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Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Monday lauded the compromise settlement reached at the six-party North Korea denuclearization talks as "a victory of South Korea's diplomacy, launching the initial step toward resolving the Cold War structure on the Korean Peninsula and building a permanent peace structure in Northeast Asia."
Chung told a press conference, "(Seoul's) important proposal revived the near-death six-party talks and decisively contributed toward the talks' adoption of a joint statement of principles." The important proposal, involving the South's electricity aid to the North, will remain effective in the course of the North's scrapping of its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs with some partial modifications, and play a continuous role, Chung added.
"A Korean Peninsula peace conference is expected to begin at an appropriate time. And an epoch-making ease in the military tension between the two Koreas will also be achieved," the unification minister predicted. In evaluating the compromise reached at the six-country talks, Chung attached the significance of dismantling the Cold War system on the Korean Peninsula with the three axes of tension on the Korean Peninsula -- the hostile relations between the U.S. and North Korea and between Japan and North Korea -- crumbling.
The following are excerpts of a question-and-answer session with a senior government official attending the press conference:
Is enriched uranium included in the nuclear weapons programs to be scrapped by North Korea?
It says "all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs" in the agreement.
The joint statement says a peace regime in Northeast Asia will be discussed in a forum. Will the forum break the framework of the six-party talks?
Related it will be with the six-party talks, but the forum will proceed separately from the talks. Three or four countries will participate in it. They will be either North and South Korea and the United States, or those three countries plus China, because it will handle replacing the armistice agreement with a peace accord.
At what stage will the ¡°important proposal¡± [to provide electricity] to the North be modified?
Presumptive as it is now, the important proposal will remain intact until the North scraps its nuclear weapons and if a decision is made to offer the North reactors. But without the important proposal, the compromise would have been difficult to attain. With some modifications, the important proposal will play its role. Once reactors are offered, the important proposal will cease playing its role.
The joint statement says the United States is ready to supply energy to North Korea. Will it be heavy oil or something else?
It could mean various kinds of energy including heavy oil.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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