North Korea could halt testing

2004-01-06 15:19

Seoul - North Korea offered on Tuesday to refrain from testing and producing nuclear weapons as a "bold concession" to rekindle six-nation talks on the standoff over its arms programmes.

The move came as the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas scrambled to arrange a new round of negotiations on the topic, with South Korea and Russia saying they are unlikely this month.

In addition, a delegation of Americans left Beijing for North Korean on Tuesday to possibly tour the country's disputed nuclear plant at Yongbyon. A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on condition of anonymity they were to stay in the North from Tuesday to Saturday. Another pair of Americans, both congressional staffers, are also scheduled to visit Pyongyang this week.

The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of the standoff, and there has been no outside access to the facility since North Korea expelled UN nuclear inspectors at the end of 2002.

John W Lewis, professor emeritus of international relations at Stanford University, said before leaving China that he hoped their trip would "clarify some issues" at stake in the nuclear dispute. But members of the group refused comment on reports that they might visit the Yongbyon complex.

North Korea has said before it is willing to freeze its "nuclear activities" in exchange for US aid and being delisted from Washington's roster of terrorism-sponsoring nations.

On Tuesday it specified it was "set to refrain from test and production of nuclear weapons and stop even operating nuclear power industry for a peaceful purpose as first-phase measures of the package solution."

In a commentary carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea called the offer "one more bold concession."

Washington has said it wants North Korea to verifiably begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programmes before it delivers any concessions.

South Korea's Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, says North Korea has at least three nuclear reactors.

Chinese and Russian officials met in Moscow on Monday to try smoothing a way toward a new session of six-nation talks. A first round of talks in Beijing in August ended with little progress.

Russia and China are working on a compromise that assumes the liquidation of the North Korean nuclear program may take more than one year. Agreement to a "freeze" of nuclear work by Pyongyang would be the first step toward dismantlement, according to ITAR-Tass.

The North Korean nuclear crisis flared in October 2002 when US officials accused North Korea of running a secret nuclear weapons programme in violation of a 1994 deal in which North Korea is obliged to freeze its nuclear facilities. Washington and its allies cut off free oil shipments, also part of the 1994 accord.

- SAPA