North Korea and U.S. Spar, Causing Talks to Stall

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November 12, 2005
North Korea and U.S. Spar, Causing Talks to Stall
By JOSEPH KAHN
BEIJING, Nov. 11 - The United States and North Korea sparred over financial penalties and whether to negotiate a nuclear freeze or focus on full disarmament, as six-nation nuclear talks ended Friday on the same inconclusive and irresolute note they began with three days earlier.

The meeting, the first since the parties reached a framework agreement in September on ending the North's atomic weapons efforts, failed to resolve even basic procedural issues, like setting up working groups to tackle technical problems pertaining to inspections and other matters. All sides agreed to resume discussion soon, but they did not set a date to do so, according to China, the host of the talks.

North Korea accused the United States of "spoiling the atmosphere" of the negotiations because the Treasury Department imposed penalties on a bank in the Chinese territory of Macao on Sept. 15, a senior American official said. The bank, Banco Delta Asia, was accused of laundering money for North Korea.

The United States rejected a North Korean proposal simply to freeze production of nuclear fuel in return for aid. Washington insisted that the focus remain on complete disarmament rather than the interim steps that North Korea would have to take anyway if it intended to end its weapons program, the American official said.

"They are going to have to surrender the program anyway, so I'm not going to pay them for the same thing twice," said the official, who requested anonymity in exchange for speaking candidly about the talks. "We would really like to avoid tit-for-tat negotiations that could take years."

The session gave an indication of the long and likely tortuous road to carrying out the broad and vaguely worded September agreement, in which the United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia agreed to work toward North Korean nuclear disarmament in exchange for economic, diplomatic and security benefits for the Communist government.

The parties all acknowledged that the latest talks had produced no results, but that they also had appeared to be mostly low-key and businesslike. Beijing emphasized the positive, calling the talks "pragmatic and constructive" and saying they would reconvene soon.

"The parties reaffirmed that they would fully implement the joint statement in line with the principle of 'commitment for commitment, action for action,' so as to realize the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula at an early date," the Chinese side said in a statement.

Among issues that remain contentious are conflicting claims about the scope of North Korea's nuclear program. The United States says it has strong evidence that North Korea has pursued an underground effort to use enriched uranium for nuclear fuel in addition to its better known plutonium fuel program. The North denies having a uranium program.

"H.E.U. is going to be a major issue when we get to the declarative stage," said Chris Hill, the top American negotiator at the talks, using the abbreviation for highly enriched uranium.

The latest round of talks was also sidetracked by North Korean complaints that the United States tried to poison the atmosphere of the talks when it imposed a ban on American financial institutions doing business with Banco Delta Asia in the former Portuguese colony of Macao, which is now Chinese controlled.

The penalties, prompted by American allegations that the bank worked surreptitiously with North Korea for 20 years and helped it traffic in drugs, led to a run on the bank. That prompted the authorities in Macao to freeze the bank's assets.

The United States agreed to send a team to explain the penalties to North Korea in the near future, Mr. Hill said. But he added that North Korea would continue to face such penalties unless it stopped trafficking in illicit arms and drugs.

American officials said that they were determined to keep the talks moving, but that making progress depended mainly on the North Koreans' deciding that it was in their interest to end the nuclear standoff.

"I'm not going to be more concerned about getting an agreement than North Korea is," said the senior American official. "They have to decide that it's in their interest as well."