08 November 2003 14:41
`6-way talks will survive reactor shutdown`
By Kim So-young A U.S.-led international consortium's tentative decision to suspend building nuclear reactors in
North Korea is not likely to affect the second round of six-party talks over Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program,
South Korea's top unification policymaker said yesterday. North Korea renewed its demand to be compensated for
energy losses and threatened to restrict equipment and materials from being taken out of the construction site Thursday,
a day after members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization agreed to halt the project for one year.
There have been concerns that this might hamper the ongoing diplomatic efforts to arrange a second round of six-way
talks before mid-December by provoking the belligerent and unpredictable country.
But Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun brushed off such concerns in a weekly press briefing, saying,
"Pyongyang's threat is a negotiating tactic. They've made these demands before." Instead, Jeong said
the issue could be discussed once the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia sit down together at a
negotiating table following their first, inconclusive meeting in Beijing in August.
The international consortium, comprising South Korea, the United States, Japan and the European Union, promised in
1994 to build the reactors by the end of this year and deliver annual provisions of heavy fuel oil in return for the
North freezing its nuclear activities. But the United States has cut off its oil shipments to the energy- starved state,
and the construction, initially scheduled for completion this year, has made little headway in the wake of
Pyongyang's revelation a year ago of its nuclear program.
The minister echoed Seoul officials' downplaying of the one-year- suspension. "It's not a termination
but a suspension, meaning the project could start again after one year." In response to an international credit
rating agency's prediction that North Korea's crumbling economy will eventually lead to the collapse of the
regime, he stressed the impoverished state has recorded minor economic growth over the three years and has survived the
widespread famine that threatened it in the mid-1990s. "North Korea has been for many years struggling with its
economic plight, so an external shock will not likely affect the regime's survival to a considerable extent,"
Jeong said. The international community has been expecting the regime to go under since the collapse of the former
Soviet Union in 1989, but the world's last Stalinist state has proved more resilient than initially thought.
(soyoung@heraldm.com)
[AIW [Asia Africa Intelligence Wire]] |
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