Envoy urges North Korea to restart nuclear disablement

Envoy urges North Korea to restart nuclear disablement

(NSI News Source Info) SEOUL - September 1, 2008: South Korea's nuclear envoy Kim Sook urged North Korea Monday to restart work to disable its nuclear plants and stop its "typical" brinkmanship in negotiations. The North announced last week it had halted work to disable the plants, and would consider repairing them, because the United States has failed to remove it from a terrorism blacklist. The announcement was the latest stumbling block to progress in an aid-for-disarmament deal agreed last year by the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia. The US says it will not act until the communist state agrees on procedures to verify details of its nuclear programme, which it disclosed last June. "The North Korean announcement appears to be a typical tactic," envoy Kim Sook told a forum in Seoul. He said the North was trying to pressure its five negotiating partners to "back down on their demand for rigorous verification" of nuclear activites. "If North Korea believes that it can weaken the resolve of the five parties, it is mistaken," Kim said. "The North should immediately resume the disablement measures and cooperate in the establishment of a verification regime." North Korea, which tested an atomic bomb on October 2006, says it has completed about 80 percent of the disablement work at the Yongbyon complex, the source of weapons-grade plutonium. But it is bridling at US demands that inspectors take samples of material to try to verify how much plutonium has been produced. The disabling is supposed to be a prelude to the pact's final phase, under which the North would dismantle the plants and surrender atomic material and weapons in return for diplomatic relations with Washington and Tokyo and other benefits. Kim said the North "will face the moment of truth" when the time comes for the final phase, and the influence of its powerful military will grow. "That is why it will be more difficult as we aim to remove the nuclear arsenal, programme and all existing materials."