U.N. Says Pyongyang Has Closed
All Remaining Nuclear Facilities
Associated Press
July 18, 2007 1:19 p.m.
BEIJING -- North Korea has offered to fully declare all nuclear-weapons programs and disable them by the end of the year, meeting U.S. hopes for quick moves following the shutdown of Pyongyang's sole operating reactor, South Korea's envoy said Wednesday.
"North Korea expressed its intention to declare and disable [all its nuclear facilities] within the shortest possible period, even within five or six months, or by the end of the year," Chun Yung-woo said. He said that North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan also told South Korea that his nation is "willing to declare all its nuclear programs without omitting a single one."
[Christopher Hill]
The pledge for total disclosure is key because it implies the North will also include a mention of the uranium-enrichment program that it has never publicly acknowledged. The North's publicly known reactor at Yongbyon that produces plutonium had previously been shuttered under a 1994 disarmament deal with the U.S., but never disabled. "Uranium enrichment is an ongoing issue and, believe me, we are working on it," U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said.
Mr. Hill added that the U.S. would demand the North declare how much plutonium it has produced and how much it currently possesses. North Korea conducted its first-ever test nuclear explosion in October, but the detonation was believed to be relatively weak in power and it is not known how much plutonium was used. Washington hopes that the declaration and disablement could be completed by the end of the year.
Talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament -- which include China, Japan, Russia, the U.S. and the two Koreas -- began Wednesday with an infusion of optimism. The atmosphere of the talks was "as bright as Beijing's skies and was more serious and businesslike than any other time," Mr. Chun said after a meeting of all six countries at a Chinese guesthouse as the capital was bathed in bright sunshine.
Japan also said it was impressed by the North's positive attitude. "I had the impression that North Korea is prepared to implement the initial stage steps," Tokyo's envoy Kenichiro Sasae said, referring the list and disablement.
IAEA Confirms North Korea Has Closed Nuclear Sites
Earlier Wednesday, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog confirmed that North Korea has closed all remaining facilities at its main nuclear complex -- in addition to its sole working reactor. "We have verified all the five nuclear facilities have been shut down," Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said during a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Some of the facilities have also been sealed by U.N. inspectors, he said. Mr. ElBaradei announced earlier in the week that his team of inspectors had verified the shutdown of North Korea's only working nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang.
The announcement confirmed the shutdown of four additional facilities, including two long-dormant construction sites for larger reactors, and facilities for making reactor fuel and reprocessing it to harvest plutonium for bombs. Mr. ElBaradei said having the facilities listed and dismantled by year-end could only happen if there is progress in the six-nation talks and the North remains cooperative with inspectors, who may be required to travel across the secretive nation to other sites. "What is really important is full transparency," he said. "The more transparency we get, the quicker we will be able to verify that everything in [North Korea] has been declared to us."
North Korea has begun receiving 50,000 tons of oil from South Korea as a reward for the reactor shutdown, and is to eventually receive the equivalent of a total one million tons for disabling its nuclear facilities. But Pyongyang has also demanded the U.S. and Japan end their "hostile" policies against the regime, such as other economic sanctions and being named on a U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring states.
North Korea suprises me
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