Obama backs nuclear pact revision

By Kim Tae-gyu

WASHINGTON ― President Park Geun-hye and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to look into a revision of their Atomic Energy Agreement in a way to back Seoul’s energy needs.

As its capacity for storing spent nuclear fuel rods runs out fast, Seoul has tried to revise the agreement so it can reuse the highly-radioactive material while the United States has been against the idea due to proliferation concerns.

“We arrived at the view that the Korea-U.S. Atomic Energy Agreement should be revised into an advanced and mutually beneficial successor agreement. We said we would do our best to conclude our negotiations as soon as possible,” President Park Geun-hye said.

Obama also said that the two countries will put forth efforts to find a happy medium.

“As I told the President, I believe that we can find a way to support South Korea’s energy and commercial needs even as we uphold our mutual commitments to prevent nuclear proliferation,” Obama said at a press conference Tuesday (local time) after a summit with Park.

The four-decade-old pact was supposed to expire next year but the two sides agreed to extend it for two years to 2016.

“Instead of waiting for 2016, both Park and Obama intend to achieve a breakthrough as soon as possible,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs Yun Byung-se who accompanied Park to the first summit between the two leaders.

“Obama believes the negotiations will evolve without big problems.”

Yun said that Korea has three urgent issues related to the agreement ― how to deal with nuclear waste; how to secure a stable supply of nuclear fuel; and how to crank up technical competitiveness necessary for nuclear exports.

“Park raised the three topics in the summit while stressing that the two should cooperate in dealing with nuclear waste. They agreed that experts from the two nations will negotiate,” he said.

Since the early 1970s when Park’s father Park Chung-hee was in office, the country has stored its highly-radioactive waste in makeshift facilities next to reactors but these will reach capacity in a few years time.

Concerns have been raised that Korea might have to reduce its dependence on nuclear energy, which meets about a third of its electricity demand.

The two leaders also discussed a handover of wartime operational control of Korean troops from the U.S. to Korea, which is scheduled for December 2015.

“Guided by our joint vision, we’re investing in the shared capabilities and technologies and missile defenses that allow our forces to operate and succeed together,” Obama said.

“We are on track for South Korea to assume operational control for the alliance in 2015. And we’re determined to be fully prepared for any challenge or threat to our security. And obviously that includes the threat from North Korea.”

In July 1950, a month after Pyongyang launched the three-year Korean War, Seoul relinquished both its wartime and peacetime operational control of its troops to the U.S.

Seoul regained peacetime control in December 1994 and was set to assume wartime command back in April 2012 but the schedule was postponed to December 2015 by the previous Lee Myung-bak administration.

Korea has prepared for wartime operational control restoration with the help of the U.S. but some conservatives asked for its delay citing the recent missile and nuclear threats of the Stalinist regime.