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 BEIJING (AP) - North Korea shutters its atomic reactor and is no longer making plutonium for nuclear bombs, prompting aid shipments to flow to the impoverished regime that struggles with shortages of electricity and food.
That happened Saturday as Pyongyang took its first step toward disarmament since the latest nuclear standoff began in late 2002. It's also exactly what happened in 1994 after the North struck a disarmament deal with the U.S.
As arms negotiators gather anew this week in Beijing, Washington is wrestling with the challenge of preventing history from repeating itself — and having another disarmament agreement end in failure.
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