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North Korea: United States Permits Oil Now, Refuses Future Deliveries The United States will allow this month’s shipment of heavy fuel oil to North Korea to proceed as called for under the 1994 Agreed Framework, but it will not fund future deliveries, the White House said yesterday (see GSN, Nov. 13). The United States does not plan to demand that the tanker delivering the oil, which is en route from Singapore, reverse course, the Bush administration said. That ship is only a few days away from its destination, officials said. After this delivery, however, the United States will no longer fund the monthly fuel oil shipments, which North Korea agreed to take in exchange for freezing any nuclear weapons efforts, the White House said. The move is in response to recent suspicions that Pyongyang is once again trying to develop nuclear weapons. The United States plans to present its argument against future oil shipments during a meeting in New York today of the board of the international Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which oversees the framework, according to the New York Times. While the KEDO board also includes representatives from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, it is the United States that funds the bulk of the oil shipments, the Times reported. KEDO does not have the necessary funds to pay for the December oil shipment, officials said. South Korea or Japan could choose to pay for it, but both countries are expected to adopt the U.S. position, at least for the time being, U.S and Asian diplomats said. “One of our goals here has been to present North Korea with a united front,” a senior Bush administration official said. “We are interested in maintaining that consensus when we come out of that meeting” (James Dao, New York Times, Nov. 14). North Korean Response A decision by KEDO to end future oil deliveries might prompt North Korea to evict international nuclear inspectors, raising concerns that Pyongyang might expand its suspected nuclear weapons program, analysts and diplomats said. The International Atomic Energy Agency has monitored North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear plants and its hundreds of on-site spent-fuel containers since 1994, the Washington Post reported. Diplomats and analysts are concerned that without the IAEA inspections, however, the spent fuel could be used for weapons, the Post reported. “If North Korea decides they want to really rattle sabers, they could expel the IAEA and threaten to reprocess the fuel. That would be a very serious situation,” said Kenneth Quinones, who helped set up the inspection program in 1994. After conducting some repairs to the Yongbyon plant, in six to eight months North Korea could begin reprocessing stored spent fuel into enough plutonium for weapons. “North Korea can quickly un-can the stored fuel rods to begin extracting plutonium, allowing it to build up a nuclear force far more quickly than would be possible through uranium enrichment,” said Timothy Savage, a visiting fellow at Kyungnam University in Seoul. With a large amount of repairs, North Korea could even choose to restart the Yongbyon reactor to produce more spent fuel, according to the Post. North Korea might also choose to expel 1,400 South Korean and Uzbek KEDO workers currently constructing a light-water nuclear reactor as called for under the Agreed Framework, the Post reported (see GSN, Sept. 13). “If they feel the United States is going to end the fuel shipments, they would most likely respond by evicting KEDO,” Quinones said. North Korea could even escalate tensions with the United States by choosing to test-launch a long-range ballistic missile, the Post reported (see GSN, Nov. 5). Pyongyang indicated last week that it was considering ending a self-imposed moratorium on such tests, which has been in place since 1999. “North Korea could test-fire long-range missiles off the coast of Washington or New York in the Atlantic Ocean, and it would be legal under international law, said Kim Myong Chol, former editor of the People’s Korea magazine in Tokyo, which often reflects North Korean positions. “It all depends on the American response. We’re just at the beginning of a crisis. We’re on a threshold,” Kim added (Doug Struck, Washington Post, Nov. 14). For further information, see:
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