North Korean Economy Watch

Yonhap
8/17/2007

South Korea is to send 7.1 billion won ($7.5 million) worth of emergency aid to North Korea next week as part of efforts to help the communist country recover from the damage wreaked by recent heavy rains, the South’s point man on the North said Friday.

“We will prepare to send emergency aid to North Korea early next week,” Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said in a press briefing, noting that the aid will consist of instant noodles, bottled water, powdered milk, blankets and medicine.

Lee said that South Korea will also discuss ways of sending equipment and additional aid needed to overcome the damage in the North after transporting the emergency aid via inter-Korean sea and land routes.

International aid agencies are also trying to help the North to cope with floods that have swept away a large part of its farmland, raising the specter of worsening food shortages.

North Korea allowed the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to send four assessment teams Friday to areas struck by the flash floods.

On Thursday, the North’s state media said that about 46,580 homes had been flooded or destroyed, while more than 300,000 people were displaced. North Korean officials told international aid agencies that at least 200 people were dead or missing.

WFP officials will travel Friday to 10 hard-hit counties to assess the situation, hoping to start emergency food aid using supplies already in the country as part of ongoing hunger relief efforts.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun is to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Aug. 28-30 in Pyongyang, the first summit in seven years. The floods are not likely to have an impact on the summit, South Korean officials said.

Yonhap
8/17/2007

World Vision, an international relief agency, said Friday it will send 200 million won (US$200,000) worth of emergency aid to North Korea next week to help relief efforts of the flood-stricken North.

The shipment consisting of medicine, flour and bare necessities will depart Incheon Port on Monday for Nampo Port along the North’s west coast, the agency said.

“We are making the first shipment to help the flood-stricken North. We will deliver more to the North as we stock up on more aid items,” a World Vision official said.

On Thursday, the North’s state media said that about 46,580 homes had been flooded or destroyed, while more than 300,000 people were displaced. North Korean officials told international aid agencies that at least 200 people were dead or missing.

Youtube video of the flooding 

North Korea: Deadly Rains Ruin Big Part Of Farmland
Washington Post
Burt Herman
Associated Press
Thursday, August 16, 2007; A11

North Korea on Wednesday detailed the devastation caused by some of the country’s heaviest-ever rains, saying more than one-tenth of the impoverished country’s farmland had been wiped out during peak growing season.

The North Korean government reported that hundreds of people were killed or missing in this month’s floods, with as many as 300,000 left homeless.

Footage from Associated Press Television News showed citizens working to rebuild roads, clear debris and shore up sandbags along rivers in flood-affected areas outside Pyongyang, the capital. Video images also showed a farmhouse that appeared to have been swept down a hillside by the rain.

If the government’s numbers on agricultural damage are confirmed, the destruction would be about one-quarter of that suffered in massive flooding in 1995. That disaster, coupled with outdated farming methods and the loss of the country’s Soviet Union benefactor, sparked a famine that is estimated to have killed as many as 2 million people.

The vivid portrait of damage, in reports from the North’s state-run media, appeared to be a cry for help from a desperate government that maintains strict secrecy of its internal affairs. But the North has previously exaggerated the extent of disasters to obtain aid and to cover up ineptitude in providing for its people in a centrally controlled economy.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported Wednesday that downpours along areas of the Taedong River were the “largest ever in the history” of measurements taken by the country’s weather agency.

An average of 20.6 inches of rain fell across the country from Aug. 7 through last Saturday, 2.1 inches more than downpours in August 1967, KCNA said.

The recent rains have submerged, buried or washed away more than 11 percent of rice and corn fields in the country, KCNA reported, citing Agriculture Ministry official Ri Jae Hyon. “It is hard to expect a high grain output owing to the uninterrupted rainstorms at the most important time for the growth of crops,” KCNA said.

The U.N. World Food Program estimated that the amount of damage the North Koreans reported to their fields would result in losses of about 450,000 tons of crops — adding to the 1 million ton annual shortage that the country already faces.

The amount is less than the 2 million tons that the North said was lost in the 1995 floods at the start of the famine, said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the U.N. agency. “Nonetheless, this would be an extremely serious reduction in the amount of the harvest,” he said.

