A rchive Date
[ 23-01-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ North Korea ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/01/22/13863-ap.html
Nuke dispute could go before U.N.
By PAUL SHIN -- Associated Press
Wed, January 22, 2003
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A top U.S. envoy said Wednesday he was rounding up enough support for the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to refer the North Korea crisis to the U.N. Security Council, and he expected a referral as early as the end of this week.
Such a move would likely infuriate North Korea, which insists that its nuclear dispute is purely with Washington and does not involve other parties. It has repeatedly spoken out against taking the matter before the global body.
The Security Council could consider leveling economic or political sanctions against North Korea, a move Pyongyang says is tantamount to war.
Meanwhile, a North Korean energy official said a nuclear reactor at the center of the dispute will start generating electricity "within weeks," a pro-North Korean newspaper based in Japan reported Wednesday.
"We are currently hurrying the process," Vice Minister Shin Yong Sung of the North's Power and Coal Industries told Choson Shinbo, a daily published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
Experts say the North's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon could produce several nuclear weapons within months. North Korea says it is reviving the 5-megawatt reactor, which had been frozen since 1994 under a deal with the United States, to generate badly needed electricity and has no intention to produce weapons.
In Seoul stumping for support, U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton said South Korean officials had agreed on taking the matter before the Security Council.
"It's not a question of if it goes before the Security Council, it's only a matter of time," Bolton said. "We hope it will get there by the end of this week."
Bolton said the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors could pass its third resolution on the subject and refer the matter to the Security Council this week "if we see a consensus emerging."
Bolton said France, Britain and most likely Russia would also support such a move. In Beijing earlier this week, Bolton said China voiced no opposition.
IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told The Associated Press in Vienna that "no decision has yet been taken" on whether to refer the dispute to the council, but that the agency's 35-nation board of governors was closely monitoring the situation.
"If there isn't movement on the part of North Korea, ultimately this will have to go to the Security Council," Gwozdecky said. "I think by the end of the week we will certainly have a better lay of the land."
The development came as the two Koreas opened high-level talks in Seoul Wednesday that South Korean officials hoped would address tension over the North's nuclear program.
North Korean officials repeated Pyongyang's position that the standoff can be resolved through dialogue with the United States, South Korean officials said.
At the opening of the talks, the chief North Korean negotiator, Kim Ryong Song, accused the United States of aggravating the standoff by refusing to deal directly with his country, according to the South Korean officials.
A top Russian envoy returning from a mission to Pyongyang said Wednesday that North Korea was willing to reopen a dialogue with the United States to settle the crisis.
"The North Korean side is prepared for a dialogue with Washington ... on the question of normalizing (the situation) on the Korean peninsula," Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
During his three-day visit to the North, Losyukov presented a Russian proposal that calls for nuclear-free status for the Korean peninsula, security guarantees for North Korea and a package of humanitarian and economic aid.
The Cabinet-level talks between North and South Korea were the first since October and continue contacts started by a North-South summit in June 2000. They are the highest-level regular contacts between the two countries.
"We made it clear that inter-Korean relations could be hurt unless the nuclear issue is not resolved promptly," South Korean delegate Rhee Bong-jo said after the one-hour session. "North Korea stressed that it has no intention of making nuclear weapons."
South Korea's chief delegate, Jeong Se-hyun, demanded in a keynote speech that the North freeze its nuclear facilities and reverse its decision to quit the global nuclear nonproliferation treaty, Rhee told reporters.
Rhee said South Korea will continue to raise the issue during the remainder of the talks, which continue through Friday.
Kim, the North Korean negotiator, called for better cooperation with South Korea to prevent "self-destruction" of the Korean peninsula. It's North Korea's long-standing strategy to drive a wedge between South Korea and its key ally, the United States.
Tensions escalated in October when the United States said North Korea admitted having a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement. The United States and its allies suspended oil shipments to the North, and Pyongyang responded by expelling U.N. inspectors and preparing to restart a nuclear power plant.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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