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'Long way' to go in North Korea nuclear pact: US
By Stephen Collinson
AFP
WASHINGTON
Petroleumworld.com 02 23 06The United States said Thursday there was a "long way to go" to implement a landmark North Korea nuclear deal, and warned tough talks loom on Pyongyang's suspected secret uranium enrichment program.
US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill defended the deal with the isolated and impoverished Stalinist state which emerged from exhaustive six-nation talks in Beijing last week.
"I think there is a real sense among all the parties that we have a process going. We are very mindful of the fact that we have a long way to go," Hill said at a briefing at the Brookings Institution think-tank.
Hill lavished praise on China for its role in brokering the deal, and confirmed that if things go smoothly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to Beijing in April as required by the deal for talks with her North Korean counterpart and ministers from the other parties to the negotiations: China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea.
The deal, which binds North Korea to shut key nuclear facilities in exchange for energy aid, requires Pyongyang to produce a list of all its nuclear programs.
"We will face the problem -- in fact, the very serious problem -- of the highly enriched uranium program," Hill said,
Hill said the North Koreans had never acknowledged US accusations they had a program to manufacture highly enriched uranium (HEU) for nuclear bombs, but added that the United States had information North Korea had bought equipment consistent with plans for such a scheme.
"But they have been willing to discuss what we know and to try to resolve this ... to mutual satisfaction," he said.
"We don't know whether we're going to be able to do that, but we have agreed to have this discussion."The United States accused North Korea in October 2002 of hiding a program to produce HEU, and the ensuing showdown sent relations back into the Cold War deep-freeze, ultimately resulting in the rupture of a 1994 deal which froze the Stalinist state's plutonium-based nuclear program.
Officials in Seoul this week warned Pyongyang must disable all programs under the six-party deal.
Critics have complained the pact does not directly address North Korea's existing plutonium nuclear bombs, or its suspected HEU program.Hill heaped praise on China for hosting the six-party talks.
"I do believe that we have been able to synchronize our goals," Hill said.
"I think we're also synchronizing not only the goals, but also the strategy and in many respects the tactics themselves, so we've really come together with them on this."
"If we're successful with all of this, our plan is to then have a ministerial" where Rice will travel to Beijing and meet with her five counterparts, "including the North Korean minister of foreign affairs, and review the first 60 days," Hill said.
Hill's remarks came a day after Washington said US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte will travel to major Asian capitals next week for talks likely to focus on the nuclear deal.Economically crippled North Korea has agreed to start disabling its nuclear facilities in exchange for badly needed energy aid.
It agreed to close and seal its Yongbyon reactor -- long suspected to be the centre of its nuclear programme -- within 60 days and admit UN nuclear inspectors in return for 50,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil.
Further steps to disable nuclear facilities would be rewarded with up to 950,000 tonnes of heavy oil or other aid, while Washington also agreed to discuss removing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism and begin talks on normalizing relations.
Meanwhile US Vice President Dick Cheney, on a visit to Australia after a stop in Japan, sought to allay concerns that Washington was going soft on Pyongyang.
"We go into this deal with our eyes open," Cheney said in Sydney. "In light of North Korea's missile tests last July, its nuclear test in October and its record of proliferation and human rights abuses, the regime in Pyongyang has much to prove," he said.
"Yet this agreement represents the first hopeful step towards a better future for the North Korean people," said Cheney.
Cheney on Thursday wrapped up a visit to Japan, offering to support Tokyo on the emotionally charged issue of resolving North Korean kidnappings of Japanese citizens, which has cast a shadow over the nuclear deal.
AFP 23 0700 GMT 02 07
Copyright© 1999 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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