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The changing of the guars at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, where six-nation talks on North Korea¡¯s nuclear program are underway, on Tuesday./ Yonhap
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South Korean top nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo on Tuesday said North Korea¡¯s nuclear weapons are not the target of ¡°disablement¡± but the target of ¡°abandonment.¡± The North is to ¡°disable¡± its nuclear facilities under a Feb.13 agreement, as a step on the road to abandoning them. Details are now being worked out. The remarks therefore suggest that the nuclear weapons Pyongyang has already built are not on the agenda at this stage, hinting that separate negotiations from the six-way framework will have to tackle them. That in turn suggests that the five countries -- South Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan -- have accepted North Korea¡¯s position that the nuclear weapons themselves are not at issue in the talks, a position it has taken since a Sept. 19, 2005 statement of principles.
North Korea reiterated the position when it returned to the six-way talks in December. North Korea¡¯s chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-kwan said in Beijing on Dec. 22 that the North wants to discuss the issue of nuclear weapons when it no longer feels threatened because the U.S. has ended its ¡°hostile¡± policy toward the North and mutual trust has been built up. ¡°So what can we do now? We can talk about the abandonment of existing nuclear programs,¡± meaning facilities that produce plutonium and a nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.
According to a South Korean official, North Korea after its nuclear test last October proposed separate nuclear disarmament talks, and has not budged since. The six-party talks are being conducted on that premise, he said. ¡°North Korea is certainly going to demand separate talks to deal with the abandonment of nuclear weapons when the nations concerned make progress in the current disablement talks and move on to the next stage,¡± he said. ¡°In that case, there will be a new complication because the framework of the six-party talks will change.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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