North Korea has invited UN inspectors to monitor a nuclear freeze deal with the US, insisting the pact remains in force despite its shock announcement of a planned satellite launch.
Next month’s scheduled launch, which would defy a UN ban, has sparked widespread complaints that North Korea is testing long-range missile technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead.
Washington says any launch would breach the bilateral deal announced on Feb. 29, which offered major US food aid for a partial nuclear freeze. The North insists otherwise and said it was inviting inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) back three years after expelling the UN division.
“The satellite launch is one thing and the DPRK [North Korea]-US agreement is another,” its chief nuclear negotiator Ri Yong-ho said late on Monday in Beijing.
The North will implement its deal with the US in full, he told reporters, according to video aired yesterday by South Korea’s KBS television.
“In order to implement the agreement, we’ve sent a letter of invitation to the IAEA to send inspectors to our country,” Ri said.
The US deal had raised modest hopes of progress in decades-long efforts to curb the North’s nuclear weapons drive.
It agreed last month to suspend its uranium enrichment program, along with long-range missile launches and nuclear tests, in return for 240,000 tonnes of US food. It also promised to readmit IAEA inspectors.
China yesterday said that Ri and his counterpart Wu Dawei (武大偉) had a “frank and in-depth exchange of opinions” when they met on Monday.
It was the second time the two sides had met since North Korea’s announcement on Friday of its satellite plan, indicating the level of concern in Beijing.
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