Diplomacy and negotiation works. Whoda thunk?

Reuters via swissinfo: (h/t Nonny)

North Korea agreed on Tuesday to take steps towards nuclear disarmament in exchange for $300 million in aid under a deal President George W. Bush hailed as the best chance to get it to scrap its atomic weapons program.

The landmark agreement, reached four months after Pyongyang stunned the world with its first nuclear test, requires the secretive communist state to shut down the reactor at the heart of its nuclear ambitions and allow international inspections.

But the accord also calls for concessions by the United States towards economically impoverished North Korea, which Bush once lumped together with Iran and Iraq as an "axis of evil."

The United States and Japan agreed to discuss normalizing ties with North Korea, something it had long sought. Washington also said it would resolve within 30 days a dispute over frozen North Korean bank accounts in Macau, and consider removing Pyongyang from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.