|
|
|
| Sunday, 18 September 2005 |
 |
|
 |
World |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
North Korea nuclear talks at 'critical stage' BEIJING, Sept 17 (AFP) Talks on North Korea's nuclear program reached a "critical stage" on Saturday, hinging on whether the six parties could agree to a Chinese-drafted compromise document, delegates said. The negotiations, aimed at ending the communist country's nuclear weapons drive, have been deadlocked over Pyongyang's push to be allowed to run nuclear power plants for civilian use, a demand Washington has opposed. The Chinese document is a set of principles to speed the way to a permanent deal ending the three-year stand-off, and Beijing gave the five other delegations until 3:00 pm to voice their views.Since we are at a critical stage, we will make efforts to produce good results through contacts and consultations with each party," South Korean chief delegate Song Min-Soon told reporters. Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Moscow's chief negotiator Alexander Alexeyev as saying the reworked document includes a reference to the North's right to civilian nuclear programs. "We think that the new draft document is balanced and mentions the rights of North Korea to peaceful nuclear technology and the possibility of building a light-water reactor in due time in the future," he was quoted as saying. The United States has so far rejected the North's demand for a reactor, but US envoy Christopher Hill early Saturday gave no hint as to how his side would react to the draft document. "I don't want to speculate what we'll do in the afternoon," Hill told reporters as he left his hotel. According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, the United States and China were due to hold bilateral consultations Saturday. Other delegations, too, were pouring over the text and consulting with each other. However, with only hours to go, they hinted at disagreement over the exact wording of the proposal. "Not everyone is satisfied with the text," Kenichiro Sasae, the head of the Japanese delegation, said early Saturday. The revised proposal, now in its fifth draft, was put forward Friday by the host nation after the talks ground to a halt over North Korea's demand for a light-water reactor. Xinhua said the delegations were now busy consulting their governments about the details of the document. An agreement has eluded three previous rounds of six-party talks, which involve the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. In New York, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has, meanwhile, warned that those who spread atomic weapons faced a potential freeze on their financial assets. Her comments came in an interview with the New York Post, in which she said negotiations were only part of the effort to contain the global spread of nuclear weapons. Under a now defunct 1994 agreement, two light-water reactors were to have been built by a US-led consortium to replace North Korea's existing graphite-moderated reactors, which can produce weapons-grade plutonium. But construction was suspended after the United States in 2002 accused
the North of developing a secret uranium-enrichment program. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
