North Korean Economy Watch

Center for Strategic and International Studies
(Hat tip to the Marmot)
Jon B. Wolfsthal
10/17/2007

North Korea has pledged to disable its nuclear facilities by the end of the year, and the United States is sending a team of technical experts to Yongbyon to begin the process of putting Pyongyang’s bomb machine to sleep.

The more lengthy process of dismantling the full complex will come later.

Few Americans have been to the remote and heavily guarded complex. I was one of a group of Department of Energy employees that served as on-site monitors at Yongbyon. And far from the advanced complex depicted in so many James Bond thrillers, what we found were are a collection of crumbling cement structures with inadequate heat and power. The water and electricity work only sporadically. There are no lasers or modern computer complexes with flashing lights; the site is frozen in the 1950s and more closely resembles a junk yard than an evil regime’s nuclear nerve center.

Top on the disablement list is the North’s 5 megawatt nuclear reactor.

Built in the 1980s, the plant is capable of producing up to one bomb’s worth of plutonium every year. The U.S. team will find antiquated computer control equipment scavenged from the international market and cobbled together from so many spare parts. Rusting parts and broken windows dominate the outside view. While safe to visit for short periods, the levels of radiation on the site would force its closure in any state in America. U.S. experts will have to wear nuclear detection equipment, known as dosimeters, at all times for their safety.

The U.S. teams also have to de-activate the fuel reprocessing center where North Korea extracted plutonium from spent nuclear fuel for its nuclear weapons, as well as the fresh fuel production site. The condition of the reprocessing facility is not well known. However, reprocessing spent fuel is among the most radioactive activities there is and levels of radiation are likely to be very high. Only short periods of exposure will be permitted by the U.S. or Korean health physicists tasked with ensuring the health of those working in radioactive environments.

Locking down the fuel fabrication site may be the easiest task due to its poor condition, but will pose some of the greatest health challenges. It is likely that the damage to the site, as well as the standards of safety at the plant, has led to the dispersal of uranium at the site making day to day work difficult and dangerous.

In all three sites, US personnel will have to wear protective clothes, including overalls, masks, surgeon hats, and gloves. Dressing and undressing and being checked for radiation at every entry will take time and will get frustrating very quickly. Just ensuring there are enough sets of protective wear is a major logistics exercise, as most of the equipment needed by the American teams will have to be flown in from outside of the country. There are no Home Depots in North Korea. Ensuring they have the reliable electricity and heat, as well as necessary equipment to carry out their jobs, will take months to arrange and endless hours of haggling with North Korean engineers who will not be enthusiastic about helping the U.S. take apart the nuclear complex they spent their lives building. Even getting basic tools to complete their work will be a challenge.

Aside from the work at hand, the teams will have to face some of the most isolating and demoralizing work conditions anywhere. U.S. teams will literally be behind enemy lines, as the United States and North Korea remain technically in a state of war with each other. U.S. teams will sleep at a guest house guarded by AK-47–toting guards (for their own protection, they will be told). Driven over dirt roads, each morning and evening they will pass through no less than four police and army check points, manned with machine gun nests and humorless North Korean officers. This winter the temperature will reach 20 degrees below zero every night.

Staying warm will be among the first of the challenges the technical teams face. Not losing their minds to boredom will be another. No outside T.V. or communication is possible, as North Korea will likely ban the use of satellite phones for communication with the outside world. Perhaps some of the hundreds of paper back books left by the U.S. government teams who worked there in the 1990s are still on site, but forms of entertainment for their resting hours will be few and far between.

In short, the U.S. experts heading to North Korea are going to a place unlike anywhere else on earth. Rugged and strangely compelling, the high mountains and dirt roads that surround Yongbyon will reinforce a sense of isolation hard to overcome. Only by concentrating on and remembering the importance of the difficult tasks at hand will they be able to maintain their morale and confidence. Any success they achieve will aid the process of disarmament on the Korean peninsula, but their time in country will likely go unnoticed and unappreciated by most. A shame, for their work could not be more important and deserves thanks.

