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WRAPUP 4-US envoy reveals North Korea's nuclear inspection offer
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WRAPUP 4-US envoy reveals North Korea's nuclear inspection offer
Reuters - 2 hours 40 minutes ago
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* South Korea vows strong response to all provocations by North
* Richardson says North Korea officials "pragmatic", willing to allow inspections of uranium programme
* South Korea official says next six-party talks must have substance
By Chris Buckley and Sylvia Westall
BEIJING/SEOUL, Dec 21 - North Korea, which has a long history of reneging on deals aimed at reining in its nuclear programme, has promised to allow in U.N. inspectors to make sure it is not processing highly enriched uranium, a U.S. envoy said on Tuesday.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said North Korea, which
stepped back from a promised confrontation over "reckless" military drills by the South on Monday, had shown a "pragmatic attitude" in unofficial talks in Pyongyang.
"The specifics are that they will allow IAEA personnel to go to Yongbyon to ensure that they are not processing highly enriched uranium, that they are proceeding with peaceful purposes," Richardson said in Beijing, referring to the North's main nuclear site.
If IAEA inspectors were allowed to carry out such monitoring, it could help to address a key concern about North Korea's uranium enrichment work because highly enriched material can be used in atomic weapons.
The Yongbyon complex is at the heart of the North's plutonium weapons programme. It consists of a five-megawatt reactor, whose construction began in 1980, a fuel fabrication facility and a plutonium reprocessing plant, where weapons-grade material is extracted from spent fuel rods.
A uranium enrichment programme would give Pyongyang a second way to obtain fissile material for making atomic bombs.
North Korea, which has refused full IAEA oversight since 2002 and expelled inspectors last April, has said it only wants to enrich uranium to the low level used to make fuel for a civilian atomic power programme.
But in order to check this, the IAEA would need continued, unfettered access to all of North Korea's uranium enrichment activities. It would usually require frequent inspections, video cameras and special seals to ensure that none of the nuclear material is being diverted for military use.
South Korea and the United States suspect North Korea has been secretly enriching uranium at new locations outside Yongbyon. Richardson said of the North's offer: "I believe that's an important gesture on their part, but there still has to be a commitment eventually by the North Koreans to denuclearise, to abide by the 2005 agreement that says they will terminate their nuclear weapons activities."
"...Now there has to be deeds and not words," he said. "But it's up to governments to move forward with the agreements that we've made, and it's time for citizen-diplomats like myself to step aside and let governments move forward."
He told CNN the offer might pave the way for the resumption of six-party talks which also involve the United States, Russia, Japan, China and South Korea -- although Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have been cool to this idea, reluctant to reward perceived bad behaviour.
"Maybe now is the time for the six-party countries to reach out to North Korea and say, 'OK, let's get down to business,'" Richardson said on CNN.
South Korea defended its live artillery drill near the disputed border with the North, which triggered fears of all-out war, saying it was determined to stand up to provocations from its neighbour.
North Korea had promised to strike back if the drill went ahead, but retreated from confrontation. Air-raid bunkers on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong shook during South Korea's exercise. North Korea shelled the island last month, killing two Marines and two civilians, in response to a similar drill.
"We will make the greatest efforts to create strong military-like armed forces that can assure victory over all enemies and be prepared for North Korean provocations," Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin said in defence of a drill that many observers had feared could lead to a wider conflict.
"The army will make a strong response to all provocations."
NORTH KOREAN SUCCESSION
Tuesday's edition of the Korea Joonang Daily said that South Korea's drill showed Seoul's resolve to stand up to North Korea, after a perceived weak response to last month's shelling and the sinking of a naval vessel in March which the South has blamed on the North.
"The drill is absolutely necessary to preempt malicious moves by the North," the South Korean newspaper said.
A key South Korean government official said the recent aggression by the North was closely linked to the succession from ailing leader Kim Jong-il to his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, and was intended for its domestic audience as much as for anybody.
"We don't want to give them the misperception that their provocations will help their national interest," he said.
The U.N. Security Council remained deadlocked in its efforts to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, but North Korea's refraining from retaliation and the nuclear offer made to U.S. trouble-shooter Bill Richardson offered some breathing space.
But the South Korean government official, who declined to be identified, said Seoul could not take the North Korean offer seriously as it was not official.
He said the five parties had to agree first on what to offer the North.
"Then we can pursue six-party talks. But the next six-party talks will be the grand bargain. That means a target year and the whole picture in the next round, not partial elements."
J.D. Kenneth Boutin, lecturer in international relations at the School of International and Political Studies at Deakin University in Australia, was encouraged by the North's offer.
"These are positive developments, and support the interpretation that North Korea's recent belligerence was driven by domestic political requirements or intended to reinforce its international negotiating position," he told Reuters.
"This assumes, of course, that these statements translate into meaningful measures."
Others remained worried.
"The situation is very tense," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Moscow. "There can be no optimism in this situation."
Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at the Northeast Asia Asian Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation in Washington, said North Korea's agreement to allow nuclear inspectors to return would fulfil one of five U.S. and South Korean preconditions for resuming the six-party talks.
"However, North Korea's disclosure of significant progress in its highly-enriched uranium program has made the nuclear negotiations exponentially more difficult," he said. (Additional reporting by Kim Miyoung and Jeremy Laurence; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
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