Rejecting criticism about the deal to wean North Korea off its nuclear program, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has hailed the agreement as an 'important initial step' towards ensuring a denuclearised Korean peninsula.
"This breakthrough was the result of patient, creative and tough diplomacy. This is a multilateral agreement. All of the major players in the region now share a stake in its outcome as well as a demand for results and accountability," Rice said at a special briefing in Washington.
"The goal is the complete verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. This is a good beginning to that effort," she said.
Rice said in the next two months, Washington expects Pyongyang to shut down and seal the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
"It is important to see the outcome in a proper context. It is a part of a broad and comprehensive effort not only to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula, but also to advance a future of peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia. Our approach has always recognized that we must address these two goals together and that is what we are doing," Rice said.
Top Bush administration official rejected the notion that the deal sent all the wrong messages to Iran.
She said all six parties are the guarantors of the agreement and there is great interest in the rest of the region to see that it is fully implemented.
"Why should not it be seen as a message to Iran that the international community is able to bring together its resources, particularly when regionally affected states work together and that the strong diplomacy and the cohesiveness of the five parties in the six-party talks has finally achieved results. I think that would be the message," Rice countered.
Rice said the deal was a good story of international cooperation and of bringing together the right states to bring together the right set of 'incentives and disincentives.'
She also refuted the comments of former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who said that there was nothing new in this latest accord that Washington could not have got six years ago when the President George W Bush stopped the initiative of the then Secretary of State Colin Powell.
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