” which would provide relatively reliable clues about the North’s nuclear activities.

North Korea, however, insisted last week that it had made no such promises and rejected the notion of allowing any samples to be removed at the site of its plutonium-making plant at Yongbyon.

“The method of verification will be … confined to field visits,” the official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. Changing the written agreement is “an act of infringing upon sovereignty little short of seeking a house search.”

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said: “The Japanese, South Koreans and even the Chinese are unhappy about the level of consultations, because now we have ambiguity, and they are frustrated that this situation has emerged.”

Officials and analysts said it is likely that the North Koreans are trying to buy time until President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

But Evans Revere, president of the Korea Society in New York, said North Koreans had been repeatedly warned against making such assumptions.

“If Pyongyang thinks that the next administration is going to give them an ‘easier ride,’ I think they are making a mistake,” Mr. Revere said. “During the North Korean delegation’s recent visit to New York, many people made precisely this point to them.”

North Korea Limits Tests Of Nuclear Site, (New York Times)…Choe Sang-Hun, Nov 12, 2008.

In its first major act of defiance since Senator Barack Obama’s election, North Korea said Wednesday that it would bar international nuclear inspectors from taking soil and nuclear waste samples, which are considered crucial to determining the extent of its weapons program.

North Korea detonated a plutonium-based device in 2006, adding urgency to arduous six-nation talks to halt the North’s nuclear program. As part of the eventual deal, the North made a declaration in June of its nuclear activities. President Bush then said he was prepared to remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and the North demolished the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear plant.

But it was months before the North was removed from the list, while the United States wrangled with its negotiators over how to verify the North’s nuclear declaration and criticism of the Bush administration — for extracting too few concessions — mounted. Finally, in October, the State Department announced that North Korea had agreed to access “based on mutual consent” to undeclared nuclear sites and “sampling and forensic activities.”

North Korea’s statement on Wednesday contradicted that, and further, warned that if the United States diverged from the joint document “even by one word, it could lead inevitably to war.”

Beijing Spurns U.S. Effort To Prepare In Event Of Korean Leader’s Demise, (Wall Street Journal)…Jay Solomon and Jason Leow, November 7, 2008, Pg. 11

The Chinese government has largely rebuffed Bush administration attempts to discuss contingency planning should North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il die or be unable to rule, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The reluctance is partly because Chinese diplomats and military officers fear planning for a post-Kim era could unnerve North Korean leaders and feed a perception the outside world is conspiring against the isolated state, Chinese scholars said.

Washington has been trying to establish some principles to govern a coordinated response by the U.S., South Korea and China. The U.S. has sought assurances the Chinese military won’t cross the Yalu River into North Korea in response to any instability, said the officials. Washington and Seoul also want guarantees that South Korea would take the lead in overseeing any humanitarian operations for the North.

North Korean Plane Was Grounded At U.S. Request, (Wall Street Journal)…Jay Solomon, Krishna Pokharel and Peter Wonacott, Nov 1, 2008.  India blocked a North Korean plane from delivering cargo to Iran in August, responding to a U.S. request based on fears about the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

In Asia, Doubts Grow About A Nuclear-Free North Korea, (Miami Herald)…Tim Johnson, McClatchy News Service, Nov 1, 2008. As negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear program stumble along, some scholars and policymakers around Asia now believe that the talks may never lead Pyongyang to cede all of its nuclear weapons.