party agreement signed by North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States says North Korea's five negotiating partners would discuss providing the North a light-water reactor at an "appropriate time". Washington said all agreed that such discussions would be held only after the North dismantled all of its nuclear programs. But North Korea later demanded the nuclear reactors first, although has appeared to back away from that stance. Hyde said the final deal, which the six countries will attempt to complete in early November, "must be air-tight to ensure that we have not given away the farm with little return beyond more broken promises from Pyongyang." In testimony to the committee, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said none of the parties would help North Korea in the nuclear field until it ends its atomic programs and returns to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The Sept. 19 agreement obliged North Korea to abandon "all existing nuclear programs," Hill said. "It was accepted by the (North Korean) delegation that all their nuclear programs to date are in fact weapons-related, therefore all their programs should be abandoned," Hill said.