The North is especially vulnerable to the annual heavy summer rains that soak the Korean Peninsula because of a vicious cycle in which people strip hillsides of natural vegetation to create more arable land to grow food, increasing flood risks.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill said the U.S. government was considering how it could help the North Koreans.

The disaster reports precede a planned summit this month between leaders of the two Koreas. South Korea’s government has been criticized by opponents at home and abroad for having given unconditional aid to the North during an international standoff over the communist state’s nuclear weapons program.

Aid was already expected to be a key topic at the summit. Marcus Noland, senior fellow at the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the latest disaster gives Seoul justification to expand assistance to its neighbor.

North Korea’s flooded ‘rice bowl’
BBC
8/16/2007

The UN World Food programme’s acting country director, Michael Dunford, has just returned from a visit to one of North Korea’s flood-affected areas, in the south of the country.

He told the BBC news website what he saw and how the floods are affecting a country already dependent on food aid.

“We went to Sogon, driving for about two hours to get there, and we saw extensive examples of flooding as we went down, with widespread inundation of arable lands which, of course, creates concerns as regards the long-term food implications.

We have been told by the government that the Kangwon province is one of the areas that is worst affected. The impression we are getting is that there is severe damage throughout the southern half of the country, across to the east.

The southern part of the country is the main food-producing area. As you go further north it is more mountainous and hence their ability to produce is limited.

The area that has been inundated is part of the ‘rice bowl’, hence this creates additional concerns as to what impact that may have.

We estimate that annually there is a food deficit of about a million tons of cereals – that’s maize and rice. So, in the past, North Korea has relied on bilateral, from China and South Korea predominantly, and also and multilateral support through the World Food Programme.

Collapsed houses

Last year, the amount of food that entered the county did not meet the food gap and hence we were concerned about the implications that was going to have for food security in the country and potentially the impact that may have on the most vulnerable.

Certainly for them to have the floods this year is only going to exacerbate the already food insecure situation in the country.

People are managing as best they can. We understand from the government that those who have lost their homes are now residing in either their place of work or some form of community shelter – either a schools or nursery, we expect.

We were dealing with local officials. They tell us that the waters have inundated houses, houses have collapsed, factories have been completely inundated and roads and bridges have been washed away. Certainly the impression we are getting is that this is very severe flooding.

We saw bridges that were knocked down, we saw roads that had been washed away. The infrastructure is typically old and anything that damages it further is going to have implications.

Wiped out

The landscape in the southern area is a combination of flatlands with quite dramatic mountains, there are fields with hills and mountains shooting up.

There are small villages and co-operative farms. These are very rudimentary houses – typically handmade.

People may have a small plot in the front of the house in which they try to grow their own vegetables – potatoes, beans, carrots, tomatoes – they are then surrounded by more extensive farmlands which have been damaged by flooding.

In one area, we were looking at what we thought was a river running through a field of maize but it was in fact the offshoot of a flooded river. Crops have just been wiped out.

We also saw a lot of areas that were completely underwater, knowing that the rice would not be able to recover.

This is the period of pollination and, hence, because the rice is underwater during this period, it won’t germinate and hence won’t produce for the harvest due in September-October.

N Korea floods devastate farmland
BBC
8/15/2007

Severe flooding in North Korea has destroyed more than one-tenth of the country’s farmland, according to the state news agency KCNA.

“As of 14 August, more than 11% of rice and maize fields were submerged, buried or washed away,” Ri Jae-Hyon, director of the Ministry of Agriculture, said.

Government officials also told aid workers in the region that 300,000 people may have been left homeless.

Aid teams visiting the area warned of a need for emergency shelter and food.

“Going forward, the crop damage is of major concern,” Michael Dunford, of the UN World Food Programme, told the BBC.

He added that he had been to see some of the damaged areas, and described the situation as “pretty grim”.

Food aid

“Areas of the capital, Pyongyang, have been inundated,” he said, “but certainly as you move out into the countryside there is widespread damage, and it is going to have a negative impact on DPRK [North Korea] most certainly.”

