The recent six-party agreement on North Korea's initial steps toward denuclearization requires the communist nation to report its uranium-based weapons programs, if any, South Korea's foreign minister said Wednesday.
Dismissing criticism that last week's nuclear pact failed to directly address North Korea's existing nuclear arms, Song Min-soon said the "underlying" goal of the agreement is to verify and eventually dismantle all of the North's nuclear weapons and programs.
"In an agreement, we cannot have a situation where the South Korean government says one thing and the other countries point to another," the foreign minister said at a weekly press briefing.
North Korea agreed last Tuesday to a phased shutdown and disabling of its key nuclear facilities at Yongbyon in return for an equivalent of up to 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil.
South Korean officials, including its chief nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-woo, have called last week's agreement a "big step forward" as it marked the first progress in the nuclear negotiations since a September 2005 round at which the communist North agreed in principle to denuclearize in exchange for aid.
However, critics of the talks, attended by the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China, claimed the new pact failed to defuse the threats from the North's nuclear weapons as it does not specifically require Pyongyang to give up or dismantle its existing weapons or nuclear materials.
The foreign minister said the timing of North Korea's moves to start giving up the weapons is subject to further discussions, but that there can be no different interpretation of the agreement.
Song said the pact requires North Korea to start addressing the issue in the near future, if not immediately.
"Nuclear weapons or others which North Korea would start dismantling first is an issue that has to be discussed in future" negotiations, he said.
But, he said, "Saying North Korea would discuss all of its nuclear activities in the past (with the other five nations) means we can monitor all of its past nuclear activities. I think it would be unnecessary to worry that the (existing weapons) issue is not included" in the agreement.
"The invariable principle is that North Korea will dismantle all of its nuclear-related activities whether they are nuclear weapons or nuclear programs," he insisted.
The second clause of Article II of Tuesday's nuclear pact states, "The DPRK will discuss with other parties a list of all its nuclear programs...including plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods, that would be abandoned pursuant" to the September 2005 agreement. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The latest nuclear pact also calls on "directly related parties" to negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at a separate forum at an appropriate time.
Song expected the parties involved to start the proposed forum on establishing a permanent peace regime following the six-party foreign ministerial meeting.
The foreign ministers' meeting will take place after the North shuts down and seals its Yongbyon facilities within two months as the initial steps for denuclearization as agreed upon at the six-party talks in Beijing last week.
When asked about the likelihood of the latest agreement being translated into actual action, the foreign minister said there are no guarantees North Korea will honor the deal, but expressed high hopes.
"Unlike a bilateral agreement, one must deal with five others.
I am paying attention to that fact," he said.
The nuclear dispute erupted in late 2002 when Washington claimed that Pyongyang admitted to running a secret uranium-based weapons program, an accusation still denied by the communist nation.
North Korea conducted its first-ever nuclear weapons test on Oct. 9.
Seoul, Feb. 21 (Yonhap News)
Six-party agreement addresses N. Korea's uranium program: FM |
