North Korea Halts Disabling Nuclear Plant
By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter
South Korea urged North Korea, Tuesday, to honor its pledge to disable the regime's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, denouncing Pyongyang's announcement that it had halted the denuclearization process agreed upon at six-party nuclear talks last year.
Officials from Seoul's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade downplayed the move as a trademark brinkmanship tactic.
The North's announcement came at a time when Hu Jintao, president of China, the host nation for the six-party talks, was visiting South Korea for a summit with President Lee Myung-bak. Both leaders pledged joint efforts to end North Korea's nuclear ambitions in a joint statement issued at the end of Monday's meeting.
In a foreign ministry statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea said it had decided to stop disabling its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, blaming the United States for failing to remove it from a U.S. list of terrorism sponsors.
The communist state even threatened to restore disable facilities.
``We have decided to immediately suspend scrapping our nuclear facilities,'' said the statement. ``This measure has been effective from August 14 and related parties have been notified of it.''
The disablement of the Yongbyong facility is the key part of a disarmament-for-aid pact signed with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia in February last year.
North Korea shut down the plutonium-producing Yongbyon reactor following the deal under which it is required to declare and abandon all its nuclear programs in return for economic and diplomatic incentives.
On the economic front, the North is to receive 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or its equivalent in aid from the other parties. The United States promised to normalize ties with the North after taking the regime off its terrorism blacklist.
A senior official from the South Korean foreign ministry said the government and other participating nations at the six-way talks had already been aware of the North's suspension of the disablement process earlier this month.
He said on condition of anonymity that North Korea began halting discharging spent fuel rods beginning Aug. 14.
The North has extracted about 4,800 of 8,000 spent fuel rods from the disabled reactor and discharged some 30 units per day, he said.
``North Korea appears to take a provocative action to get the upper hand in negotiations over the establishment of the verification protocol,'' said the official.
``We'll not overreact to the North's move and keep making efforts to complete the second-phase denuclearization process at an early date,'' he added. ``We will also continue to consult with other nations involved in energy aid for North Korea under the Feb. 13 accord.''
The six-party member states have been pressing North Korea to accept U.S.-proposed measures to verify the nuclear declaration it made in June.
The United States wants intrusive inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities, soil sampling, interviews with key scientists involved in the nuclear programs and a role for U.N. atomic experts in the verification process, which North Korea has rejected.
Pyongyang submitted an inventory of its nuclear materials and programs in June 24, prompting U.S. President George W. Bush to give the minimum 45-day notice to Congress of his intent to remove the North from the list of terrorism sponsors. That deadline passed Aug. 11.
The delisting is crucial for the North since Washington has banned the impoverished communist country from receiving foreign aid and loans. North Korea was put on the list in 1988 after its agents blew up a South Korean passenger plane, killing all 115 people aboard.
The Bush administration cited insufficient progress made in finding ways to verify the nuclear declaration. The declaration contains less detail on the North's alleged secret uranium enrichment program and nuclear proliferation, it said. Washington also wants to know how many nuclear weapons Pyongyang has.