By Yoon Won-sup
Staff Reporter
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said Monday that the six-party talks, aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambition, will likely not make any progress for the time being.
He held North Korea responsible for the nuclear talks' stalemate because the Stalinist country keeps delaying a declaration of its nuclear weapons program.
``In order to solve the (delayed) nuclear declaration of North Korea, recently we have made contacts with the parties concerned ― the United States, China, Russia, Japan and North Korea. But it is unlikely to get a tangible result for the time being,'' Song told reporters.
Asked if there is any sign of resolution of the nuclear problem, Song said, ``The whole process (including the six-party talks) is slowing down.''
A diplomatic source said, ``Song's remarks deliver his exact evaluation on the six-party talks, reflecting a variety of situations. South Korea has been trying hard to encourage North Korea to submit a correct and full list of nuclear programs and to have the talks as early as possible.''
Song's evaluation is consistent with reports that disablement of North Korea's nuclear facilities in Yongbyon has slowed down to keep pace with the declaration process.
About 80 nuclear fuel rods were supposed to be extracted from the Yongbyon nuclear reactor per day but the number of extracted rods has dwindled to 30 because of the declaration slowdown, Kyodo News, a Japanese agency, reported.
A diplomatic source also said that he expected about 100 rods to be removed per day but recently learned that North Korea had seemed to have slowed down the extraction speed, starting early this month. He added that it was difficult to know how many rods had been extracted so far.
North Korea declared early this month that it will adjust the disablement speed to the action-for-action principle.
Observers say that the slowdown was related to delayed aid for the North.
Pyeongyang should have disabled its Yongbyon nuclear facility and declared all the nuclear weapons programs by the end of 2007 under a six-party talks agreement. In return, it was supposed to have received economic aid of a million tons of heavy fuel oils or its equivalent and political concessions such as normalization of relations with the United States.
So far, about 200,000 tons of oil have been delivered to the North. South Korea, the United States, China and Russia have sent 50,000 tons each, while the South has also provided steel equivalent to 10,000 tons.
Against this backdrop, the planned six-party talks in mid-February are unlikely to take place.