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The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia have agreed that Seoul will provide 50,000 tons of heavy oil to North Korea, while the communist country will shut down its Yongbyon plutonium plant and seal it to prevent technicians from entering. And if North Korea goes further in the lead-up to ¡°disabling¡± its nuclear facilities by eliminating the core rod and cooling facilities or encasing it in concrete, the remaining five countries will provide energy worth an additional 950,000 tons of heavy oil or other humanitarian aid.
It would of course be good if North Korea shuts down operations at its Yongbyon nuclear facility, which can produce enough material to make one nuclear weapon a year. And the quid pro quo of providing 50,000 tons of heavy oil can be considered a better option than the reward of 500,000 tons a year envisaged in the 1994 Geneva Accords.
But this agreement contains no measures to eliminate the nuclear weapons and materials North Korea already has, or steps to dismantle Pyongyang¡¯s uranium facilities, which the country developed secretly in violation of the Geneva Agreement. In the end, the results of the latest talks was merely a small step in South Korea¡¯s goal to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.
That¡¯s why speculation is growing that the reason North Korea agreed to shut down the Yongbyon facilities was not because it intends to scrap the plant but to lift a freeze on US$24 million in accounts in the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, believed to be the personal fund of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Last month, North Korea and the U.S. agreed in Berlin to lift the freeze on that account if an agreement is reached over the shutdown of the Yongbyon plant.
North Korea needs only the few nuclear weapons it already has to take South Korea hostage. Until those weapons and materials plus the uranium facilities have been inspected and scrapped, the dark nuclear cloud will hang over the Korean Peninsula.
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