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. Keep Reading …

About 18 months ago, we made the trip to South Korea following their ballistic missile launches. We were also there as Pastor Rick Warren made preparations to visit the north. Pyongyang would change its mind and non of us would make the trip. I posted this blog at the time and I think it makes sense to put it here on the new live blog as we find out the North has lied yet again.�

July 17, 2006 8:37 AMNorth Korean Border

He stared us down, a glare like I haven�t seen in some time. A North Korean soldier and several of his comrades, in a time of high tension, are standing just feet from me and within inches of an American soldier, a true symbol of a 50-year standoff that plays out along the Line of Demarcation every single day. His scowl is clear and he scans my crew and the soldiers around us, trying to make eye contact and attempting to get us to avert our eyes. It is somewhat of a childish attempt, but at the same time a vivid reminder that the separation between North and South, here on Korean Peninsula, runs much deeper than a few feet, or what I believe is a feeble stare.

We have come here to get a view so few ever see. I have seen the pictures and studied the war and the armistice between nations. But to actually experience this border site in person is eerie, especially in this time of missile launches and threats from the closed nation, now just a couple of strides away.David Palmer, our civilian military guide, tells us that waving and pointing are against the rules. In fact, there is a dress code for this area because the North will take pictures and then use them as propaganda within its own borders. Several times during our hour-long visit along this line of conflict, I hear North Korean soldiers speaking loudly from guard towers half hidden behind trees and bushes. They speak in Korean so I don�t understand their words, but I am told they are trying to illicit any response at all; anything that they can use as a war on their own people. In the past, the North has used pictures and even taped words to �show��its people the problems with people who live outside their secretive society. It is an attempt at propaganda and one they will gladly use. Keep Reading …