'N.K. now ready to shut down nuke facilities' |
북한, 핵시설 폐쇄 준비 | ||
After weeks of stalemate over a financial dispute, North Korea is now ready to shut down its main nuclear facilities and accept U.N. nuclear inspectors, news reports said yesterday.
The communist regime expressed satisfaction with the latest resolution of the Banco Delta Asia issue and said that it would shut down its main nuclear facilities, Reuters reported, quoting an NBC news report.
Chief North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan made the pledge during a dinner meeting with a U.S. delegation to Pyongyang led by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, NBC quoted members of his team as saying.
Kim was also quoted as saying the North would allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, expelled in 2002, back into the country within a month.
The Associated Press quoted another North Korean official as saying that Pyongyang wants to delay a Saturday deadline for switching off its sole operating nuclear reactor by 30 days, adding that any such change would require agreement from all countries involved in arms talks with the North.
The Macau authorities announced Tuesday they would unfreeze North Korean funds worth $25 million at BDA, providing a breakthrough to the lackluster nuclear negotiations.
Both Seoul and Washington said the conditions for North Korea to begin its implementation steps have now been met and urged Pyongyang to start shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
"The DPRK indicated that once the BDA matter is resolved, they would move very quickly to implement their actions so I would hope that this would happen in a matter of days," chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul.
Under the Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea is obligated to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facilities by this Saturday in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.
The move would be the first step towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula under the 2005 Sept. 19 agreement.
After the two-week financial talks wrapped up in Beijing between Washington and Pyongyang earlier this week, Christopher Hill began a tour to Japan, South Korea and China, sparking rumors that a breakthrough had been made.
North Korea had been promised its funds from BDA as part of the Feb. 13 agreement, and refused to implement any denuclearization measures before the money was freed. The BDA had shut down the accounts following U.S. sanctions in 2005 on the bank for allegedly helping North Korea circulate counterfeited 100-dollar bills.
Although Washington had agreed to resolve the issue, the process was delayed due to technical problems. Details of the problems remain undisclosed.
Both Seoul and Washington officials said they were now at a point to move forward with the denuclearization actions.
"We have come to a very important juncture which is that we consider this BDA matter to be really resolved," Hill said.
South Korean Foreign Minister Song Min-soon echoed Hill's optimism in a weekly press briefing.
"As we have fully opened the doors to solve the BDA matters, we expect North Korea to take positive measures and to implement the Feb. 13 agreement."
Song also said that failing to meet the Saturday deadline should not be regarded as a failure of the Feb. 13 agreement.
"As the implementation has been inevitably delayed due to technicalities, we share the view that it is more important to see stable implementation of the steps rather to be to be fixated on meeting the deadline," Song said.
The U.S. delegation, led by Richardson and joined by Victor Cha, President George W. Bush's top adviser on North Korea, and Anthony Principi, Bush's former veteran affairs adviser, arrived in Seoul yesterday afternoon from their four-day Pyongyang visit.
The trip's primary purpose was to recover the remains of American servicemen killed during the Korean War in 1950-1953.
By Lee Joo-hee |
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