The United States said on Wednesday that fundamental differences remain with North Korea over its nuclear-weapons drive but it does not believe the issue of uranium enrichment will prove a stumbling block to progress.
”One of the issues we talked about with the DPRK [North Korea] was the issue of highly enriched uranium,” a senior government official said at a press briefing, referring to a bilateral contact on Tuesday.
”We did not reach an agreement with them on that, but we did agree to keep talking about it.”
The issue of highly enriched uranium, which can be used to produce nuclear explosive devices, was also mentioned in a keynote speech by the US at the fourth round of six-party negotiations on Wednesday, he said.
North Korea has claimed it already possesses nuclear weapons but has never admitted having a uranium-enrichment programme.
”The real efforts are to keep the focus on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula,” the official said.
”We don’t think that we will have a problem defining denuclearisation” but the ”negotiations were not easy as fundamental differences existed among the parties”.
”The DPRK is a country that prides itself on being different, and that is clear in these negotiations,” he said.
The talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear-weapons ambitions enter a third day on Thursday with no date set for their conclusion.
North Korea abandoned the six-party talks last year, complaining of hostile US policy, but returned to the negotiating table after a 13-month hiatus — enticed in part by a softer US approach.
The stand-off was sparked in October 2002 when Washington accused the North of operating a nuclear-weapons programme based on enriched uranium, in violation of a 1994 agreement intended to halt plutonium production.
Plutonium can also be used to make nuclear weapons. — Sapa-AFP