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Pyongyang Wants 2 Million Kilowatts for Nuclear Freeze
The United States must arrange for the supply of 2 million kilowatts of energy aid and make other concessions if it wants North Korea to freeze its nuclear programs, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, June 29). “Before North Korea starts freezing its nuclear program, the United States must provide our country with compensatory energy assistance in the amount equivalent to 2 million kilowatts, remove North Korea from the list of countries facilitating terrorism, and lift sanctions and the economic blockade from our country,” said Pak Ui Chun, Pyongyang’s ambassador to Russia. “The freeze will begin when the granting of compensation begins,” he added (Associated Press, June 30). North Korea had indicated at the talks in Beijing last week that it would request 2 million kilowatts of energy aid, the amount of energy that a light-water reactor such as the one envisioned under the 1994 Agreed Framework would provide, according to Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Wolfsthal noted that this was a relatively large amount of energy for a country of North Korea’s size and development level. “There’s no way they could handle 2 million kilowatts,” said Wolfsthal. “If we handed them a plug it would blow out every circuit in the country,” he added (Marina Malenic, Global Security Newswire, June 25).. Meanwhile, Japan said yesterday it hopes to normalize relations with North Korea by 2006, Agence France-Presse reported. “If we can, I want to realize it within two years,” Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told the Yomiuri Shimbun. “If the two sides sincerely enact the Japan-North Korea Pyongyang declaration … the normalization of diplomatic relations will result,” he added. “I’m an optimist,” he told the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Agence France-Presse/Minjok-Tongshin, June 30).
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