Anchor: Negotiators involved in the 1994 U.S.-North Korea Agreed Framework met in Washington for a seminar marking the 20th anniversary of the agreement. Claiming that the North would have a more advanced nuclear program had it not been for the deal, the officials added that engagement must continue with the communist state.
Our Kim In-kyung reports.
 
Report: While 20 years have passed since North Korea signed the Agreed Framework with the United States, negotiators behind the landmark deal say the world is still ignorant about the North as they were in 1994.
 
Robert Gallucci, chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994, made the remark in Washington on Monday at a seminar on the agreement held by Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
 
Gallucci added, however, that the North would now have a more advanced nuclear program were it not for the 1994 deal.
 
Former special U.S. envoy for North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth said the countries that led the Agreed Framework, the United States and South Korea, seem to have concluded that doing nothing is the best thing for the foreseeable future. He said the alternative is to deal with North Korea as the problem will only get worse as time goes by, and the cost of dealing with the issue in the future will be much higher.
 
Han Sung-joo, South Korean minister of foreign affairs when the agreement was signed, said the situation concerning the North has changed from the 1990s to the beginning of the 2000s and there has been a need to study the change.
 
Under the deal, signed between North Korea and the United States on October 21, 1994, Pyongyang agreed to freeze and ultimately dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for light water reactors for power generation and the normalization of relations with the United States.
 
Bosworth was named executive director of the Korea Peninsula Energy Development Organization and led the construction of light water reactors.
 
But in 2002, the agreement fell apart after Pyongyang acknowledged the development of nuclear weapons and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the next year.
 
The six-party talks were launched in 2003 to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis, but the standoff is still ongoing.
Kim In-kyung, KBS World Radio News.