North Korea to disable nuclear facilities

NORTH Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programmes and disable facilities at its main reactor complex by December 31, overseen by a US-led team, the six nations involved in disarmament talks said yesterday.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang “within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement” and will fund those initial activities.

“The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December 2007,” said Mr Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to reporters.

The Bush administration called the agreement significant progress.

“These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK’s production of plutonium,” said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council.

The Yongbyon complex has been at the centre of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programmes for decades and is believed to have produced the device Pyongyang detonated a year ago to prove its long-suspected nuclear capability.

Pyongyang has since rejoined the disarmament negotiations that also involve the US, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. Under an agreement in February, North Korea pledged to disable its nuclear programmes in return for one million tons of heavy fuel oil or other assistance.

The statement also said Washington and Pyongyang will “increase bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust” but did not set a specific timetable for when the US will remove North Korea from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism — a key North Korean demand. Arrangements will be made in future meetings between the two on normalising relations, it said.

In addition, the statement reiterated the five other countries’ commitment to deliver the fuel oil and other energy and economic assistance as spelled out in the February deal.

Shortly after yesterday’s deal was announced, however, Japan said it would not provide aid to North Korea or lift its economic sanctions against the country because of a dispute over North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese citizens.

“There will be no immediate action from Japan. We will wait to see what North Korea does next,” said Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura. “Our policy remains unchanged. We will consider aid once we see progress on the abductions issue.”

Tokyo wants Pyongyang to account for its abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s — a main sticking point for the two countries, which have no diplomatic ties.