The United States and North Korea spent the second day of six-nation talks in Beijing debating light-water nuclear reactors for the Stalinist country. Pyongyang on Wednesday reportedly went beyond demanding the right to have the reactors to asking the other parties to build them for it, as was agreed a decade ago.
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Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, the chief South Korean negotiator at six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear dispute, answers reporters' questions as he leaves his hotel in Beijing on Wednesday morning.
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When the two countries met for direct talks in the afternoon, North Korea¡¯s chief negotiator Kim Kye-gwan reiterated that as a sovereign country the North had a natural right to light-water reactors. But his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill dismissed this, saying light-water reactors were expensive and took a long time to build, making the issue purely academic. Hill said he had yet to find one country with the will to help the North build the reactors or provide the necessary funds.
Turning to the question of a framework for peace on the Korean Peninsula, Hill said the six-party talks were neither the time nor the place to discuss the matter.
South Korean chief negotiator Song Min-soon said it was ¡°too early to talk about the light-water reactor issue." A South Korean official said Washington would not go along with the idea, and neither would Seoul. The Shinpo reactor project got under way after the 1994 Geneva Accords between the United States and North Korea, and was suspended in 2002 due to U.S. suspicions that Pyongyang was developing a uranium enrichment program. The Bush administration at the time called the earlier attempt to resolve the nuclear arms dispute through the provision of light-water reactors "failed diplomacy." North Korea says in that case the light-water reactors should be built under new conditions somewhere other than Shinpo.
Observers suggest North Korea insistence on impossible demands is an avoidance strategy. "With North Korea backed into a situation where it has effectively no choice but to completely dismantle its nuclear program, it's a means of trying to avoid this,¡± Prof. Kim Tae-hyo of Sungkyunkwan University said. ¡°It seems North Korea still has no intention to dismantle its nuclear programs completely." Another expert at a policy research institute said Pyongyang was looking to continue with its nuclear program while getting the benefits of dismantling it to ensure its own survival. He said the outlook for the talks was dim if the North continues to insist on light-water reactors.
There is already talk in Beijing of adjourning the talks again since North Korea's position appears to have hardened. A source close to the talks said China on Wednesday asked for negotiations to end before the Chinese Thanksgiving holiday on Sunday, the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. With the exception of South Korea, none of the other participants expressed particular opposition to this, the source said. The talks also involve Japan and Russia.
Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is in the U.S., said Tuesday he would strengthen efforts to persuade North Korea so there is progress at the six-party talks.
Hu was responding to a call from U.S. President George W. Bush during a summit in New York to cooperate with Washington¡¯s efforts to bring an end to North Korea¡¯s and Iran's nuclear programs, the American press reported.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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