N Korea threatens nuclear disablement slowdown

FE Team | Published: December 14, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FUKUOKA, (Japan), Dec 13 (Reuters): North Korea threatened to slow down disablement of its main nuclear facility Saturday after Washington said energy aid to the reclusive state had been suspended due to failed talks on verifying the North's operations.
Pressure mounted on Pyongyang Saturday, with the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea expressing regret that the North had failed to agree to specific steps on verifying its nuclear activities during multilateral talks in Beijing this week.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said all five countries negotiating with North Korea -- Japan, Russia, China, the United States and South Korea -- had agreed that future fuel shipments would not go forward until there was progress on a so-called verification protocol with Pyongyang.
"This is an action-for-action process," McCormack told reporters in Washington. "Future fuel shipments aren't going to move forward absent a verification regime ... they (the North Koreans) understand that."
North Korea's Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling reporters in Beijing that Pyongyang would "probably adjust the pace of disablement at nuclear facilities if (the aid) is suspended."
North Korea has been in negotiations with the United States over its nuclear arms program for more than a decade and the issue took on extra urgency after Pyongyang held its first nuclear test explosion in October 2006.
Two months ago, the Bush administration said it was removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, based on Pyongyang's oral commitment to a verification plan.
Experts believe Pyongyang is holding out on a verification protocol until the Obama administration takes over next month.
Meanwhile, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak condemned Pyongyang for its "uncooperative attitude" at the talks in Beijing, South Korea's presidential office said in a statement.
Aso and Lee met in southern Japan on Saturday ahead of a rare trilateral summit with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at which the global financial crisis that is battering their economies topped the agenda.
In a trilateral statement at the talks, the three countries said the six-party talks remained an important mechanism for maintaining peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in North Asia at large.
The US negotiator with North Korea, Christopher Hill, returned to Washington after the failed Beijing talks and briefed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday, said McCormack, adding that Hill would continue trying to get a deal.