N. Korean Nuclear Reactor Talks to Start

North Korea will hold talks this week with the U.S.-led consortium that suspended construction of a nuclear reactor because of the communist state’s atomic weapons programs, an official said Monday.

Officials from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and North Korea will meet over two days starting Wednesday in Kumho, a remote village on North Korea’s northeast coast where the consortium had been building two light-water reactors to generate electricity for the impoverished country.

A senior South Korean official involved in the project said the talks would be the first contact between North Korea and the consortium since the nuclear dispute flared a year ago.

The light water reactors were part of a 1994 deal to supply North Korea with electricity in exchange for a promise by the North to stop its weapons development.

But the deal went sour after U.S. officials said North Korea admitted running a secret nuclear program in violation of international agreements.

The United States, Japan, the European Union and South Korea belong to the construction consortium. The sides will discuss “various issues including how to preserve facilities and equipment during the suspension,” the South Korean official said.

North Korea has said it will not allow KEDO to remove any equipment, facilities, materials or technical documents from the construction site at Kumho, and demands compensation for the suspension.

South Korean officials have said the fate of the North’s reactor project will be tied to progress in resolving the dispute over nuclear weapons.