Negotiators Watered Down North Korea Nuclear Stand

Negotiators at the last round of six-nation talks dropped a demand that North Korea immediately relinquish its nuclear weapons in order to ensure passage of a disarmament agreement, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Feb. 23).

The first draft of the deal said that Pyongyang would receive fuel support after taking the “initial” steps of abandoning its nuclear weapons and production sites, according to Kyodo News.

North Korea would not accept the proposal.  The United States then called on the Stalinist state to close its primary nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, “negotiation sources” said.

The negotiations have “apparently shifted from denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to nonproliferation of nuclear materials,” according to Kyodo.

North Korea is to receive 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and related aid for closing the reactor and allowing international inspectors back into the country.  Other negotiating nations would supply the equivalent of 950,000 tons of oil when North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is fully eliminated (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Feb. 26).

The lead North Korean nuclear negotiator is expected to meet next month in New York with his U.S. counterpart, AFP reported.

“No date has been set for his visit but it is likely to last from March 5 through 7,” a source told the Yonhap News Agency.

Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan is likely to participate in a working group on the normalization of relations between Pyongyang and Washington, the source said.  A meeting between Kim and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill is anticipated (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Feb. 23).

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei has accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, the Associated Press reported.  The trip is expected during the second week of March, agency officials said.

“I see this as a step toward the denuclearization of the North Korean Peninsular,” ElBaradei said in a press release.

It has been more than four years since Pyongyang ejected IAEA inspectors from North Korea and announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The invitation “shows that we’re beginning to execute the terms of the agreement,” said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.  “We’ll be interested in hearing his report when he gets back.”

It could take years for agency inspectors to resume monitoring at Yongbyon, and then to track its closure and dismantlement, one U.N. official said.

“At the same time, there has to be some kind of declaration of what North Korea has and some way of following that up,” the official told AP.

Officials in Pyongyang want the agency to “verify nuclear disarmament,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, who visited North Korea in January.

“They see the IAEA as the natural organization to verify whatever is done,” he said (George Jahn, Associated Press I/USA Today, Feb. 24).

Elsewhere, officials from the U.S. Treasury Department today continued with efforts to lift sanctions from the Macau bank suspected of aiding North Korean money laundering and currency counterfeiting, AP reported.

Banco Delta Asia froze $24 million in North Korean funds after being sanctioned by the United States in 2005.  Pyongyang has made relief from U.S. economic penalties a core component of its pledge to disarm.  Washington has agreed to clear the matter by mid-March.

Treasury and bank officials met today.

“Discussions (with North Korea) along with the U.S. investigation have brought Treasury to the point where they think they can begin taking steps to resolve the BDA matter,” Dale Kreisher, spokesman for the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong, told AP (Min Lee, Associated Press II/CNN.com, Feb. 26).

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