Negotiators in Beijing will try to agree today on the process and timing for disabling North Korea's atomic weapons program, after meetings yesterday failed to produce a draft declaration.
The six-nation forum, which includes the U.S., North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia, is attempting to come up with a document laying out steps to declare and disable all atomic plants in the communist country by the end of this year.
Negotiators are trying to define measures that would incapacitate plutonium production at North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility “so that if there were a return to plutonium production it should be made difficult by process of disablement,'' Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, said in Beijing as he left for the third day of talks. “Our definition of difficult is several months and we would argue that it should be 12 months.''
North Korea, under a Feb. 13 accord, will end its program in exchange for 1 million metric tons of fuel oil or the equivalent in aid. The North Koreans in July shut down and sealed the country's Yongbyon nuclear reactor, including a reprocessing plant which, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, produced enough plutonium to make several atomic weapons.
First Time
There were many “points of contention'' among the six nations regarding the declaration, Hill told reporters late yesterday. “We want to make sure we get all nuclear programs. It's not easy. The reason it's not easy is that it's never been done before.''
Hill said he was hoping the talks would end today. China had announced the talks would run until tomorrow.
“The road toward denuclearization is steep and dangerous,'' South Korean Ambassador Chun Yung Woo said yesterday in a separate briefing. “There are many opinions in the process of drawing up directions for this road. It will take more than just hours to finalize an agreement. We need further discussion to narrow our differences.''
South Korea submitted its proposals for the joint statement to China, which is chairing the talks, Chun said yesterday, without providing details. China has received various “comments'' from all parties in preparation of a draft that has yet to be circulated, Hill said.
Final Text
“We don't know what the structure of the final text will be,'' Chun said. “At this point I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic regarding the talks.''
Hill said he and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, in a separate meeting, discussed what might be in the declaration and when it might come. Hill said the proposed date “was much before'' the end of this year. “That was what was interesting about it.'' He declined to elaborate.
Negotiators need to work out the delivery of the remaining 900,000 metric tons of oil to North Korea after South Korea sent 50,000 tons in July and China started delivering another 50,000 tons this month. Discussion of those issues, which are scheduled for today, shouldn't be difficult, Chun said.
“I don't think we need a lengthy discussion on economic aid,'' he said. “This is not a complicated matter. Declaration and disablement is another matter.''
The U.S. is also preparing to send its tranche of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, Hill said on Sept. 14. The White House said yesterday it approved $25 million in energy aid for North Korea.
Nuts and Bolts
Still, Hill said the logistics of delivering the fuel “is another issue that's full of a lot of nuts and bolts, I mean a lot of details in that.'' Hill said today will be devoted to energy matters. “We haven't had a full discussion about it and that should be tomorrow morning,'' he said yesterday.
Japan has so far declined to take part in providing the energy assistance until North Korea repatriates Japanese citizens abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. North Korea acknowledged its agents took 13 Japanese nationals. It allowed five to return in October 2002.
“If there is concrete progress on the abduction issue we are eager and willing to join this fuel and economic assistance undertaking,'' Kazuyuki Yamazaki, spokesman for the Japanese delegation to the nuclear talks, said today in an interview in Beijing. “We hope that circumstances improve so that Japan can join in the economic assistance program.''
Concrete Progress
Japanese chief nuclear negotiator Kenichiro Sasae and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, in a separate meeting held yesterday in Beijing, said they want to see concrete progress in bilateral talks, Yamazaki said.
The Beijing talks, which are scheduled to end Sept. 30, will also address concerns that North Korea was involved in enriching uranium for weapons use. North Korea in 2002 denied U.S. allegations it had a highly enriched uranium program.
As part of the February agreement, North Korea will receive security guarantees and establish normal relations with the U.S. that would include being removed from the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism.
North Korea raised the issue yesterday, Hill said.
“It was a key concern of theirs, as it has been,'' he said. “We discussed what would have to happen'' in order for North Korea to be removed from the terrorism list. “We discussed the specifics of how that would work.''
Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism results in U.S. sanctions, including curbs on economic aid and a ban on arms- related sales. North Korea was put on the list in 1988, after its agents were implicated a year earlier in the bombing of a South Korean passenger airliner that killed all 155 people on board.
