We should probably pity poor Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill … for four years now he’s been talking with the North Koreans, trying to convince them to give up their suspect nuclear program. His patient and deliberate style has scored the Bush administration big gains.

The North has actually agreed to renounce their nukes in exchange for much-needed economic and diplomatic goodies. They’re already busy dismantling their Yongbyon nuclear facility which has churned out enough plutonium to fuel a half a dozen atomic bombs

But for Hill and his fellow negotiators in the six-party talks, the devil is in the North Korean details.

When he met with us journalists, bleary-eyed, jet-lagged, and negotiations-weary, at midnight on Thursday at the U.S. Mission in Geneva, Hill had to admit there were still a lot of “details” bedeviling the agreement.

First, there’s the matter of a “complete and concrete” declaration by Pyongyang of all of its nuclear activities, such as its alleged uranium enrichment program, which could be capable of delivering material for bombs and nuclear proliferation to countries like Syria for questionable facilities there.

Hill claimed “substantial progress,” but he still admitted that all sides needed to get negotiations moving. In fact, on the other side of town, North Korean negotiators were flatly saying they have no enrichment program and didn’t engage in any proliferation. Stalemate.

Without the declaration, the de-nuclearization process can’t go anywhere including to its next phase, which Hill admits is even harder. This step will include finding and accounting for all nuclear bombs, nuclear material, and material-making equipment, and firmly putting all of it out of commission.

Does all this matter? Well it certainly matters to Japan and South Korea. Their journalists outnumbered me and other Westerners massively in the press corps in Geneva … and for good reason. The countries are both just next door to North Korea. Loose nukes make for very bad neighbors.

And it matters to us too. Not just so President Bush can claim a foreign policy win before leaving office, but for several other important reasons: (1) because Japan and South Korea are close allies, (2) because China and Russia, the other players in this, and potentially effected by any problems in the North, are important to us, (3) because there are tens of thousands of US troops in close proximity to North Korea, and (4) because with missile-building prowess this little country could even threaten our own borders.

Now there is a lot of discussion of how to formulate a statement so the de-nuking can commence. A “parsing” of words. A secret side-bar agreement. Even verbal acknowledgment of issues that Pyongyang doesn’t want to to put down on paper.

Maybe a “nuke finesse” is the way to go. People who follow these endless talks super closely assert that Pyongyang’s uranium enrichment program is not as much of a threat as some people would like to make it out to be. That the Bush administration is a bit wanting in hard facts on North Korea’s proliferation activity anyway.

And, an official with close firsthand knowledge of the negotiations told me that North Korea is willing to account for all the key bomb-making material, plutonium … and dispense with it.

That fits in with the North’s mantra : let’s not get hung up on the past; let’s deal with the present (danger).

The problem is, the U.S. has a mantra too: actions for actions. Which means that there is no way the current administration will do all the things North Korea wants (yanking it off the terror country list, bringing it into the free world market, opening the aid and energy spigots) if it doesn’t at least appear to have admitted some more evil-doing in its past.

So the talks go on. And on.

The next time you’re doing something really tedious and excruciating spare a moment for the long-suffering diplomat Chris Hill. He not only has to deal with endless strategic details, Stalinist stalling, and chronic lack of sleep, but also obsessive-compulsive reporters like the one who asked him at about half an hour after midnight, after he’d been up and working about 16 hours, whether he could say that this week’s talks “paved” the way for further talks.

To which he replied in a glorious zoned-out out mixing of diplomatic metaphors that he didn’t want to commit to saying anything “concrete” like, that the way was “paved” and that the “cement was drying” and that the “road ahead was smooth.”

He added that it wasn’t going to be a “cakewalk.” Well said.