World
Institutional
links
Welcome back on
26 -29 August,
ONS 2008
Bridging
the energy gap
is ONS 2006 theme,
from 22-25 August,
in Stavanger, Norway
Petroleumworld
Business
Partners:
Centre for
Global Energy
Studies
  |
NKorea raises stakes in nuke dispute with missile launches
SEOUL
Petroleumworld.com, Mar 31, 2008
North Korea raised the stakes Friday in its nuclear disputes with South Korea and the United States, test-firing several missiles and warning it may slow down work to disable atomic plants.
The North also warned against any "provocative actions" along its disputed western sea border with South Korea, the scene of bloody naval clashes in 1999 and 2002.
The test-launches and warnings came one day after the communist state expelled South Korean officials from a joint industrial estate, in protest at the new conservative Seoul government's tougher policy towards Pyongyang.
Presidential spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan described the missile launches as part of a regular military exercise. "I believe North Korea will not sour relations with South Korea," he said.
But one analyst said it was "highly possible" the situation would worsen.
"We may see naval clashes in the Yellow Sea," said Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies, adding that the North was trying to sway the outcome of the April 9 parliamentary election.
"South Korea's reckless military provocation in the West (Yellow) Sea raises tensions," the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said late Friday, without specifying whether any particular incident had occurred.
"It cannot help but bring out military conflicts if South Korea remains firm in its will to keep the NLL."
The North refuses to recognise the Northern Limit Line, drawn by United Nations forces at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Seoul's Yonhap news agency said earlier that three or four missiles were fired into the Yellow Sea. It described them as Russian-designed Styx ship-to-ship missiles with a range of 46 kilometres (29 miles).
There were several similar launches last summer.
After a decade-long "sunshine" rapprochement policy under liberal presidents, South Korea's new administration is linking long-term economic aid to nuclear disarmament.
It says it will also raise Pyongyang's human rights record. On Thursday in Geneva, Seoul voted for a UN Human Rights Council resolution expressing deep concern at that record.
The White House criticised the missile tests as "not constructive" and urged Pyongyang to focus instead on dismantling its nuclear facilities.
A six-nation nuclear disarmament deal is currently deadlocked because of disputes between Washington and Pyongyang.
A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said US delays in resolving the dispute could slow down work to disable the North's plutonium-producing atomic plants.
The spokesman, quoted by KCNA, said the US was hindering progress in six-nation talks by raising "unjust demands."
North Korea last year agreed to disable its main atomic plants at Yongbyon and declare all its nuclear programmes and materials by the end of 2007.
The US-supervised disablement has been going ahead and the North says it submitted the declaration last November. But the US says it has not fully accounted for a suspected uranium enrichment programme and for allegations of nuclear proliferation to Syria.
"If the US keeps insisting that what does not exist exists, and delays the settlement of the nuclear issue, it would have a serious impact on the disablement of nuclear facilities," the North's spokesman said.
"We make it clear we have no uranium enrichment programme, we have not extended any nuclear help to any country. We have never dreamed of such things. There will never, ever be such things."
The North's decision Thursday to expel the 11 South Korean officials from the Kaesong complex, just north of the heavily fortified border, was in retaliation for comments by a South Korean minister.
Unification Minister Kim Ha-Joong said last week it would be difficult to expand the Seoul-funded complex unless the nuclear problem is resolved.
Kaesong is the most important joint project and most visible symbol of reconciliation between the two Koreas, who remain technically on a wartime footing. Almost 24,000 North Korean workers earning about 70 dollars a month produce light industrial goods there for 69 South Korean firms.
Story by Lim Chang-Won from AFP
AFP 28 1304 GMT 03 08
Copyright© 2008 respective author or news agency. All rights reserved.
We welcome the use of Petroleumworld™ stories by anyone provided it mentions Petroleumworld.com as the source. Other stories you have to get authorization by its authors.
Your feedback is important to us!
We invite all our readers to share with us
their views and comments about this article.Write to editor@petroleumworld.com
Any question or suggestions, please write to:
editor@petroleumworld.com
Best Viewed with IE 5.01+
Windows NT 4.0, '95, '98 and ME +/ 800x600 pixels