N Korea's negotiating tactic: US rejects DPRK's demand for light water reactors
Pakistan Times Foreign Desk

UNITED NATIONS: US officials on Tuesday played down North Korea’s vow to keep its nuclear weapons until it gets light-water reactors as a negotiating tactic that left intact a breakthrough accord reached this week.

A State Department official insisted there was nothing new in the remarks made Tuesday by North Korean envoy Kim Gyegwan as he was leaving Beijing after a crucial round of six-nation talks.

The official, who asked not to be named, said all sides were making clear their interpretations of the joint statement signed Monday ahead of a new round of talks scheduled for November.

“This is simply the North Koreans starting the negotiations early,” he said, adding the outlines of Pyongyang’s agreement to renounce its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees and aid was unchanged.

Earlier, North Korea insisted on Tuesday that the United States give it a light water nuclear reactor before it rejoins the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The North’s Foreign Ministry made the demand in a statement a day after it agreed at six-nation talks in Beijing to give up its nuclear programs, rejoin the non-proliferation treaty, and accept inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“As clarified in the joint statement, we will return to the NPT and sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA and comply with it immediately upon the U.S. provision of LWRs, a basis of confidence-building to us,” the ministry said in the statement.

A joint statement issued at the Beijing talks’ conclusion said the North ‘committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes and returning at an early date - to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and IAEA safeguards.

Meanwhile, North Korean envoy Kim Gye-gwan who led his country’s delegationd uring six nation talks at Beijing said Tuesday his government would not give up its nuclear programs before it received rewards, including light water reactors, and urged the US to take “practical action”. “They are telling us to give up everything, but there is nothing we should give up first,” Kim told a small group of South Korean reporters at Beijing airport before boarding his plane for Pyongyang.

“The United States can prove a change to its hostile policy against the DPRK (North Korea) by providing light water reactors.”●