The US and South Korea pressed North Korea yesterday to suspend nuclear development after the US envoy to disarmament talks accused it of continuing to operate a plutonium-producing reactor.
"The continued [operation] of nuclear facilities has to be suspended," South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon said as negotiators headed into a second day of six-nation talks on demands that the North give up its nuclear programs.
US envoy Christopher Hill accused the North of continuing to operate a reactor at Yongbyon that produces plutonium, a fuel for bombs, despite a Sept. 19 pledge to give up nuclear development.
"Every day that goes on, the amount of plutonium theoretically can increase, so that's our concern," said Hill, a US assistant secretary of state, on Wednesday.
"That means that we have a bigger problem than when we ended on Sept. 19. And I think the time to stop reprocessing, the time to stop that reactor, is now," he said
Song said he would present Seoul's roadmap toward disarmament in the talks yesterday.
Diplomats say the talks this week -- the fifth in a series would focus on the contentious details of how North Korea would disarm, how that would be verified and what the sNorth would get in return.
China expects this week's talks to run until today and then recess to let diplomats attend the APEC summit in South Korea next week.
Meanwhile, in Washington, a senior US official said on Wednesday that the US will stop shipments of food aid to North Korea this year if Pyongyang forces the UN's World Food Program (WFP) to halt its food deliveries.
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