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North Korea: Reactor Construction Will Likely End Soon Construction of two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea will most likely be suspended, a South Korean official said today (see GSN, June 20). “The issue in point is when and how to halt (the project),” the official said. The reactors are being built as part of the defunct 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea agreed to halt nuclear weapons development. “As the United States is demanding a halt, we’re finding it more difficult to say that the project should continue,” the official added. Seoul is pushing for a small continuation of construction, even as Washington and Pyongyang are locked in a nuclear standoff. U.S. officials are pushing for a complete halt to the work (Yonhap News Agency/BBC Monitoring, June 25). Former Presidential Aides Indicted Two former South Korean presidential aides and a leading business executive have been indicted on charges that $100 million was transferred to Pyongyang before a 2000 summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. The South Korean president was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, largely as a result of the 2000 meeting. Independent counsel Song Doo-hwan handed down the indictments against Park Jie-won, a former chief of the presidential staff, and Lim Dong-won, a former head of the South Korean intelligence service. Chung Mong-hun, the chairman of Hyundai Asan, was also indicted. “In pre-summit talks, the government promised to provide $100 million to North Korea, and Hyundai group was asked to transmit the money for the government,” Song said (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, June 25). Anniversary Marked With Rhetoric North Korea marked the 53rd anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War by criticizing the U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula. “The U.S. seeks to fish in troubled waters by driving South Korea as cannon fodder or a shock brigade in its aggression of the D.P.R.K.,” said the state-run Korean Central News Agency (Agence Presse-France, June 25). Pakistani Nuclear Aid A “No-Go” During a meeting yesterday, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and U.S. President George W. Bush discussed U.S. allegations that Pakistan provided nuclear aid to Pyongyang. “He basically made it clear that he understood that any sort of contacts in any sort of military-related field, whatever they are, are a ‘no-go’ area,” said a senior Bush administration official (Agence France-Presse II, June 25).
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