North Korea to Receive Additional U.S. Fuel

Despite delays in carrying out its denuclearization pledges, North Korea is expected to receive a second shipment of U.S. fuel oil in coming days, Agence France-Presse reported today (see GSN, Feb. 5).

“We have another shipment which we are beginning to get going on this week,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said during a congressional hearing yesterday.

China, South Korea, Russia and the United States have each shipped 50,000 metric tons of oil to North Korea as part of the continuing process to shutter its nuclear work.  North Korea, in turn, has halted operations at its Yongbyon nuclear complex and begun disabling three key facilities at the site.  However, work there has slowed, Hill said.

“There is a perception among the North Koreans that they have moved faster on disablement than we have on fuel oil,” he said (Agence France-Presse I/Channelnewsasia.com, Feb. 7).

Hill said, though, that “most of the agreed disablement tasks at the three core facilities have been completed,” AFP reported.  The plants include North Korea’s sole operating nuclear reactor, which is believed to have produced the plutonium used in an October 2006 nuclear test blast (Agence France-Presse II/Spacewar.com, Feb. 6).

The denuclearization process has been hindered by Pyongyang’s failure to submit a full declaration of its atomic activities.  Regime leaders are “reluctant to acknowledge their activities in certain areas because they have denied that in the past,” according to Hill.

“They are worried that we would take some of the acknowledgements and start peeling away and will continue to ask more and more questions,” he said.

It would be up to President George W. Bush to decide how long the United States will wait for an adequate declaration, Hill said.  Washington rejected a list provided in November as insufficiently comprehensive, AFP reported.

“We intend to ensure that Pyongyang lives up to the word of submitting to the Chinese chair [of the six-nation negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program] as soon as possible a declaration that is in fact complete and correct,” Hill said (AFP I, Feb. 7).

Washington hopes to receive a full account of North Korean production of separated plutonium, which could be used in nuclear weapons, Reuters reported.  Hill said the Bush administration also wants details of the standing of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons efforts, uranium enrichment activities and nuclear cooperation with other nations.

“We need to know what went on there in the past,” he said.  Hill declined to discuss during the open hearing U.S. suspicions of North Korean involvement in a suspected Syrian nuclear program (see GSN, Feb. 5).

The administration is ready to consider establishing normal diplomatic relations with North Korea once the nation carries out “full denuclearization,” Hill said (Mohammed/Eckert, Reuters/Washington Post, Feb. 6).

Russia hopes to see additional six-party negotiations, which also include China, Japan, the United States and both Koreas, RIA Novosti reported yesterday.

“The situation is still not very promising, as the Americans are rigidly sticking to their position — they will not make compromise steps towards North Korea until there is full disclosure,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov.

“We know that the Americans have very strict demands on North Korea.  And since problems have arisen, they must be brought forward to be considered by all participants,” he added (RIA Novosti, Feb. 6).

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