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IAEA Calls for Inspectors’ Return to North Korea
The International Atomic Energy Agency today called on North Korea to allow nuclear inspectors back into the country, after they were expelled in December 2002, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Sept. 22). A resolution adopted by consensus at the agency’s annual general conference in Vienna “calls upon” Pyongyang “to promptly accept comprehensive IAEA safeguards and cooperate with the agency in their full and effective implementation.” The agency early last year reported North Korea in noncompliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It passed a similar resolution last year regarding the return of inspectors (Agence France-Presse/SpaceWar.com, Sept. 24). Meanwhile, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea said today that Seoul’s cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog over concerns about its past nuclear experiments (see GSN, Sept. 13) should serve as an example to Pyongyang, Reuters reported. “I know that this is an issue that the North Koreans say is important to them. They should cooperate with the IAEA the way the Republic of Korea has cooperated with IAEA,” said Ambassador Christopher Hill (Paul Eckert, Reuters, Sept. 24). In a statement to the IAEA general conference this week, the South Korea delegate told officials that “the experiments in question were conducted without the knowledge or authorization of my government and were performed on a laboratory scale exclusively for research purposes and involving only a milligram quantity of nuclear material.” “As soon as these incidents came to the attention of my government, we informed the IAEA on our own initiative of all the relevant information that we acquired through the investigation,” Ambassador Chang Beom-cho added. “In line with our steadfast commitment to transparency and openness, the Republic of Korea has extended full, proactive and exemplary cooperation to the IAEA and will continue to do so to facilitate the thorough verification work by the Agency’s inspectors.” Hill also said the five countries negotiating with Pyongyang on its nuclear work need to form a united front, Reuters reported. “We must make it very clear to the North Koreans that they face a strategic choice: either begin the process of joining the international community or keep their weapons,” he said. “They cannot do both.” He added that North Korean leaders should not wait to see who wins the U.S. presidential election before resuming talks. “There’s a consensus in the U.S. among all political elites that North Korea must get rid of its nuclear weapons. There’s no tolerance for North Korea to retain nuclear weapons,” he said (Reuters, Sept. 24). Elsewhere, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that reports of North Korean preparations to test a missile capable of targeting neighboring states would not alter the U.S. approach to the nuclear standoff, according to the State Department. “It would be very unfortunate if the North Koreans were to do something like this and break out of the moratorium that they have been following for a number of years,” he said. “We would stay very firmly embedded in the six-party framework, and we would not be intimidated with respect to our policies,” Powell said (Judy Aita, U.S. State Department release, Sept. 23). Japanese officials said today that they would seek information from North Korean officials about the rumored launch preparations at talks in Beijing this weekend, Reuters reported. “It is necessary to find out what is going on,” chief cabinet secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said. “According to the Pyongyang Declaration, North Korea will continue a moratorium on missile launches and of course we believe they will obey this,” Hosoda said, referring to a joint statement issued by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in September 2002. “In terms of self-defense, however, there is a need to always be alert to this sort of thing, and we must respond properly,” he added (Elaine Lies, Reuters/Yahoo!News, Sept. 24).
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