U.N.: 'Zero tolerance' for N. Korea
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VIENNA, Austria (AP) — The U.N. nuclear agency approved a resolution Monday giving North Korea a final chance to abandon its covert weapons program and readmit inspectors, an agency official said.
Stopping short of reporting the communist country's defiance to the U.N. Security Council, the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors instead approved the resolution urging it to comply with its obligations under global nuclear accords, the official told The Associated Press.
But the IAEA made clear to North Korea that it was taking a "zero tolerance" approach and would turn the matter over to the Security Council if the country does not act. It was not immediately clear if the resolution gave Pyongyang a deadline to comply.
WASHINGTON — The United States on Monday hailed a decision by the U.N. nuclear agency that deplored actions by North Korea to prevent inspection of its weapons programs.
The resolution was approved in Vienna by the consensus vote of all 35 nations, said John Wolf, an assistant secretary of state.
''It is a very good text; we are pleased,'' Wolf told reporters at the State Department.
He said he hoped North Korea would begin the process of restoring cameras and other detection devices that were removed as part of a decision to drop the freeze on its nuclear weapons development program.
''We would expect they would pay attention to that broad concern,'' Wolf said, noting that countries as diverse as China and Cuba all supported the resolution that deplored North Korea's actions in the strongest terms.
''It's important to see this as a shared challenge,'' Wolf said.
Mohamed elBaradei, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, will present the findings to North Korea and try again to induce it to talk about meeting its obligations under the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
In a statement released before Monday's meeting, IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said he was "encouraged by the readiness of the board as reflected in the draft resolution ... to afford the DPRK another opportunity to come into compliance."
DPRK is the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
In Washington, the Bush administration reacted positively to the resolution. "We are delighted with the text," said John Wolf, assistant secretary for non-proliferation.
But ElBaradei warned that his agency was taking a "zero tolerance" approach toward North Korea, and said "the latest events further aggravate the situation."
The North "has shown complete defiance towards its obligation under the safeguards agreement," he said. "The presence of inspectors is critical ... the agency is regrettably at present unable to exercise its responsibilities under the safeguards agreement, namely to verify that the DPRK is not diverting nuclear material to nuclear weapons."
"This is clearly an unsustainable situation and sets a dangerous precedent," ElBaradei said.
Referring the dispute to the Security Council — a last resort for the IAEA, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog — could lead to punitive sanctions or other actions against North Korea's regime for expelling IAEA inspectors last month and reactivating an idled nuclear complex.
A senior agency official had told The Associated Press earlier that the IAEA was running out of options and soon would have little choice but to turn the matter over to the Security Council.
Monday's closed-door meeting came amid new diplomatic efforts to ease the standoff.
South Korea said it would present a compromise plan to the United States within days and send a top envoy to Washington later in the week. Japan's prime minister on Monday also promised to help negotiate an end to the crisis.
South Korea also pressed Russia — one of North Korea's few allies — to help persuade the North to back down, and Moscow agreed to step up its contacts with Pyongyang. Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Monday that Russia wants stability on the Korean peninsula and called for "quiet diplomacy" to defuse tensions.
North Korea lashed out at the United States on Sunday, accusing it of trying to "disarm" the North by pressuring it to scrap its nuclear programs. The isolated country, stung by an energy crisis, insists it needs the power; Washington says the 5-megawatt reactor in question would produce a mere trickle of electricity and could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
North Korea alarmed the world in October by admitting to a U.S. envoy that it had a secret uranium-based nuclear weapons program, in violation of a 1994 accord.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Friday that Washington has no intention of negotiating with Pyongyang until it freezes its atomic programs in respect of the 1994 agreement.
Caught in the middle is the Vienna-based IAEA, which maintained two inspectors in North Korea until New Year's Eve, when they left after the North said they were no longer welcome. The agency has monitored a nuclear "safeguards agreement" with North Korea since 1992, when inspections and analysis suggested the North was concealing undeclared plutonium.
"The agency has never had the complete picture regarding (North Korean) nuclear activities and has never been able to provide assurances regarding the peaceful character of its nuclear program," an IAEA fact sheet on North Korea contends.
Last week's expulsions came after the North removed IAEA seals and surveillance cameras from its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, the capital.
Although he denounced North Korea for its "nuclear brinkmanship," ElBaradei said the country should be given one more chance to pull back before the crisis mushrooms into a full-blown standoff with the West.
ElBaradei, whose agency also leads the hunt for nuclear weaponry in Iraq, said last week its board had held out hope that North Korea would relent and readmit the inspectors. Instead, the country snubbed the agency by failing to respond to a letter of protest sent by ElBaradei.
The IAEA board includes representatives from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Iran, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, Turkey and the United States. |
