North Korea Agrees to Close Nuclear Sites in 2007

North Korea pledged during weekend talks to declare and disable its entire nuclear program within four months, a U.S. official said Sunday (see GSN, Aug. 24).

“One thing that we agreed on is that the D.P.R.K. will provide a full declaration of all their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Sunday, following two days of bilateral meetings in Geneva.

“Of course we will have to work out some of the details of this in the six-party process … but we had a very good understanding of this today and an understanding that we need to pick up the pace and get through this phase in 2007.”

Declaration and disablement falls under the second phase of work required of North Korea under a February denuclearization agreement.  Pyongyang has already frozen operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex under international monitoring.  It stands to receive a total of 1 million tons of fuel oil or equivalent aid, along with diplomatic and security benefits, for fully meeting the terms of the deal (Agence France-Presse I/Yahoo!News, Sept. 2).

However, a report last month indicated that North Korea intended to declare and shut down only three sites, none of which contain nuclear weapons, AFP reported.

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported that North Korean officials said in August talks that Pyongyang was only prepared to address a reactor, spent fuel reprocessing plant and a nuclear fuel processing facility.  All are located at the Yongbyon complex.

Regarding other facilities or programs, the North Korean diplomats said:  “We will bring that back home for further discussions,” according to the newspaper (Agence France-Presse II/Yahoo!News, Aug. 25).

Hill countered last week that declaration and disablement must cover all of the Stalinist state’s nuclear programs, AFP reported.  He hoped the deal would be set during full six-party talks this month involving diplomats from China, Japan, Russia, the United States and both Koreas (Agence France-Presse III/Yahoo!News, Aug. 29).

Pyongyang has sought removal from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of the denuclearization process.

Washington agreed to make that happen during the weekend talks on normalization of diplomatic relations, the North Korean Foreign Ministry claimed yesterday.

“Both sides discussed the issue of taking practical measures to neutralize the existing facilities in the D.P.R.K. within this year and agreed on them,” according to a spokesman.  “In return for this the U.S. decided to take such political and economic measures for compensation as delisting the D.P.R.K. as a terrorism sponsor and lifting all sanctions that have been applied according to the Trading with the Enemy Act” (Agence France-Presse IV/Spacewar.com, Sept. 3).

Hill said North Korea was jumping the gun, the Associated Press reported.

“No, they haven’t been taken off the terrorism list,” he said today.

“Getting off the list will depend on further denuclearization,” Hill added (Associated Press/New York Times, Sept. 4).

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