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November 05, 2009
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| The United States said North Korea has violated its own denuclearization commitments and United Nations Security Council resolutions with its reprocessing of plutonium for atomic weapons production. But Washington stopped short of condemning the process, saying it doesn’t want to see tension rising in the region. In response to Pyongyang’s announcement Tuesday that it had successfully reprocessed 8,000 spent fuel rods to generate plutonium for more weapons, the State Department said the action “runs counter” to prior commitments and Security Council resolutions. “I’ll say, as a matter of principle, that reprocessing plutonium is contrary to North Korea’s own commitments that it committed to in the 2005 joint statement, and also would be a violation of various UN Security Council resolutions,” said the department spokesman Ian Kelly in a press briefing. “And what we’re looking for is North Korea to take steps to achieve verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.” Kelly was referring to a deal that the North had reached with fellow members of the six-party talks - South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and China - on Sept. 19, 2005. At the time, North Korea committed to “abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and returning at an early date to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons [NPT] and to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards,” in exchange for economic aid and security assurances. Various UN Security Council resolutions, adopted after North Korean nuclear and missile tests, prohibit the North from engaging in nuclear-related activities. Asked if the United States was condemning the North’s action, Kelly said Washington is only focused on achieving “a comprehensive peaceful solution to the tension in Northeast Asia.” “I think everybody should be careful and ratchet down the rhetoric and not take any actions that would contribute to tension in the region,” he said. The latest North Korean declaration was regarded as a move to prod the United States to sit down for Pyongyang-Washington bilateral talks. Kelly, though, reiterated that the United States still hasn’t decided on “when and where we will have these bilateral talks.” While the two countries appear to have failed to narrow their differences, the U.S. magazine Foreign Policy reported online that the United States and North Korea have agreed to hold two formal bilateral meetings before they return to a multilateral setting. The North has expressed willingness to return to the six-party talks, depending on the progress of the U.S.-North Korea meetings. In Seoul, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has said that the past pattern of rewarding North Korea after each small step toward denuclearization must stop and that it is important to ascertain the North’s willingness to completely abandon its nuclear weapons. Speaking at an Economist Intelligence Unit discussion yesterday, Lee said the nuclear negotiations must be completed in a reasonable amount of time. “Kim Jong-il believes if he can drag out negotiations, then President Barack Obama will leave office, the South Korean president will change, and he can start all over again,” Lee said. “We can’t be in negotiations forever.” Against this backdrop, the Joong- Ang Ilbo has learned that representatives of the U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations will travel to North Korea this month. Multiple sources said Jack Pritchard, former U.S. envoy to North Korea, and Scott Snyder, an expert on South Korea and director of U.S.-Korea Policy at The Asia Foundation, will be part of the CFR delegation. On the surface, the purpose of their trip is to meet North Korean officials to gather information for the council’s upcoming report on U.S. policy on the Korean Peninsula. But it comes at a critical juncture in North Korea-U.S. relations, and a source said the CFR representatives are expected to lay the groundwork before a possible bilateral meeting between the two nations. By Yoo Jee-ho, Yeh Young-june [jeeho@joongang.co.kr] |
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