Allies give N.Korea more time to decide on uranium
Date: 09-Dec-02
Country: USA
Author: Jonathan Wright
The executive board of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, known as KEDO, had planned to meet in New York next Wednesday to consult on next steps toward North Korea, which admitted in October it was working on a highly enriched uranium project assumed to be for nuclear weapons.
KEDO, grouping the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea, was set up under a 1994 agreement which promised North Korea fuel oil and nuclear power stations in return for a freeze on a plutonium-based nuclear arms program.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "Due to end-of-the-year scheduling conflicts, board members decided to postpone their meeting until early next year. They'll continue to stay in touch with each other and consult with each other on the next steps."
The last executive board meeting in November suspended future deliveries of fuel oil to North Korea.
Diplomatic sources said the meeting next week would have discussed the future of two light-water reactors now under construction in North Korea for the power project, at a time when the U.S. and Japanese governments are less and less willing to finance the projects.
The postponement of the meeting gives the secretive North Korean government a chance to meet international demands that it abandon the uranium project, which violates the 1994 Agreed Framework and the Nonproliferation Treaty, one source said.
WASHINGTON INDIFFERENT
But a Bush administration official said Washington saw no indication that North Korea would take such a step. The United States was indifferent to the timing of the meeting because the governments, not KEDO, would decide the future of the light-water reactors, the official added.
"They don't want to meet because if there is a discussion of the light-water reactor construction project all indications are they would call the project off. It's increasingly clear that Congress is not going to appropriate any money and highly unlikely that the Japanese Diet will either," he said.
KEDO had left open the possibility of resuming the fuel oil shipments in December, depending on North Korea's response, but North Korea has done nothing to justify that, he added.
The official's comments suggested some irritation in Washington with the constraints imposed by working within KEDO, which operates by consensus.
The diplomatic source, on the other hand, noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to make a visit this month to China, which has backed the international campaign to persuade the North Koreans to abandon the uranium project.
"The delay gives some time for the DPRK (North Korea) to make an announcement on dismantling the HEU (highly enriched uranium) project. The visit to China could be a good opportunity for something along those lines," the source said.
"The idea that it gives North Korea more time is not an interpretation that the United States would make, because there are no signs they will do it," the U.S. official retorted.
The postponement also allows more time for consultations between KEDO members, who have shown signs of disagreeing on how tough a stand they should take against the North Koreans.
