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South Korean Minister Opposes North Nuclear Power Plant Project

Posted on: Wednesday, 24 August 2005, 06:00 CDT

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap

Seoul, 24 August: South Korea's point man on North Korea said Wednesday [24 August] he opposed resuming a project to build nuclear power plants in the communist country, but claimed the North will be entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy as soon as it abandons its nuclear weapons programme.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Seoul will not pursue the resumption of the project by the Korea Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) to build two light-water reactors in the North for energy purposes because its latest offer to provide 2m kilowatts of electricity will be financed by funds allocated for the KEDO project.

"The plan to send electricity to North Korea is based on a premise that the North abandons its nuclear weapons programmes and agrees to end the project to build light-water reactors," the minister said in a report to the National Assembly Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee.

The remarks come in line with the US position on the resumption of the KEDO project.

The North did not demand the completion of the nuclear reactors in the latest round of six-nation talks over its nuclear weapons programme, but analysts believe the communist state may insist on the resumption of the construction in future talks.

The top US negotiator at the talks, Christopher Hill, has already expressed his country's opposition, saying light-water reactors are not cost-effective.

"These are rather expensive things... [ellipsis as received] We are talking billions of dollars. So that's not happening," he said while taking part in the fourth round of the six-party talks in Beijing that went into a three-week recess at the beginning of this month. The negotiations, also attended by the two Koreas, Japan, China and Russia, are to resume next week.

The US stance apparently comes from its wish to see a complete dismantlement of all nuclear programmes as well as all nuclear reactors in the North.

However, Chung, who concurrently serves as the head of South Korea's National Security Council, renewed his claim that the North should be given the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

"Once the North returns to the NPT and agrees to be subject to IAEA inspections, it is only natural that (the country) enjoys the right to the peaceful use of nuclear energy as a member state of the NPT," he said at the parliamentary meeting.

The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allows its member countries to use nuclear energy as long as it is for peaceful use and the country agrees to inspections by the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

The United States, however, claims the communist North cannot be trusted with any type of nuclear capacity.

The latest North Korean nuclear dispute erupted in late 2002 when the US accused the North of running a clandestine nuclear arms programme in violation of their 1994 agreement that ended the first North Korean nuclear dispute that year.

The North's Foreign Ministry announced the country's possession of nuclear weapons for the first time in February.

Source: BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific

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