North Korea Open to Nuclear Disablement Plan

North Korean officials told visiting experts last week that they would support a plan to disable the country’s nuclear sites to prevent them from resuming operations, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 14).

Nuclear experts from China, Russia and the United States inspected the Yongbyon complex and then met with officials in Pyongyang.

The Yonhap News Agency reported that North Korea appeared open to a disablement plan that would require “a considerable period of time” to undo should Pyongyang decide to resume nuclear operations.

The Xinhua News Agency reported that meetings between the experts and North Korean officials resulted in a “detailed plan” on shuttering plants at Yongbyon.

The visiting experts were also allowed to see a design illustration of North Korea’s primary nuclear facilities, a diplomatic official told AP.  The official said Pyongyang “fully cooperated” with the visitors (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press/NASDAQ.com, Sept. 16).

The experts were expected to report their findings on North Korean nuclear disablement this week during a full session of the six-party talks in Beijing.  However, that session has been delayed, Agence France-Presse reported.

“The Chinese side has notified that the six-party talks will not open on Sept. 19, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said.

North Korea apparently forced the postponement due to a delayed delivery of heavy fuel oil from China, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

“It appears the North’s refusal is a simple protest against something it is not happy with, rather than to squeeze more out of the others,” said one official.

It was not immediately known when officials from China, Japan, Russia, the United States and North and South Korea would gather for their next session, AFP reported (Jun Kwanwoo, Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Sept. 17).

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Friday that reports of North Korean collaboration on a Syrian nuclear program would not undo the effort to close the Stalinist state’s atomic program, the Washington Post reported (see related GSN story, today).

“The reason we have the six-party process, and the reason we have put together a number of pretty serious countries in this process,” is to make sure that the North Koreans get out of the nuclear business,” said Hill, lead U.S. negotiator at the negotiations.  “At the end of all this, we would expect to have a pretty clear idea of … whether they have engaged in proliferation in other countries” (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Sept. 15).

Some experts said Bush administration officials opposed to the February deal on North Korean denuclearization — under which Pyongyang stands to receive energy, diplomatic and security benefits — might have spread the information on the Syrian situation in order to kill the agreement, AFP reported.

“There is supposed to be an effort by some officials to torpedo the North Korean nuclear deal by portraying North Korea as a ‘proliferator,’” said nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione (P. Parameswaran, Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Sept. 15).

Meanwhile, the Kyodo News agency reported that top North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan recently acknowledged that his nation had purchased aluminum pipes that could be used to develop uranium enrichment centrifuges, according to AFP.

Kim provided the information to Hill during a meeting earlier this month.  However, he did not say that Pyongyang was conducting uranium enrichment.  The identity of the nation that provided the material was also not immediately known.

Washington for years has suspected Pyongyang of operating a secret uranium program alongside its known plutonium weapons effort (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Sept. 17).

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