US Envoy Says North Korea to Shut Yongbyon Nuclear Facility in Three Weeks

Jun 23, 05:27 AM

Current Headlines: Text of report in English by Japanese news agency Kyodo

Tokyo, June 23 Kyodo - Top US nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill said Saturday that North Korea will shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility "within probably three weeks," while suggesting that North Korea had not shown a positive stance on settling the issue of abducted Japanese nationals.

Hill, US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, stopped over in Japan to brief Kenichiro Sasae, his Japanese counterpart at the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear programmes, on the outcome of his surprise visit to Pyongyang on Thursday.

His visit came on the heels of recent positive developments in the North Korean nuclear standoff including a breakthrough on the transfer of disputed North Korea-linked funds and North Korea's subsequent invitation to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We expect Yongbyon to be shut down after there is an agreement between the DPRK and IAEA on how to monitor this shutdown," Hill told reporters after talks with Sasae. "We do expect this to take place soon and within probably three weeks."

DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Hill declined to give any specific date for when the shutdown would take place.

Under a Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea agreed to shut down and seal the Yongbyon facility and to invite IAEA inspectors back to the country by April 14 in exchange for the start of energy assistance.

The North, however, refused to carry out its February pledges due to the dispute over the funds and held up the six-party talks on its nuclear programmes. The six parties last met in March, but the talks ended without substantive discussions on denuclearization due to the fund row.

On the prospect of resuming the stalled six-party talks, Hill said, "There is a consensus among all the six parties that there should be a head-of-delegation meeting sometime in the early part of July" after the initial actions.

Hill said, "I would expect it to happen soon after shutdown begins" but stopped short of specifying if it would be after the shutdown is under way or after the shutdown has been completed.

Meanwhile, the Korean Central News Agency, quoting a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson, reported that Pyongyang had agreed with Hill to cooperate in holding a meeting of chief delegates from the six countries in early July and a foreign ministerial conference in the Philippines in early August.

Hill stressed that what is important is that he and his counterparts discuss the second phase of denuclearization in the next six-party talks, referring to North Korea's declaration of all its nuclear programmes and disablement of existing nuclear facilities.

On the abduction issue, Hill said, "I can't say I got any answer that would lead to a resolution of the abductee issue."

"They certainly understand the importance that we (the United States) attach to the abductee issue," Hill told reporters prior to his meeting with Sasae after arriving at Tokyo's Haneda airport.

Sasae later told reporters after the meeting at the Japanese Foreign Ministry that he thinks North Korea understands it is important to improve bilateral relations with Japan.

"A key challenge ahead is how to resolve the abduction issue and improve Japan-North Korea relations," Sasae, director general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said, vowing to address this issue "squarely."

The abduction issue is an emotional one in Japan. Tokyo has said it will not provide North Korea with energy aid unless it deems that progress has been made on the issue and has included the resolution of the abduction issue as one of the preconditions for normalizing ties with North Korea.

At the ministry, Hill said the United States will "continue to raise this issue."

There has been concern that the abduction issue will be sidelined if there is progress on the denuclearization issue.

The abduction issue is also being taken up within the six-party framework involving the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia under a bilateral working group.

In the February deal, the six parties agreed to set up five working groups including a group on normalizing Japan-North Korea ties as well as one on US-North Korea relations.

While Japan has repeated its demand that North Korea reinvestigate the abductions and return the abductees, Pyongyang has maintained that it has done all it can and that it considers the cases closed.

North Korea's invitation to the IAEA last week marked the first indication from Pyongyang that it will move to implement the initial steps for denuclearization spelled out in the Feb. 13 accord, after refusing to do so until it received the previously frozen funds from Banco Delta Asia SARL. The transfer of the funds began last week.

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