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The U.S. State Department on Monday kept up pre-negotiation pressure on North Korea over a uranium enrichment program Washington claims it operates. Stephen Rademaker, the acting assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, said Pyongyang must comply with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and abandon all its nuclear weapons programs, both plutonium and uranium based.
Rademaker was speaking at the UN General Assembly ahead of a fresh round of six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing in November.
"We and our partners in the six-party process were able to agree on a joint statement that, we hope, will provide a path to the realization of these objectives," he said. "In the case of North Korea, our goal is to preserve the NPT by insisting on the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of both the plutonium and the uranium nuclear weapons programs in that country, as well as the dismantlement of all nuclear weapons,"
The official reaffirmed Washington¡¯s decision to wind up the Korean Energy Development Organization, which was in charge of building civilian nuclear facilities for North Korea before they were suspended. "We think the time has come to shut the door," he said.
Rademaker reiterated his government¡¯s fear that ¡°rogue states¡± could supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.
On Iran, Rademaker insisted governments must not transfer new nuclear technology to the country while it is in breach of the NPT and all projects now underway should be frozen. Russia is pushing ahead with a project to build a nuclear power plant in Iran.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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