BEIJING, Nov 11: North Korea said on Friday it would not start dismantling its nuclear weapons programme until the United States lifts sanctions on eight Pyongyang companies, bringing six-way nuclear talks back to stalemate.
The unexpected demand came on the last day of a three-day session meant to kick-start negotiations on how to implement a Sept 19 agreement in which the North committed to disarm in return for energy aid and other benefits.
“We have seriously proposed the US should lift financial sanctions on us,” Kim Gye-Gwan, North Korea’s chief delegate to the six-nation talks, told reporters after negotiations in Beijing ended.
“The financial sanctions violate the (September) joint statement and make it impossible to carry out the commitments to implement the joint statement.
“We came out for negotiations because the US said it would stop its hostile policy and co-exist with us.”
The United States last month said it had blacklisted eight North Korean companies, saying they were involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The US delegation here offered no public comment on the sanctions issue, and instead restated its demand that North Korea immediately and irreversibly begin dismantling its nuclear weapons programme.
North Korea has said it first wants the United States to supply it with a light-water nuclear reactor for energy, but US delegation chief Christopher Hill insisted this was impossible.
“All five countries (apart from North Korea) have a very clear view that there is not going to be any discussion of a light-water reactor until an appropriate time,” he said.
“That appropriate time is not now,” he said, adding that the secretive Stalinist regime would first have to show that it “has given up its nuclear weapons, has abandoned all its nuclear programmes.”
The issue would not be solved by freezing its programmes, Hill said.
“The existence of these programmes is the problem, not whether they are working or not,” he said. “Anything frozen can become unfrozen. We’re just not interested in that type of reversible step.”
Nevertheless, the six-party nations — which include South Korea, China, Russia and Japan — pledged to continue pushing ahead with diplomatic efforts and enter a second phase of the current fifth round of talks soon.
In the chairman’s statement issued at the end of the talks, chief Chinese delegate Wu Dawei said this week’s negotiations were “serious, pragmatic and constructive.”
Wu said the second phase of the fifth-round of talks would be held “at the earliest possible date.” Delegates said this would most likely be in January, as the international diplomatic calendar for next month was too crowded.
In announcing its blacklist in October, the US Treasury Department said it had frozen whatever assets the eight companies had under US jurisdiction.
Among those blacklisted were Hesong Trading Corporation and Tosong Technology Trading Corporation, whose parent company is Korea Mining Development Corporation.
The remaining six Pyongyang-based companies belong to parent company Korea Ryonbong General Corporation.—AFP
