North Korea blinked first in its latest diplomatic showdown with the United States. In return for its removal from the U.S. list of terrorist states, Pyongyang made a significant concession that was not required under the terms of the October 2007 agreement linking North Korean denuclearization steps to U.S. moves toward normalized relations.

The United States agreed in the 2007 accord to remove North Korea from the terrorist list if it carried out two key commitments: dismantle its plutonium production program and provide a formal declaration listing in detail all of its plutonium-related facilities and stating how much weapons-grade plutonium it has reprocessed.

Verification procedures were left to be negotiated later. North Korea lived up to its commitments, whereupon the United States moved the goalposts, demanding a verification and inspection agreement as the price for action on the terrorist list.

For North Korea, removal from the list is a prerequisite for World Bank and Asian Development Bank infrastructure aid. But the U.S.-proposed verification agreement, which would have given inspectors the right to visit military installations, was too much for Pyongyang to swallow.

What appeared to be a hopeless impasse was resolved only when U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill went to Pyongyang with a compromise draft in which the demand for access to military sites was dropped.

Pyongyang's readiness to compromise reflected a recognition that a collapse of the negotiations would make it difficult for the next administration in Washington to continue the pursuit of denuclearization and normalization.

Significantly, this recognition appears to be shared by the nationalistic hard-line generals in the governing National Defense Commission who have gained in day-to-day power during the illness of Chairman Kim Jong Il.

A revealing indication of the increased power of the hard-liners is the fact that Hill was denied the status of a state guest during his visit. This snub was designed to make clear that Hill had requested the visit and that North Korea was not in the position of a supplicant. It was a face-saver given to the hard-line generals by the moderates in the Foreign Ministry and in Kim Jong Il's entourage who have kept the denuclearization negotiations going.

The generals went along with the compromise verification agreement in the end because North Korea urgently needs normalization with the United States for economic reasons, and is ready for gradual movement to complete denuclearization if the United States proves ready for complete normalization.

The top priority for the next administration should be to get Pyongyang to hand over its declared stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium to the International Atomic Energy Agency for disposition out of the country. This is urgently needed to minimize the possibility that fissile material might be sold to terrorists or other third parties.

In addition to more energy aid and help in expediting access to multilateral aid agencies, North Korean negotiator Kim Gye Gwan has told me on several occasions that Pyongyang will not surrender its stockpile unless the United States makes a firm commitment to support completion of the two civilian light water reactors for electricity that the Clinton administration promised under an agreement in 1994. The Bush Administration abrogated the 1994 accord in 2002 and stopped construction of the reactors.

Only after Pyongyang's declared plutonium stockpile has been surrendered should the United States focus on putting into place the strict verification and inspection measures necessary to assure that Pyongyang is not hiding undeclared plutonium or uranium enrichment facilities.

The CIA has backed off from its 2002 assessment that North Korea would be turning out uranium-based nuclear weapons by mid-decade. Now the administration says only that it has evidence of key equipment imports that would be needed for weapons-grade enrichment.

Based on conversations during my latest visit, my conclusion is that Pyongyang did import equipment for what proved to be an abortive uranium research-and-development program. But if inspections turn up evidence that an R and D program does still exist, the United States should insist on regular IAEA inspection of these facilities to assure that they are not used for weapons-grade enrichment. North Korea, like Iran, is entitled to enrich uranium for civilian purposes under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

To get the intrusive inspections necessary to allay suspicions of hidden plutonium or uranium facilities, the United States should move as quickly as possible to normalize relations. Normalization would speed up the denuclearization process.

The Bush Administration's slogan during its fitful on-again, off-again negotiations with North Korea has been "Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Disarmament." "Our slogan," Kim Gye Gwan told me, is "Complete, Verifiable, Irreversible Normalization."

Selig S. Harrison, director of the Asia program at the Center for International Policy, has visited North Korea 10 times. He is the author of "Korean Endgame."