North Korea vowed on Tuesday to keep pushing for the right to peaceful atomic energy, putting it on a collision course with the United States as six-way talks on its nuclear weapons drive resumed.
Repeating the demand that broke up the talks five weeks ago, the Stalinist state said it would not bow on the issue to Washington, which rejects nuclear reactors for Pyongyang.
The now-familiar impasse was underlined as the two nations plus China, Japan, the Russian Federation and South Korea returned to the negotiating table.
The off-and-on bargaining is aimed at persuading the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which expelled international monitors and now says it has nuclear weapons, to give up the bomb in exchange for security guarantees as well as energy and economic aid.
”[North Korea] has a right on peaceful nuclear activity. This right is neither awarded nor needs to be approved by others,” the country’s chief envoy to the talks, Kim Gye-gwan, told Xinhua news agency at the Pyongyang airport.
”We have this right, and the more important thing is that we should use this right. If the United States tries to set obstacles to the DPRK’s using this right, we can utterly not accept that.”
US envoy Christopher Hill reiterated before leaving the United States that North Korea must get out of the nuclear business altogether.
He refused to be drawn on Tuesday on whether the issue of civilian use of nuclear energy will again hold up progress in the talks.
”For us, the fundamental question is whether the DPRK is prepared to abandon its nuclear programmes. And as you know its nuclear programs are involved with the production of materials for nuclear weapons,” Hill told reporters on Tuesday evening after a dinner China hosted for all the parties.
”So whether the issue of future civilian use is going to be that important an issue or not, I can’t say at this point.”
As part of any deal, North Korea wants the international community to complete construction of two light-water reactors, a $5-billion project suspended two years ago.
The United States says the North should not have the facilities and that Pyongyang has acknowledged using its civilian programme in the past as a cover for making weapons.
It argues that there is no need for the North to maintain civilian programs because South Korea has pledged to provide its neighbour with electricity. But that would make North Korea reliant on the South.
While the US has Japanese backing on this point, China, South Korea and the Russian Federation are on the record as supporting Pyongyang. The standoff sent the last round of talks in August into recess without any apparent progress.
Under a now defunct 1994 agreement, the two light-water reactors were to have been built by a US-led consortium to replace North Korea’s existing graphite-moderated reactors, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium.
But construction was suspended after the United States accused the North of developing a secret uranium-enrichment programme.
The North’s ruling party newspaper again denied the uranium charges on Tuesday and blamed Washington for pushing the stand-off to ”an extreme phase”.
In Washington US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dangled the prospect of diplomatic relations in front of Pyongyang, saying ”there is a lot on the table for the North Koreans if they choose to take it”.
Normalisation of ties could be expected if North Korea made a ”strategic choice” to disband its nuclear arsenal, Rice told the New York Times.
Despite little sign that the main protagonists are ready to back down, the delegates restarted the talks. They were to review a draft statement outlined by China on the principles of how to denuclearise the Korean peninsula.
South Korea’s chief delegate Song Min-Soon and Hill said the purpose of this session of talks is to reach a joint statement on principles.
”At today’s meeting between the chief delegates, all the countries reached a consensus that they should adopt a final document with a minimum revision to the draft document made at the first phase of the fourth round of talks,” Song said.
Hill expressed optimism the talks will not last as long as last time.
”We don’t feel the need to spend 13 full days here,” Hill said. ”I think we can make progress more quickly than that.” – AFP