Version 5: Download it here (on Google Earth) 

This map covers North Korea’s agriculture, aviation, cultural locations, manufacturing facilities, railroad, energy infrastructure, politics, sports venues, military establishments, religious facilities, leisure destinations, and national parks. It is continually expanding and undergoing revisions. This is the fifth version.

Additions to the latest version of “North Korea Uncovered” include updates to new Google Earth overlays of Sinchon, UNESCO sites, Railroads, canals, and the DMZ, in addition to Kim Jong Suk college of eduation (Hyesan), a huge expansion of the electricity grid (with a little help from Martyn Williams) plus a few more parks, antiaircraft sites, dams, mines, canals, etc.

Disclaimer: I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. These efforts include pouring over books, maps, conducting interviews, and keeping up with other peoples’ discoveries. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds as to what they see. I cannot catch everything and I welcome contributions.

I hope this map will increase interest in North Korea. There is still plenty more to learn, and I look forward to receiving your additions to this project.

Associated Press (Via the New York Times)
10/3/2007

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.

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.

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid
Sunday Times (London)
Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter
9/23/2007

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.

Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before giving the attack its blessing.

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.

Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.

N.Korea calls Syria nuclear ties report “conspiracy”
Reuters
9/18/2007

North Korea said on Tuesday recent media reports that it may be providing help to Syria’s nuclear activities were groundless conspiracy fabricated by those who oppose the North’s improving ties with Washington.

The Washington Post reported last week that intelligence had led some U.S. officials to believe Syria was receiving help from North Korea on some sort of nuclear facility. The New York Times ran a similar report.

“This is sheer misinformation,” the North’s official KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying, referring to the reports.

The North made a pledge in October 2006 not to engage in nuclear proliferation and it still stood, the spokesman said.

North Korea last week hosted a team of nuclear officials and experts who made a rare road trip to Pyongyang and to the country’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon north of the capital in what was seen as a gesture to improve ties with the United States.

North Korea has suspended operation of the Yongbyon complex under a February deal in return for 50,000 tones of heavy fuel oil from South Korea. It is set to receive additional 950,000 tones by taking further disarmament steps this year.

“The DPRK never makes an empty talk but always tells truth,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman said, using the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The above-said story is nothing but a clumsy plot hatched by the dishonest forces who do not like to see any progress at the six-party talks and in the DPRK-U.S. relations.”

U.S. President George W. bush, who once lumped North Korea with Iran and pre-war Iraq as members of an “axis of evil,” has offered a peace treaty with the North if Pyongyang completes nuclear disarmament.

South Korea said on Monday a new round of the six-way talks would not be held on September 19 as widely expected.

South Korean officials have declined to confirm speculation that Pyongyang was upset by reports about its ties to Syrian nuclear activities or failure by China to begin shipping heavy fuel oil under the February pact.

Israel has refused to comment on what U.S. officials and diplomatic sources have described in news reports as an air raid inside Syria this month that may have targeted weapons headed for Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon or a suspected nuclear site.

Syria said it could retaliate for the September 6 violation of its territory and has denied reports that Damascus may have received North Korean nuclear aid.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
9/9/2007

On Aug. 24, 1962, the Soviet Ambassador to Pyongyang, Vasilii Moskovski, met the North Korean foreign minister, Pak Song-chol. The issue to be discussed was nuclear non-proliferation, one closely related to the nuclear test ban treaty, then in preparation. Moscow was an enthusiastic backer of the treaty, and wanted support from its allies. Relations with North Korea were deteriorating fast, but still some supportive gesture from the North was hoped for.

However, Comrade Pak was straightforward: a non-proliferation treaty was a bad idea. He explained the reasons for his skepticism. He asked a Soviet diplomat: “Who can impose such a treaty on countries that do not have nuclear weapons, but are perhaps successfully working in that direction?” Having said that, the North Korean foreign minister continued, “The Americans hold on to Taiwan, to South Korea, and South Vietnam, they blackmail the people with their nuclear weapons, and so rule over those lands and do not intend to leave. Their possession of nuclear weapons, and the lack thereof in our hands, objectively helps them, therefore, to eternalize their rule.”

