US, South Korean Nuclear Envoys on North’s Possible Full Nuclear Disclosure

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

[By Byun Duk-kun: "US, N. Korea Begin Negotiations On Price Of Nuclear Weapons"]

Beijing, July 19 (Yonhap) – The United States appears to have begun negotiations on the price of nuclear bombs North Korea claims to have developed, as the communist country apparently has made a strategic choice to give them up, diplomatic sources said Thursday.

In the first phase of a six-party deal struck on Feb. 13, North Korea has shut down all five nuclear facilities, including its only operational 5-megawatt reactor, in return for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

In the second stage of the deal, the North must disable those facilities and submit a complete list of all its nuclear programmes, presumably including a uranium-based one, in exchange for an additional 950,0000 tons of fuel oil, or equivalent aid.

The agreement, however, does not require North Korea to abandon, let alone declare, nuclear bombs apparently in its possession. The North exploded its first nuclear device in October, and the US intelligence estimates that the country has a few nuclear bombs and enough fissile material to make several more.

“All parties understand North Korea has to include nuclear weapons, if there are such things, in the list of its programmes to be declared,” Chun Yung-woo, South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy, said at a press briefing Wednesday.

Chun made the remarks after a one-on-one meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-kwan [Kim Kye Gwan], just before a new round of six-party talks was to open in Beijing on Wednesday.

Chun quoted the North Korean envoy as telling him that Pyongyang is willing to declare and disable all its nuclear programmes before the end of the year.

“Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-kwan [Kim Kye Gwan] said at the bilateral meeting that his country will declare all its nuclear programmes without omitting anything” if the conditions are met, Chun said.

What North Korea will receive in return for declaring or abandoning its nuclear weapons and programmes remains unknown, but an informed source here said the North’s pie will be “significantly enlarged” if it decides to declare or abandon its nuclear weapons or devices.

The chief US nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, also hinted that he was already in negotiations with North Korea on the price of the nuclear devices the communist country claims to have developed.

“You have fissile material, then you have explosive devices, in which the fissile material is located, so that clearly has to be in the declaration,” Hill told reporters Wednesday.

“Now problem you get into,” he added, “is counting delivery systems” or devices that have not been tested or proven as delivery systems and that “needs to be discussed in the denuclearization working group.”

Speaking to reporters in Seoul on Monday, the top US nuclear envoy said Washington is “certainly prepared to do everything we need to do” to complete the disablement phase before the end of the year.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last Thursday that North Koreans “say that they have made a strategic choice to get rid of their nuclear weapons programmes.”

The Feb. 13 agreement calls for the United States to begin normalization talks with North Korea as part of a political incentive. The negotiations may include the North’s demand to remove it from a US list of countries sponsoring terrorism.

This week’s round of six-party talks is scheduled to end on Thursday with a chairman’s statement which sources said may include a target date for the North’s declaration of its nuclear programmes.

The talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.