UN Council to discuss North Korea nuclear crisis

A US ENVOY yesterday said the North Korean nuclear crisis would come before the UN Security Council as soon as this week, and South and North Korea held high-level talks that were overshadowed by the dispute.

An official of the UN nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna said no decision had been taken on whether to refer the matter to the Security Council, but that the agency’s governors and director general were engaged in intense debate.

A referral of the crisis to the Security Council would be a diplomatic victory for Washington, which says the dispute is between North Korea and the rest of the world, not just the US. North Korea, which seeks US security guarantees and economic aid, insists that other parties should not get involved.

Washington says North Korea must drop its nuclear development, which is viewed as a threat to regional stability, if ties are to improve between the two countries.

The Security Council could consider levelling economic or political sanctions against North Korea for its efforts to develop nuclear weapons, a move Pyongyang says is tantamount to war.

The role of China, a traditional ally of North Korea and a permanent member of the council, would likely be pivotal.

Meanwhile, a North Korean energy official said a nuclear reactor at the centre of the dispute will start generating electricity “within weeks,” a pro-North Korean newspaper based in Japan reported yesterday.

“We are currently hurrying the process,” Vice Minister Shin Yong Sung of the North’s Power and Coal Industries told Choson Shinbo, a daily published by the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.

Experts say the North's main nuclear complex at Yongbyon could extract enough weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel rods for several weapons in six months or so.

North Korea says it is reviving the 5-megawatt reactor, which had been frozen since 1994 under a deal with the United States, to generate badly needed electricity and has no intention of producing weapons.

Stumping for support in Seoul, US Undersecretary of State John Bolton said South Korean officials had agreed on taking the matter before the Security Council.

“It’s not a question of if it goes before the Security Council, it’s only a matter of time,” Bolton said. “We hope it will get there by the end of this week.”