Indeed, soon Ambassador Moskovski learned that the North Koreans were trying to acquire nuclear technology. As a matter of fact, recently de-classified Soviet papers confirm that in late 1963 Moskovski heard something to this effect more or less every month.

In August 1963 the East German ambassador informed Moskovski that “the [North] Koreans … are asking whether they could obtain any kind of information about nuclear weapons and the atomic industry from German universities and research institutes.”

In September 1963 Soviet geologists, then employed as technical consultants to the North Korean uranium mine, told Ambassador Moskovski that “the Korean side incessantly tries to obtain information about the deposits and quality of the uranium ore mined in the Soviet Union.” They also noticed that the amount of the uranium ore extracted in the North far exceeded the modest demands of its small-scale research program.

In October 1963, another Soviet scientist told the ambassador about a recent conversation on the same subject with a Korean engineer. The engineer asked whether Koreans were able to create an atomic bomb. The Soviet scientist said that the economy of the DPRK could not cope with such a task. But, according to an Embassy document, “the Korean said that it would cost much less in the DPRK than in other countries. If we tell our workers, he declared, that we are taking up such a task, they will agree to work free of charge for several years.”

This new evidence, recently obtained and published by Balazs Szalontaj and Sergei Radchenko, finally confirms what has been long suspected by many (and known to the few) _ from its inception, the North Korean nuclear program was military in its nature.

Actually, North Korea was to some extent involved in nuclear politics as early as the 1940s. It has large deposits of a particular monazite, a mineral that was seen as potentially useful for the Soviet nuclear program. The Soviets demanded payments in monazite for their sales to the North. Eventually, the engineers were disappointed with the properties of the mineral, and abandoned their plans to use it as a source of nuclear material. Russia still does not know what to do with the large stockpiles of monazite it still has from the 1940s.

The North Koreans were mining for uranium as well. There were two major quarries operated with Soviet technical support. The quality of the uranium remained low, but its production was still seen as necessary for the sake of the future.

In 1959 the DPRK signed an agreement on nuclear research with the USSR (soon afterwards, a very similar agreement was signed with China as well). The Soviet Union was becoming very strict about non-proliferation, and the agreement was probably seen as a potential safeguard, to make sure that North Korean ambitions would not result in a military nuclear program.

Needless to say, such a program was indeed what they wanted, and the North Koreans had many ways to outsmart the Soviet supervisors _ not least, by skillfully exploiting the deepening rivalry between Moscow and Beijing, and so it was that Soviet assistance helped Pyongyang launch its first research reactor in 1965.

It seems that the nuclear weapons were not much feared _ generally, in line with Mao’s mad dictum about the `paper tiger.’ In 1962, for example, the East German ambassador had a remarkable talk with Yi Chu-yon, then a Politburo member and one of North Korea’s top leaders.

Yi Chu-yon suggested that it was a good time to start a Third World War. He said that “now, when the USSR has such powerful means of waging war, with missiles that can strike all ranges, perhaps it would be better not to wait, but to strike the imperialists.” Yi Chu-yon received some support, since, according to the East German diplomat, “other Korean comrades who accompanied us also insistently advocated a military resolution of all contradictions between capitalism and socialism.”

Hence, North Korean nuclear ambitions have remained a constant for nearly half a century. However, it took a couple of decades to get things moving. The North was, indeed, too poor for such an undertaking, and no amount of drum-beating nationalism could compensate for lack of resources and technology. At the same time, none of the great power allies was enthusiastic about helping Pyongyang arm itself with nukes.

Nonetheless, work continued, and by the early 1980s the first rumors of the North Korean nuclear weapons project began to spread along the people in the know.

Korea Times (h/t Tim Beal)
Lee Hyo-sik
9/4/2007

Shares of companies engaging in an array of inter-Korean economic cooperation projects have shot up this week, following the news on Sunday that North Korea agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons development program by the end of the year.

