South Korea yesterday scrambled to downplay an apparent policy rift with the US over North Korea after its Unification Minister endorsed Pyongyang's right to maintain a civilian nuclear program.
Chung Dong-young threw a new complication on Thursday into six-party negotiations on ending North Korea's nuclear drive, saying that Pyongyang had a "natural right" to the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Officials in Seoul stressed that Chung had been talking about what Pyongyang might have if it rejoins a global non-proliferation treaty (NPT) and meets other international obligations.
"Our official stance is that North Korea would be able to engage in civilian nuclear activities if and when it gives up weapons programs, returns to the NPT and observes IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards," said Cho Tae-yong, head of the foreign ministry's task force on the nuclear issue.
The US, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia are in negotiations with North Korea in an effort to persuade Pyongyang to renounce its program to develop nuclear weapons. Thirteen days of intensive discussions in Beijing recessed on Sunday for three weeks with no agreement. A main stumbling block was Pyongyang's insistence on retaining civilian nuclear capacity.
Cho dismissed as "irresponsible" news reports that South Korea was moving to persuade the US and other participants in the talks to endorse the North's right to peaceful nuclear activities.
He stressed that North Korea, under any circumstances, must not possess uranium-enrichment or plutonium-reprocessing facilities and graphite-moderated reactors.
A Unification Ministry spokesman denied any rift with the US.
"There is nothing like a rift between Seoul and Washington on this issue," he said.
In Washington, Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman, also played down suggestions of policy differences.
"There's no rift between the United States and South Korea," Ereli said. "We are close partners in a broad bilateral relationship and particularly in our common approach to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula."
"There's a negotiation going on. And in any negotiation, you've got at least as many views as there are parties, sometimes more," he said.
After the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula rekindled in October 2002, the North reactivated a graphite-moderated reactor which experts say produces greater amounts of plutonium than light-water reactors.
North Korea has an old five-megawatt experimental reactor at its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon and is now building 50-megawatt and 200-megawatt reactors.
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