US Welcomes NK Nuclear Documents
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
A senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday that North Korea appeared to have handed over the full details of its weapons-grade plutonium programs, painting a bright picture for the nuclear disarmament process down the road.
The chief nuclear negotiators from South Korea, the United States and Japan are scheduled to hold tripartite talks in Washington next week to discuss the resumption of the six-party nuclear talks, a foreign ministry spokesman in Seoul said.
Sung Kim, the top Korea expert at the State Department, who returned home from Pyongyang earlier this week with over 18,000 pages of documents detailing its nuclear activities, described the handover as ``an important first step.''
``These are operating and production records for the five-megawatt reactor and the reprocessing plant in Yongbyon,'' Kim told a news conference in Washington, D.C., displaying some of the 18,822 documents, which do not cover North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program.
``I do think these documents are an important first step in terms of verifying North Korea's declaration,'' he said, adding a team of experts will review the Korean-language documents which still have to be translated.
Kim said it was not yet clear if that declaration would be ``ready anytime soon'' to be handed to China, the host of six-party talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
However, Moon Tae-young, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul, said the declaration was expected to be made within 10 days.
``We expect the six-way talks to resume early next month, given the time period required for North Korea's declaration to China and reviews by the other six-party members,'' Moon told reporters.
The declaration is part of the so-called Feb. 13 deal under which North Korea should abandon all its nuclear programs in return for large-scale economic and diplomatic incentives.
Washington has promised to take Pyongyang off its terrorism blacklist and remove financial sanctions against it as part of political concessions under the deal, once the declaration is made completely and accurately.
North Korea shut down the Yongbyon reactor last year under the pact signed with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.
But the deal has been stalled for months since Pyongyang failed to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to provide a complete list of its nuclear activities, including its alleged uranium enrichment program and transfer of nuclear technology to Syria.
A breakthrough was made following a deal by the chief U.S. and North Korean nuclear envoys in Singapore last month.
The two sides agreed on a pending deal in which the North would ``acknowledge'' concerns about the uranium program and nuclear proliferation in a secret side-agreement with the United States.
``Obviously, the documents themselves, alone are not enough. We will need to conduct full verification, including access to their facilities, sampling, and interviews with personnel involved in nuclear programs,'' Kim said.
He said Pyongyang was slowing some disablement activities as an apparent bargaining ploy, citing the need to coordinate the timing of energy assistance.
The State Department said at the weekend that eight out of 11 disablement steps have been completed but the remaining three are pending.