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U.S. Presents North Korea With Evidence of Alleged Uranium Enrichment Program
The United States has for the first time presented North Korea with specific evidence to support its accusations that Pyongyang is pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment program in addition to its disclosed plutonium reprocessing program, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, July 28). The U.S. delegation to six-nation nuclear talks in Beijing put forth documentation that Pyongyang obtained technology from the underground network of former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. A U.S. official said that, when presented with the evidence, which includes Khan’s testimony, the North Korean officials “argue with us about it.” Today was the fourth day of negotiations. The top U.S. negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said he hoped the parties would soon begin drafting a joint statement of agreed principles. The first two principles should be a commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and a promise by Pyongyang not to transfer nuclear technology to a third party, a U.S. official in Washington told the Times. The U.S. and North Korean negotiators found some “common understanding” during yesterday’s meeting, Hill said, but “a lot of differences” remained. “I want to caution people not to think we are coming to the end of this,” he said. This week’s negotiations have been focused on diplomatic matters such as achieving a definition of denuclearization. “We’re pretty close on that,” Hill said (Sanger/Yardley, New York Times, July 29). “The clear definition of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula we are talking about is unconditionally dismantling nuclear weapons and banning the import of all nuclear materials,” said North Korean Foreign Ministry Director Chung Song Il (Yonhap/BBC Monitoring, July 29). All six top negotiators agreed to meet again tomorrow, said Cho Tae-yong, the second-ranking South Korean delegate. Despite the seeming lack of concrete progress, Cho said today’s meetings “were not lower than my expectation.” Hill today met directly with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan for about 90 minutes, a South Korean official told the Associated Press. The Xinhua news agency reported that Hill and Kim were scheduled to meet again tomorrow. “We’ll just keep at it just as long as it’s useful to keep at it. I’ve got plenty of patience,” Hill said. “We had some of their ideas which we did not feel were usable, but we had some of their ideas that very much correspond to some of the ideas we have,” Hill said of the discussions with the North thus far. “We’ll have to wait and see how it goes” (Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, July 29). The United States is “prepared to roll up our sleeves and work for as long as necessary to make progress,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Rice told the Public Broadcasting System’s “NewsHour” yesterday (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, July 28). Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev said he plans to leave Beijing tomorrow, indicating that talks may be winding down, AP reported (Associated Press, July 29). Meanwhile, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the United States was unwilling to enter into a bilateral agreement with North Korea. “That approach was tried and it failed,” McClellan said, referring to the Agreed Framework negotiated with Pyongyang by the Clinton administration (Ueno/ Beck, Reuters, July 29). China is preparing bilateral talks between Japan and North Korea in Beijing today, Reuters reported (Reuters/Yahoo!News, July 28). Elsewhere, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun yesterday praised South Korea’s energy aid offer and said Pyongyang was studying the proposal, AFP reported. “Mr. Paek said that he appreciates the efforts of South Korea and he hoped to develop the proposal further between both sides,” said a South Korean official (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, July 28).
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