President George W. Bush should halt plans to build two nuclear power reactors in North Korea, three members of Congress said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 7).

“Now that President Bush has refocused the world’s attention on the importance of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of unstable and hostile regimes, we must work with Russia, Europe and our allies in Asia to impose a multilateral and total ban on the export of nuclear technology,” said Representative Edward Markey (D-Mass.).

“A good place to start is by canceling the transfer of nuclear technology to North Korea,” he said.

Markey and Representatives Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) outlined their opposition to the reactor transfer plan in a letter to Bush last week, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.  The reactor transfer is part of the 1994 Agreed Framework treaty, under which North Korea agreed to stop its nuclear weapon development program in exchange for the reactors.

North Korea will be “in clear violation” of the agreement if it refuses to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin inspections of its nuclear weapon facilities by May, Gillman said.  If that occurs, “the United States should reassess whether to continue performing our obligations under the Agreed Framework, at least with regard to nuclear reactor construction,” he said.

The three lawmakers said they had introduced legislation to stop funding for the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, the international institution responsible for implementing the agreement (see GSN, Jan. 2).

“North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons,” Gillman said.  “A nuclear-armed North Korea would pose a grave threat to our nation and our allies.”

Bush’s scheduled visit to South Korea later this month is “an opportune time for him to announce that he is reconsidering plans to move forward and provide the North Koreans with two light water reactors,” Markey said.  “We believe this program should be canceled” (Agence France-Presse, Feb. 13).

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that the United States is committed to the Agreed Framework with North Korea (see GSN, Feb. 8).

“We take note of the fact that the North Koreans have not violated [the] agreement,” Powell said in an interview with the Financial Times (Gerard Baker, Financial Times, Feb. 13).

Even though the United States has not been satisfied with the level of access given by North Korea, the reactor program will still move forward, Powell said yesterday during testimony before the House Appropriations Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs subcommittee.

“We know that there will come a time when the construction will reach the point where they have to provide access under obligations they have under other treaties … at which point we have a failsafe,” Powell said.

If, at that point, North Korea still refuses to allow inspections, “then I think the whole program will come to a stop, and they will be in desperate shape, because they won’t have the energy they are looking for as a result of those light-water reactors,” Powell said (Federal News Service transcript, Feb. 13).

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