BEIJING - North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear
programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by
Dec. 31, actions that will be overseen by a U.S.-led team, the six
nations involved in disarmament talks said Wednesday.
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Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the
agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang "within
the next two weeks to prepare for disablement" and will fund those
initial activities.
"The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at
Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod
fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December
2007," said Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to
reporters, but did not take any questions.
The Bush administration welcomed the agreement, calling it significant
progress.
"These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK's production of
plutonium - a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," said Gordon Johndroe,
spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.
The complex at Yongbyon has been at the center of North Korea's
nuclear weapons programs for decades and is believed to have produced
the nuclear device Pyongyang detonated a year ago to prove its long-
suspected nuclear capability.
Since then, Pyongyang rejoined the six-nation disarmament negotiations
that involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea
as well as North Korea. Under a broad agreement reached in February,
North Korea pledged to disable its nuclear programs in return for 1
million tons of heavy fuel oil or other assistance.
Wednesday's statement outlines the next steps in the February deal.
Although negotiators tentatively agreed on the statement Sunday after
four days of talks, it was forwarded to their capitals for approval,
leading to a delay in its public release.
The statement also said the U.S. and North Korea will "increase
bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust" but did not set a
specific timetable for when Washington will remove Pyongyang from a
list of countries that sponsor terrorism - a key North Korean demand.
Arrangements will be made in future meetings between the two on
normalizing their relations, the statement said.
In addition, the statement reiterated the five other countries'
commitment to deliver the fuel oil and other energy and economic
assistance as spelled out in the February deal.
Shortly after Wednesday's deal was announced, however, Japan said it
would not provide aid to North Korea or lift its economic sanctions
against the country because of a dispute over North Korea's past
abductions of Japanese citizens.
"There will be no immediate action from Japan. We will wait to see
what North Korea does next," Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said.
"Japan's policy remains unchanged. We will consider aid once we see
progress on the abductions issue."
Tokyo wants Pyongyang to account for its abduction of Japanese
nationals in the 1970s and 1980s - a main sticking point for the two
countries, which have no diplomatic ties.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071003/ap_on_re_as/koreas_nuclear
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