N. Korea clarifies its nuclear position - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune
N. Korea clarifies its nuclear position - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune: "N. Korea clarifies its nuclear position
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2005
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
"
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2005
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
SEOUL North Korea offered a significant clarification on Tuesday of its position in the deadlocked nuclear disarmament talks, insisting that it would not dismantle its nuclear reactor - considered the country's main source of weapons-grade plutonium - unless the United States and its allies built a nuclear power plant to replace it.
The remarks Tuesday were the first time North Korea had publicly articulated its stance since six-party disarmament talks adjourned Aug. 7 without a breakthrough. The demand runs counter to the U.S. insistence that the country must first dismantle all of its nuclear facilities before even considering a civilian nuclear program.
U.S. officials were not available for immediate comment. They have said, however, that building a nuclear power plant for North Korea is a "practical impossibility" not only because no one wants to foot the bill but also because the Communist state has a history of using a nuclear reactor to make fuel for atomic weapons.
The sharp differences between North Korea and the United States presage tough negotiations even if the two countries, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia resume their six-party talks next week in Beijing, as scheduled, to seek an agreement on ending the North's nuclear weapons programs.
After a monthlong hiatus, the North has agreed to return to the talks next week. South Korean news reports, citing anonymous sources, said Tuesday that North Korea had proposed to China that the talks resume next Tuesday.
"We can never give up our right to nuclear activity for peaceful purposes," Rodong Sinmun, the North's main state-run newspaper, said in a commentary carried by the North's official news agency, KCNA.
"We have built our nuclear energy facilities over the past decades by tightening our people's belts. The facilities are built with our people's blood and sweat," Rodong said. "It is unimaginable for us to succumb to outside pressure and give up our independent nuclear power industry without an alternative that will compensate us with nuclear energy."
North Korea said it had built nuclear weapons because the United States planned to invade the country. It said it was willing to give up its weapons program, rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open the country to UN inspectors once the United States gave it security guarantees.
Like Iran, however, the North argues that it is a matter of sovereignty that it should be free to generate nuclear energy for economic needs.
"Every country in the world has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Why does the United States insist that only we should give up that right? This is total nonsense," Rodong said. "Our right for peaceful use of nuclear energy is not something that can be negotiated away," it added, echoing the position Iran has taken in its ongoing discussions with representatives of the European Union over its nuclear development program.
It appears that North Korea is essentially seeking to revisit a 1994 agreement forged with the Clinton administration. Under that deal, Washington promised the North a light-water reactor, which is more difficult to convert to weapons development, in return for a freeze on its five-megawatt graphite-moderated reactor, which the North says it has built to produce electricity but also uses to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Agreed Framework, as the 1994 pact is known, was troubled from the first - and assailed in the United States, where critics asserted that it allowed North Korea too much latitude for too little in return. It was effectively abandoned when the extent of the North's nuclear program became clear three years ago.
For years, North Korea has called the 1994 deal a diplomatic "victory" over the Americans. It has told its people that all their economic hardship, including the famine that killed millions in the mid-1990s, was caused by economic embargoes by the Americans in retaliation against the North's nuclear weapons programs.
The Bush administration is determined to kill the 1994 agreement when officials from the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union meet next month to decide formally the fate of the light-water reactor project.
Washington has repeatedly called the accord a "failure" and suspended construction of the light-water reactor in early 2003, with one-third of the work completed.
Any deal that would repeat the 1994 arrangement would be a political nonstarter for the Bush administration, analysts believe. It would mean that the United States would end up with the same deal it had a decade ago - after giving the North more time to build more bombs during the confrontation with the Bush White House.
"It will not be an easy problem to resolve, to say the least," said Koh Yu Hwan, a North Korea expert in Dongguk University in Seoul.
James Leach, a Republican Congressman from Iowa who visited Pyongyang last week, said Sunday that the North Koreans had told him that they were building two more graphite-moderated reactors, an apparent move to put pressure on the United States.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon of South Korea said last week that the five countries involved in the nuclear talks want North Korea to dismantle all nuclear weapons and programs in return for economic and security benefits. After his meeting last month with the U.S. secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Ban cited the North's five-megawatt reactor as one of the facilities that should be dismantled.
The North's stance threw into doubt South Korea's proposal to send North Korea 2,000 megawatts of electricity in return for terminating the light-water reactor project. The offer raised questions among many analysts here because it would make North Korea reliant upon the South for energy.
With energy demands rising, North Korea has "no option but to meet electricity needs by nuclear power plants in addition to its hydroelectric and thermoelectric power plants," Rodong said Tuesday. "We will ceaselessly and actively pursue our nuclear activities for peaceful purposes."
Solana urges nuclear talks
The European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, on Tuesday urged North Korea and Iran to return to the negotiating table over their respective drives for nuclear programs that are seen as a threat to world security, Agence France-Presse reported from Shanghai.
"The EU remains willing to resume the negotiations we had with Tehran for a new political and economic relationship," Solana said in Shanghai after finishing the EU-China summit in Beijing. "But it is up to Iran to come back first into compliance," Solana said in remarks delivered at the China Europe International Business School.
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posted by Greta Jane at Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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