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NKorea to shut down reactor?
17/03/2007 14:45 - (SA)
Beijing - North Korea told delegates at nuclear talks on Saturday that it is preparing to shut down its main reactor, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy said, a key step promised in a landmark disarmament pact.
The apparent progress in implementing last month's agreement came only hours after North Korea's lead nuclear envoy said his government would not close its main nuclear facility until all $25m of its money frozen in a Macau bank, Banco Delta Asia, is released.
"We will not stop our nuclear activity until our funds frozen in the BDA are fully released," Kim Kye Gwan told reporters as he arrived in Beijing for follow-up meetings on the agreement.
The fate of the frozen funds, the result of a blacklisting by US authorities, has become a central issue in the talks.
Washington promised to resolve the bank issue as an inducement to North Korea to return to the negotiations, but its solution - an order this past week to US banks to sever ties with the Macau bank - has been criticised by China and left North Korea sending mixed signals.
'Preparations' underway
At one follow-up meeting on Saturday, another North Korean diplomat, Kim Song Gi, said North Korea has "begun preparations to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility," South Korean envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters afterward.
Kim promised that North Korea will submit a list of its nuclear programmes and disable its nuclear facility "as soon as the right conditions are created," Chun said, without explaining what the conditions were.
Under the February 13 agreement, which involves the two Koreas, the US, China, Japan and Russia, North Korea is to shutter the Yongbyon reactor and a plutonium processing plant and allow UN monitors to verify the shutdown within 60 days.
In return, North Korea is to receive energy and economic assistance.
Washington, in a side agreement, promised to resolve the Banco Delta Asia funds, which US authorities alleged may have resulted from counterfeiting or money laundering.
- SAPA
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