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N Korea disarmament talks focus on verification

“I’m not aware that there’s anything that could be defined as no longer a problem.” — Christopher Hill, chief US delegate

The US delegate to talks aimed at the nuclear disarmament of North Korea said problems lay ahead as negotiators yesterday discussed rules about verifying the reclusive state’s nuclear activities.

North Korea, which tested a nuclear bomb in 2006, partly disabled its Yongbyon nuclear complex this year in a disarmament-for-aid deal, but the six-party disarmament talks have failed to agree on a protocol to check the North’s declaration of nuclear activities.

Chief US delegate Christopher Hill said all sides — North Korea and South Korea, China, the US, Japan and Russia — had to see what the reaction was to a draft text offered by China that outlined a way to verify nuclear information.

“I think the key thing is to figure out whether this is a draft that everyone can work on or not,” Hill told reporters.

Asked if a consensus had been reached on taking nuclear samples from North Korea, or verifying that Pyongyang was abiding by its agreements, he said: “I’m not aware that there’s anything that could be defined as no longer a problem.”

Japan’s top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura, was similarly downbeat.

“We cannot have preconceptions about what will happen at the six-party talks currently being held in Beijing,” he told reporters in Tokyo.

Any progress at the negotiations in Beijing, which have stretched over the years, would be a diplomatic trophy for outgoing US President George W. Bush, weeks before president-elect Barack Obama takes office.

The most contention has centered on the North’s reluctance to allow international inspectors to take nuclear samples out of the country for testing. Two South Korean newspapers — the Dong-a Ilbo and the JoongAng Ilbo — said in unsourced reports that the talks were approaching a compromise over the issue.

But many analysts believe North Korea is in no hurry to make concessions, waiting to test Obama’s intentions. A South Korean expert on North Korea said Pyongyang was unlikely to make real concessions on verification any time soon.

“North Korea will never allow sampling in the second-phase process because it is a bargaining chip it wants to hold on to until the last moment of the talks,” said Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University. “It is putting all its efforts into better positioning itself at the negotiating table so that it would still have something to use as a leverage in the final phase of the talks.”

Meanwhile, North Korea yesterday claimed the US had recognized it as a nuclear weapons state after a US defense report described it as such.

The outgoing Bush administration has not acknowledged North Korea as a nuclear weapons state as it pushes on with six-party talks aimed at scrapping the communist country’s atomic weapons.

“The US government ranked the DPRK [North Korea] among nuclear weapons states,” Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

“It is the first time that the US officially recognized the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state and announced it in its government report,” it added.

The Joint Forces Command report caused a diplomatic flap, with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-Hwan denying yesterday that it reflected Washington’s official position.

The US Defense Department also said the report does not reflect Washington’s official refusal to recognize North Korea’s nuclear status.

“The rim of the great Asian continent is already home to five nuclear powers: China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Russia,” said the report.
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