Most firms, which will take part in sending electricity to the Stalinist country in return for the dismantlement of its nuclear reactors, saw their stocks rise to their daily limit up over the past two trading sessions.

Also, shares of those companies operating in the Gaesong Industrial Complex have rallied on expectations that easing of geo-political tensions associated with North Korea will further boost economic cooperation between the two Koreas.

But analysts cautioned that investors should refrain from purchasing inter-Korean project related stocks at the moment as share prices will likely fall once the North Korean hype subsides.

After two days of negotiations with his Pyongyang counterpart Kim Kye-gwan in Geneva, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters Sunday that North Korea had agreed to declare its nuclear stockpile and disable its atomic weapons programs by the end of this year.

Also, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that the U.S. had decided to remove Pyongyang from its list of states sponsoring terrorism.

Shares of Ewha Technologies Information, a power equipment maker, hit its daily limit up on Monday, rising nearly 15 percent to 1,965 won from last Friday’s close of 1,710 won. Ewha shares rose 1.78 percent to close at 2,000 won in Tuesday’s trading session.

Romanson, a wrist watch manufacturer, which operates plants in the Gaesong Industrial Complex, saw its share price increase 14.9 percent to 3,400 won on Monday from 2,960 won last Friday.

“North Korea related stocks went up sharply early last month after the announcement of the second inter-Korean summit. And now, the latest development surrounding the reclusive state is providing a further boost to those shares,” said Lee sun-yup, an analyst at Goodmorning Shinhan Securities.

He said a large number of investors are snatching up shares of companies involved in North Korean economic projects when the local stock market has lost its directions amid volatile investor sentiment in the wake of U.S. subprime loan default risks.

He said investors should be picky, as it will take time before these companies’ profits will benefit from the easing of tension between the North and South.

“It’s risky to jump on the bandwagon at the moment as such shares will likely come down soon as in the past when the North Korean hype dies down and the market regains solid upward momentum,” Kim said.

He advised investors to choose North Korea related shares based on their corporate earnings and long-term prospects.

Washington Post
John Ward Anderson
9/3/2007; Page A10

Deal Would Disable Programs, U.S. Says

North Korea agreed to disclose all of its nuclear activities and disable its nuclear programs by the end of the year, a senior U.S. official said Sunday after negotiations this weekend in Geneva.

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill said details of North Korea’s agreement would be worked out later this month in meetings sponsored by China and involving Russia, Japan and South Korea, in addition to the United States and North Korea.

“One thing that we agreed on is that the DPRK will provide a full declaration of all their nuclear programs and will disable their nuclear programs by the end of this year, 2007,” Hill said, using the initials for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Hill said it was the first time North Korea had agreed to a timeline to end its nuclear programs.

In separate remarks, the head of the North Korean delegation, Kim Gye Gwan, said his country had agreed to declare and dismantle its nuclear facilities, but he did not mention a deadline.

“We made it clear, we showed clear willingness to declare and dismantle all nuclear facilities,” Kim said, the Associated Press reported. “We are happy with the way the peace talks went.”

Hill, who described the talks as “very good and very substantive,” said the agreement included disclosing and dismantling any uranium enrichment programs, which the United States fears could be used to make nuclear weapons but North Korea previously had not acknowledged having.

The discussions this weekend also focused on North Korean demands to normalize relations with the United States, Hill said. In particular, North Korea wants to be removed from the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism, a listing that imposes a ban on arms-related sales to the country and restricts economic aid.

Closer ties with the United States will be built “step by step, with the understanding that we’re not going to have a normalized relationship until we have a denuclearized North Korea,” Hill said Sunday before the talks ended. “To the extent that we can move quickly to denuclearization, we can move quickly to normalization.”

Japan also has refused to forge warmer relations with North Korea until it provides an accounting of what happened to Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by North Korean security services in the 1970s and ’80s.

Negotiations over North Korea’s nuclear programs and normalizing relations with the xenophobic, communist country have been fitful for years.

