Clarity wanted on NKorea nukes

2008-09-04 20:13

Washington - The United States hopes a Friday meeting of North Korea's negotiating partners in Beijing will yield clarity on just what the communist state plans for its nuclear sites, the White House said on Thursday.

"We want some clarification on what is happening in North Korea," spokesperson Dana Perino told reporters, adding that Washington also wants to send a message to the secretive regime in Pyongyang.

The United States still plans to reward North Korea once a verification protocol is in place to gauge progress towards the dismantling of North's nuclear facilities under what has been called 'action for action'," she said.

"And I think that that message will be delivered to the North Koreans," said Perino. "Tough negotiations like these have their ups and downs. We're going to try to make sure that we keep North Korea headed in the right direction."

North Korea announced last week that it has stopped work on disabling the Yongbyon nuclear complex, and would consider rebuilding the plants, because Washington has failed to drop it from a terrorism blacklist.

The reactor is at the heart of the North's decades-old nuclear weapons drive and produced the plutonium for its October 2006 atomic test.

"But up and until they move forward on this verification protocol, which is what the six parties agreed to, then we are not going to remove them from the state sponsor of terrorism list," said Perino.

- AFP