N Korean nuclear reactors being built: Official
WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2003
SEOUL: A S Korean ministry noted Wednesday that the US-led efforts to build two power-generating atomic reactors in North Korea were continuing despite the US stand-off with Pyongyang over its suspected development of nuclear weapons.
The reactors are part of a 1994 deal between the communist North and the United States to end an earlier nuclear stand-off. North Korea agreed to freeze its earlier nuclear programmes in return for help in building the reactors plus shipments of oil.
Many observers thought the deal was defunct after the United States said that North Korea claimed privately to US officials in October and again in talks last month in Beijing that it has renewed its nuclear weapons development, flouting the agreement's terms.
However, a spokesman at Seoul's Unification Ministry, Kim Jong-ro, said Wednesday that ``no one has officially said the deal was dead, and work on the reactor project is ongoing.''
There are 605 South Koreans, 353 Uzbeks and 99 North Koreans working to build two light-water reactors, Kim said. They are being constructed by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which is led by the United States and also comprises South Korea, Japan and the European Union.
Kim said Seoul has spent $850 million on the reactors as of last month.
South Korea agreed to pay for most of the $4.6 billion reactor project, the balance paid by Japan.
News of the ongoing construction came on the same day as South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun was to meet US President George W Bush in Washington to discuss the nuclear dispute.
In October, US officials said Pyongyang admitted having a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of the treaty. Last month in US-North Korea talks in Beijing, American officials said the North claimed it had nuclear weapons and may use or export them, depending on US actions.
The United States and its allies have stopped the oil shipments included in that 1994 deal. North Korea retaliated by pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and moving to restart a nuclear reactor.
During the Beijing talks, North Korea said it made a 'bold, new proposal'' that would end the crisis. That is expected to include demands for economic aid and security guarantees in exchange for ending the nuclear programmes.
Washington has said Pyongyang must halt its nuclear weapons programmes first before negotiations about compensation.
Washington says it seeks a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, but has not ruled out military options.
On Tuesday, North Korea said that a 1992 agreement with South Korea not to deploy nuclear arms on the Korean Peninsula was ``a dead document,'' ditching what was considered its last legal obligation to keep itself free of nuclear weapons. |