Last October, while talks were stalled, North Korea announced it had conducted its first underground nuclear test. In February, the United States and North Korea agreed to a sweeping deal to restore diplomatic and economic relations and end the country’s nuclear programs. In July, North Korea closed its main plutonium reactor at Yongbyon after receiving 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea — the first installment of 1 million tons pledged as part of the February agreement.

Institute for Far Easter Studies
NK Brief No. 07-8-14-1

The second inter-Korean summit meeting is coming up soon, scheduled to open on August 28 in Pyongyang, and interest is building regarding discussion on economic cooperation. It is true that the North is prioritizing political and military issues in order to shore up its government by normalizing relations with the United States. However, considering its serious economic woes, the ability of South Korea to offer a ‘gift package’ can significantly influence the success or failure of this summit.

It is not yet clear how economic cooperation will fit into the agenda, but Seoul and Pyongyang have been constantly discussing this issue, so some insight has been given. In particular, the ‘consumer’ North has been referring to domestic and international cooperation, and through Pyongyang’s requests, some clarity has been added to what goals could unfold during the upcoming meeting.

Energy Sector

The North Korean economy is saddled with severe shortages of electricity and fuel oil, causing production to slow and therefore stagnating consumption, putting the country into an ongoing vicious circle of economic depression. North Korea possesses facilities to produce 7.7 million kW of steam- and hydro-electric power, but in reality is incapable of operating these facilities at more than 30%.

The opinion that expansion of North Korea’s electrical infrastructure is necessary, not only for the North, but also for South Korea, is gaining strength. South Korean projects to develop North Korean mines and import its coal have been delayed due to a lack of electrical power. In the future, enterprises looking to set up in North Korea will also require a steady supply of electricity.

In what way the two Koreas will cooperate on energy is not yet known, but North Korea is sticking to its demand for light-water nuclear reactors. If construction were restarted on the reactors begun by the now-defunct Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), North Korea could quickly have not only the energy production amount currently available, but an additional 2 million kW, as well.

North Korea’s power facilities are in a state of deterioration, but the number of facilities in the North are adequate for the current state of the economy, so a plan for the restoration of generation and transmission facilities, or the 2 million kW of electrical power offered by the South Korean government two years ago could be considered sufficient.

Natural Resource and Infrastructure Development

One other highly probable agenda item on inter-Korean economic cooperation will be development of natural resources. This is because a model in which North Korea’s relatively abundant underground natural resources are developed, and in which these resources being used by South Korean businesses, would create a ‘win-win’ result for both Seoul and Pyongyang.

According to a report given by the Korea Resources Corporation at a conference last year, North Korea possesses upward of forty different valuable minerals, including iron-ore. Analysis of these North Korean resources shows that a considerable amount of South Korea’s 40 trillion won (430 billion USD) worth of mineral imports per year could be brought in from North Korea instead.

As development projects in North Korea’s graphite mines are already underway, and the import of North Korean anthracite is being considered in order to meet quickly growing demand for charcoal in the South, cooperation in the natural resource sector appears to be one of the core points to inter-Korean economic cooperation.

As for North Korea’s railways, the heart of the country’s distribution infrastructure, completion of the section of track on the Kyungui Line between Kaesong Station and Moonsan Station, as well as the section of the East Sea Line between Mt. Kumgang Station and Jejin Station, means that the infrastructure for regular service between the two countries is now in place, although talks regarding the details of such regular service are not being held.

If regular service on these two lines between North and South Korea can be achieved, expensive transportation costs can be reduced, and of course, in the future, connection of the railway with continental rail networks such as the Trans-Siberian Rail and the Trans-China Rail would help to enable the Korean Peninsula to emerge as the hub of North East Asian distribution.

Furthermore, considering the fact that North Korea’s mining facilities and technology, as well as its ports, loading facilities, and other transportation infrastructure, are severely lacking, a plan linking development of natural resources to projects developing infrastructure also appears viable. It is also already known, to some extent, the nature of North Korean needs in its infrastructure sector, and if this upcoming summit closes successfully, it is expected that an inventory of these needs will become more concrete.

