[MuddyREX]

Thank friggin god.

BEIJING - North Korea on Monday agreed to stop building nuclear weapons and allow international inspections in exchange for energy aid, economic cooperation and security assurances, in a first step toward disarmament after two years of six-nation talks.

The agreement clinched seven days of talks aimed at setting out general principles for the North's disarmament. Envoys agreed to return in early November to begin hashing out details of how that will be done.

According to a joint statement issued at the talks' conclusion, the North "committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

North Korea was promised two light-water reactors under a 1994 deal with Washington to abandon its nuclear weapons. That agreement fell apart in late 2002 with the outbreak of the latest nuclear crisis, when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a secret uranium enrichment program.

The North is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs from its publicly acknowledged plutonium program, but hasn't performed any known nuclear tests to prove its capability. In February, the North claimed it had nuclear weapons.