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North Korea pledges to drop nuclear weapons

BEIJING - North Korea pledged to drop its nuclear weapons development and rejoin international arms treaties in a unanimous agreement today at six-party arms talks. The agreement was the first-ever joint statement after more than two years of talks.

The North "promised to drop all nuclear weapons and current nuclear programs and to get back to the (Nuclear) Nonproliferation Treaty as soon as possible and to accept inspections" by the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the agreement by the six countries at the talks.

The North and the United States also pledged to respect each other's sovereignty and right to peaceful coexistence in the agreement. The talks, which began in August 2003, include China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the two Koreas.

BAGHDAD - Insurgents assassinated a Kurdish member of Parliament and police found 20 bodies shot to death and dumped in the Tigris River north of the capital, where there was no major violence Sunday for the first time in five days.

Faris Nasir Hussein, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, was killed along with his brother and their driver in an ambush near the town of Dujail, 50 miles north of Baghdad.

Police said the men were slain Saturday night as they drove to the capital for Sunday's session of the legislature, which signed off on minor amendments to Iraq's draft constitution and delivered it to the United Nations for printing.

The U.N. will distribute 5-million copies in advance of the Oct. 15 referendum.

Authorities reported finding two dozen more bodies Sunday, including 20 in the Tigris, the victims of the apparent ongoing tit-for-tat killings between Sunni and Shiite death squads.

The U.S. military said a soldier assigned to the 56th Brigade Combat Team was killed in a roadside bombing near Al Asad Air Base near the Syrian border.

In Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed five Iraqi soldiers and wounded two others, police said.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip - Hundreds of Palestinian troops sealed off Gaza's border with Egypt on Sunday, ending a weeklong free-for-all along the frontier that angered Israeli officials and undermined Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to bring Gaza under control.

Palestinian officials called on Israel to allow them to open the official border crossing at Rafah - which Israel closed before it pulled out of Gaza last week - and sent teams of technicians to install X-ray machines and lay electrical lines in the closed terminal.

Meanwhile, thousands of Hamas supporters flooded downtown Gaza City for a military-style victory parade.

The Islamic group claims it drove Israel out with scores of attacks over the past five years. Abbas said the withdrawal was a victory for his policy of pursuing negotiations with Israel.

Each side is hoping to turn the pullout to its political advantage ahead of January parliamentary elections.

While visiting New York, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Sunday that he has asked U.N. and European leaders to press for the disarming of Hamas militants and the abolition of their covenant: Israel's destruction. Sharon told a conference of American Jewish leaders that Israel won't cooperate in the Palestinian elections unless those two conditions are met.

IRAN: Iran struck a strident note Sunday on the eve of a meeting with the U.N. nuclear agency, warning that referring Tehran to the U.N. Security Council could lead it to expand work on a program that can make nuclear fuel - or weapons grade uranium. Foreign Minister spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Iran was not yet contemplating uranium enrichment but warned that it may change its mind.