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North Korea: Bush Waives Agreed Framework Certification For the first time the United States will not certify that North Korea is abiding by the 1994 Agreed Framework, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday (see GSN, March 20). The move sends “strong messages to North Korea that they need to comply with their international obligations and agreements,” Fleischer said. “The United States is complying, and this is a message to North Korea that it’s important for them to do so as well.” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell recommended that Bush deny certification because North Korea has not provided enough information to the United States and international monitors, Fleischer said. The three items that need to be certified concern progress on denuclearization, agreed framework compliance and reduction in ballistic missile exports, he said. The Bush administration, however, has agreed to issue waivers that would allow the United States to fulfill its obligations under the agreement, including a shipment of 500 metric tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea, Fleischer said (U.S. State Department release, March 20). The State Department recommended that the waivers be issued as a sign of U.S. willingness to abide by its obligations under the Agreed Framework, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “Any time we intend to spend money in pursuit of this program, we have to either waive or certify under these three conditions of the law,” Boucher said. “We have looked at the various areas of certification in the agreement, and we have found that we could not certify them. That is not the same, and we have not said that they are in violation of the Agreed Framework, nor, as I said, are we backing away from our own commitment to implement its provisions.” One concern that kept the United States from certifying that North Korea is abiding by the Agreed Framework was lack of progress on a program to provide safeguards for the reactor to be built by the United States under the agreement, Boucher said (see GSN, Feb. 14). “We have felt that process should have begun already,” he said, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency estimated it would take three or four years implement the safeguards. “We’re getting to the point in construction where that process, we believe, should be under way,” Boucher said (U.S. State Department transcript, March 20).
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