Editorial

The news from Geneva over the week-end was excellent if you are an optimist, interesting if you are a realist and unimpressive if you are a pessimist. North Korea's agreement to "provide a full declaration of all (its) nuclear programmes" and the disablement of these "nuclear programmes by the end of this year", according to the US Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, is, on the face of it, the most encouraging breakthrough in what has long been a US-North Korean stalemate.

We have been here before, of course. North Korea has a history of declaring one thing and doing what is diametrically opposed to that declaration. The saga of its nuclear facilities is a long-running one. In 2005, during negotiations with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, it had agreed to abandon its nuclear programme only to test a nuclear explosive a year later.

And contrary to the positive sounds made by Mr Hill, North Korea's chief negotiator did not quite replicate the American assessment of the talks. "We agreed about many things," he was reported as saying and... "We showed clear willingness" (which is not the same thing as assent) to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities". He did not specify a date by which this willingness would be translated into action.

However, although problems remain and clarifications still have to be made, there is no doubt that progress has been achieved. North Korea, the last Stalinist state, will not give up its nuclear facilities without getting something in return. It will want to be removed from the United States' list of state sponsors for terrorism and demand "political and economic compensation" so far unspecified. If it plays ball, this time, it need not worry that it will receive both, but as Mr Hill insisted in Geneva, Pyonyang must first give full details of nuclear facilities and the amount of enriched uranium in its possession. "When we say 'all nuclear' programmes, we mean 'all'."

With China and Russia also involved in the process of de-fanging North Korea, the probability that success attends the endeavour to remove that country from its axis-of-evil rank is high. Should North Korea return to the international fold, even in its Stalinist frame of mind, the pressure on Iran, which is pursuing its own nuclear programme in the teeth of strong opposition from Europe and the United States - Russia has not been as co-operative over the Iran issue as it has been over North Korea - will increase perceptibly.

The whole world is hoping that this will be the case. President Bush has stepped up that pressure. It is clear that he does not intend letting Iran become a nuclear state on his watch and sees the country's "pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons (one that) threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust".

Nor, presumably, will Israel stand idly by if the United States fails to get the United Nations to apply sharper sanctions, and if these still fail, total sanctions to a country that is unwilling to be steered away from its nuclear ambitions.

With North Korea in line, it will be easier to isolate Iran whose President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made no secret of the fact that if Iraq implodes and a power vacuum is created, his country was ready to step in, with other countries (not mentioned) to maintain regional security. That is as ominous as it can get.