N Korea makes nuke offer
2007-02-04 17:20
Tokyo - North Korea's top nuclear envoy has
told former US officials Pyongyang wants more than 500 000 tons of fuel oil a year in return for suspending its
atomic reactor, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.
Shutting down North Korea's sole operating reactor would be
a good first step when six-country discussions on ending the
North's nuclear weapons programme resume in Beijing on Thursday,
South Korea's envoy to the talks said.
The Asahi Shimbun daily said North Korean vice-foreign minister Kim Kye-gwan had set out Pyongyang's position when he
met former US state department official Joel Witt and nuclear
expert David Albright in the North Korean capital last week.
The demand would exceed the energy assistance received by
the impoverished communist state under an 1994 deal with
Washington, which collapsed when the current nuclear crisis
began in 2002.
Sanctions
Kim and other North Korean officials said the country would
halt the operation of its reactor at Yongbyon if it obtained
energy assistance equivalent to more than 500 000 tons of fuel
oil a year, the Asahi said, quoting the two Americans.
"As a first step, it is important to get the facility shut
down," South Korean nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters.
North Korean officials also demanded that Washington lift
its financial sanctions against the North as well as removing it
from the list of "terrorism-sponsoring" nations, the daily said.
Kim was likely to have made the demands to US counterpart
Christopher Hill at unprecedented meetings the two men held in
Berlin last month, but might have decided to reiterate them to
seek concessions when the six-party talks resume, Asahi said.
Hill said he had not seen the reports on the oil aid, but he
wanted to see tangible steps at the Beijing talks to start North
Korea on the path towards ending its atomic ambitions.