Vitalizing Kaesong Industrial Complex

The Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) is also an important undertaking. At the moment, a problem has arisen concerning the construction of a second KIC, but even if only the originally planned 26.4 million square-meter complex is built, the fact is that currently the first 3.3 million square-meter stage is complete, and considering that it employs North Korean labor, this is no easy feat. Companies moving into the KIC are asking that easy communication with South Korea and simplified import procedures be prioritized.

Yonhap
Byun Duk-kun
8/8/2007

North Korea wants to receive various types of assistance, including development-aimed investment, in return for disabling its key nuclear facilities under a landmark denuclearization deal signed February, but it understands and agrees that the benefits could come a bit later than its steps to disarm, a South Korean official said Wednesday.

The North’s apparent concession removes a major hurdle to completing the denuclearization process before the end of the year, as the other countries in six-nation talks on ending North Korea’s nuclear ambition long believed the communist nation would never agree to get rid of its nuclear facilities unless incentives were provided before or simultaneously.

“The North Korean side said that even if its denuclearization steps are carried out in a short amount of time, and the provision of the promised energy and economic assistance takes relatively longer than its denuclearization steps, it will understand there can be a difference of time required and will exercise flexibility based on mutual trust,” a South Korean official told reporters, requesting that he remain anonymous.

North Korea took the position at a working meeting of delegates from South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia that opened at the inter-Korean border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday for a two-day run.

The talks resumed earlier Wednesday after the North’s delegation, headed by the country’s deputy chief of mission to the United Nations in New York, Kim Myong-kil, crossed the heavily fortified border to the South Korean side of the joint security area.

The main focus of this week’s meeting was to figure out how to ship by the end of the year the 950,000 tons of heavy oil or equivalent aid promised to the impoverished North in the February accord, a timeline insisted upon by the U.S., even though the communist nation has a storage capacity of only 200,000 tons a year.

Under the February agreement, signed by the two Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia, North Korea can receive energy assistance equivalent to 950,000 tons of heavy fuel oil in exchange for disabling its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and submitting a complete list of its nuclear programs.

South Korean delegates earlier said that the first day of talks provided an opportunity to hear what North Korea wants, and that they anticipated more “in-depth” discussions with the North on what is within reach and how far the North should move toward denuclearization to get rewards.

North Korean delegates on Tuesday said their country wants to receive the promised oil, as well as what South Korean officials call “investment-based” assistance to help rebuild its dilapidated energy industry.

Pyongyang’s demand became clearer Wednesday, according to the South Korean official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The North Koreans said their country wants to continue receiving 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil each month, apparently until the end of the year, and the rest in “support and equipment for repairing and maintaining the North’s energy-generating facilities,” the official said.

South Korea has provided 50,000 tons of heavy oil to the North for shutting down the Yongbyon facilities as the first phase step in the February agreement, while Beijing, the host of the six-way nuclear disarmament talks, has reportedly offered to soon begin shipping the first 50,000 tons of the promised 950,000 tons in the second phase.

Pyongyang has said it will not completely denuclearize unless it is provided with enough benefits — including nuclear power plants.

South Korean officials who attended the two-day working meeting here said the subject never came up during the course of what the chief North Korean delegate, Kim, called “very productive and serious discussions.”

Korea Times
7/18/2007

North Korea has ceased operations of four more nuclear facilities after closing Saturday its key nuclear reactor that produces weapons-grade plutonium, the chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Wednesday.

“We have verified all the five nuclear facilities have been shut down,” Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was quoted as saying in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, by the Associated Press.

He said some of the facilities have been sealed by IAEA inspectors who are currently staying in the North to verify the shutdown and disablement of the North’s nuclear facilities.

His remark comes as a new round of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is set to resume in Beijing Wednesday afternoon.

The talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are supposed to deal with disablement of the North Korea’s nuclear facilities and the North’s declaration of all of its nuclear programs under the second phase of a February agreement.