WORLD / Asia-Pacific
North Korea shuts down reactor
(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-15 20:54
A satellite image from DigitalGlobe taken on September 29, 2004 shows a
nuclear facility in Yongbyon, North Korea. North Korea confirmed it has
shut Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the nuclear reactor that provides the
country with material to make weapons-grade plutonium. [Reuters]
Despite the lack of verification, the US diplomat said he was confident
the shutdown had begun.
"I think we have every reason to believe they have started the shutdown,"
he said, adding that the complete process would take a few days to allow
equipment to cool before IAEA seals could be applied.
Hill was touring the region ahead of resumed six-nation nuclear talks
with North Korea starting Wednesday in Beijing. That session will focus
on setting up a "work plan and a timeframe" for how disarmament would
proceed, Hill said in Seoul, adding he planned to meet his North Korean
counterpart Tuesday ahead of the formal start of talks.
Hill also said he hoped working groups set up under the talks process --
to discuss details of the North Korea's disarmament and on normalizing
its relations with the US and Japan -- could resume meeting by the end of
August.
"If we don't take these steps a little more quickly than we've taken that
first step, then we're going to fall way behind again," Hill said.
South Korea's nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo called North Korea's shutdown a
"milestone" and said the resumed nuclear negotiations would be held "in a
better atmosphere than ever before." The talks last met in March.
Still, Chun stressed "the next phase will be more difficult than the
reactor shutdown."
The oil that the North received Saturday via a South Korean ship was an
initial 6,200 tons of a total 50,000 tons as a reward for the reactor
shutdown. Under a February agreement at the arms talks, Pyongyang will
receive a total equivalent of 1 million tons of oil for dismantling its
nuclear programs.
North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and
restarted its reactor in early 2003, after Washington accused it of a
secret uranium enrichment program in violation of an earlier disarmament
deal and halted oil deliveries.
International negotiations on the issue have snagged on a variety of
issues, including the North's anger over comments by US officials about
its government and financial restrictions placed on a bank where North
Korea held accounts.
Moves to resolve the standoff gained momentum in the wake of North
Korea's underground test nuclear explosion in October, after which the US
took steps to reverse its previous hard-line policy and accommodate North
Korean demands.
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