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A senior Korean-American State Department official heads a technical team addressing the disablement of North Korea¡¯s nuclear facilities. Comprising some 10 experts from the U.S., China and Russia, the team will inspect three nuclear facilities including the 5MW nuclear reactor, reprocessing facility and nuclear rod plant in Yongbyon. They will discuss with North Korean technicians the scope of nuclear disablement.
The U.S. technicians visit Seoul on Monday and meet with Im Seong-nam, a South Korean deputy negotiator in the six-nation denuclearization talks to discuss measures to disable North Korea¡¯s nuclear facilities. They then drive to North Korea via the truce village of Panmunjeom on Tuesday. The team leader is Sung Kim, director of the Korea Desk at the U.S. State Department. Other experts come from the Departments of State and Energy, and the National Security Council. Russian and Chinese experts will visit North Korea via Beijing and join the U.S. team on Tuesday.
The chief negotiators in the six-way talks will try to reach final agreement after the technical team reports the results of its visit in the next round of the six-party negotiations, which starts next week.
As one of the U.S. delegates to the talks, Kim in June accompanied U.S. chief nuclear envoy Christopher Hill to North Korea. Kim moved to the U.S. at the age of seven. After working at the Los Angeles Prosecutors Office, he joined the State Department in 1989. He also worked at the U.S. Embassy in Korea from 2002 and moved to his current position in July last year. He is reportedly the counterpart of Kim Myong-gil, the deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the UN. During the visit, he is likely to meet with the North Korean Foreign Ministry's U.S. chief Li Gun to discuss normalization of North Korea-U.S. ties, an issue that includes striking the North from the U.S.¡¯ list of state sponsors of terrorism.
But the main purpose of the technical team¡¯s visit is to discuss measures to disable North Korea¡¯s nuclear facilities. A government official said the North invited the technical team to come up with the necessary measures ¡°since it concluded that it can get political and security rewards like being struck off the list if it completes the report and disablement of its nuclear programs as soon as possible.¡±
Some experts have speculated that the North is unwilling to bear the cost of disabling its nuclear facilities and wants to make other countries pay for it. But a government official here said nothing has been decided concerning the cost, which will be discussed at the six-party talks.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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