SEOUL, Sept 4: Four regional powers plan to meet in Beijing in the next few days to discuss North Korea’s steps towards restarting its ageing nuclear plant that makes arms-grade plutonium, officials said on Thursday.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said the North on Tuesday had informed the United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency of its plans to restart the Yongbyon plant. It then moved stored equipment back to the reactor.
“It’s deeply regrettable that this happened at this critical moment,” Yu said at a news briefing.
South Korea said its nuclear envoy, Kim Sook, would meet US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill in Beijing on Friday. A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said efforts were being made to have Japan’s and China’s nuclear envoys join the talks later in a four-way discussion.
The North stopped disabling Yongbyon in August, angered by Washington’s failure to drop it from the US state sponsors of terrorism list. The United States said North Korea must first agree on a system to verify Pyongyang’s disclosures about its nuclear programmes.
Analysts said the North might be trying to pressure the outgoing Bush administration, as it looks for a diplomatic successes to bolster its legacy. The North might also be thinking it can wait for a new U.S. president to try to get a better deal.
In November, North Korea starting taking apart the nuclear plant in return for aid. Most of the disablement has been completed and experts said it would take a year or more for the North to restart the Soviet-era plant.
US inspectors are currently in Yongbyon, about 100 km north of Pyongyang, to monitor disablement.
MOSTLY SYMBOLIC: US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they viewed North Korea’s moves more as a negotiating tactic than a genuine effort to rebuild Yongbyon, which proliferation experts believe has produced enough plutonium for six to eight bombs.“The North Koreans have a remarkable record of misreading American politics,” said Brad Glosserman, an executive director of the CSIS Pacific Forum think tank in Hawaii.
Proliferation experts have said that trade sanctions placed on North Korea make it difficult for it to acquire the parts it needs to restart Yongbyon, where some of the facilities might be beyond repair because of their age.—Reuters