North Korea already suffered from severe food shortages, even before the floods.

About two million people are thought to have died from famine in the mid-1990s in North Korea, and the country remains dependent on foreign food aid.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has ordered a full evaluation of the needs of North Koreans and has promised assistance to the communist nation.

“I assured him that the United Nations will be prepared to render whatever possible humanitarian assistance and help to the DPRK (North Korean) government and people overcoming this difficulty,” he said after a meeting with North Korea’s UN envoy Pak Gil-yon.

The US and South Korea have both said that they would consider sending aid.

‘Huge damage’

North Korea made the rare plea for help after it announced late on Monday that storms since 7 August had led to “huge human and material damage”.

State news agency KCNA said hundreds of people were dead or missing.

Many areas were affected but worst hit were the three provinces of Kangwon, North Hwanghae and South Hamgyong, it said.

Television pictures from the capital Pyongyang showed people wading along streets through thigh-deep water after rivers burst their banks.

These floods are thought to be worse than the ones that hit last year. Hundreds of people are thought to have died in August 2006, but exact figures are not known.

Heavy rainfalls render 17,000 North Koreans homeless
Yonhap
8/15/2007

Hundreds of people were killed or missing in North Korea in heavy downpours that battered the impoverished communist country last week, a North Korean official said in a report on Wednesday.

The downpours, which flooded even the center of its capital, Pyongyang, and wide sections of the country’s western region, also left about 17,000 people homeless, said the official from Pyeongan Province in a report carried by Pyongyang Radio. 

South to Help North Recover From Floods
Korea Times
Jung Sung-ki
8/14/2007

South Korea is considering sending relief supplies to help the North recover from severe flooding, the Ministry of Unification said Tuesday.

Hundreds of people are dead or missing in North Korea following week-long torrential rain that has destroyed thousands of houses, and damaged roads and railway tracks, the North’s state media reported.

“North Korea seems to be suffering a greater loss of lives and property than it did during July’s flooding last year,” Seo Sung-woo at the ministry’s intelligence analysis bureau told reporters.

“I don’t think the inter-Korean summit will be affected by the floods. However, if the rains continue, it is hard to predict,” said Seo.

In 2006, monsoons rains hit much of the impoverished state, killing hundreds of people.

Floods in July that year left over 500 people dead and nearly 300 people missing, according to the Chonson Sinbo, a Japan-based pro-North Korean newspaper.

In the following month, Seoul sent $82 million worth of aid to Pyongyang. The South provided the North with 100,000 tons of rice and cement, five tons of iron, construction equipment, 80,000 blankets and 10,000 emergency kits, according to the ministry.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said this year’s heavy rain destroyed at least 30,000 homes of 63,300 families, and more than 540 bridges and sections of railway.

The agency said heavy downpours had caused “huge human and material damage.” Many parts of the country received between 30 and 67 centimeters of rain from Aug. 7 to 12, it said.

Gangwon Province was hit the hardest, with more than 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

Pyongyang and neighboring provinces including South Hwanghae and South Pyeongan were also badly affected, according to the report.

Experts blamed decades of reckless deforestation for North Korea’s flood problems, saying the country has been stripped of tree cover that provides natural protection.

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) emergency operations staff is on a 24-hour alert to monitor flood damage in North Korea and has distributed aid kits to some 500 families, its Web site said.

“People have been evacuated and brought to safety,” it said, and county governments are “appealing to cooperative farms to donate emergency food for homeless people.”

International Red Cross goes on alert in North Korea on flood damage
Yonhap
8/13/2007

The International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) emergency operations staff is on a 24-hour alert to monitor flood damages in North Korea and has distributed aid kits to some 500 families, its Web site said Monday.

A bulletin dated Sunday said the torrential rain that started Aug. 5 has caused serious flooding in many parts of North Korea.
“People have been evacuated and brought to safety,” the IFRC Web site said, and county governments are “appealing to cooperative farms to donate emergency food for homeless people.”

“Warnings of high tides have been issued on national television. Indeed, weather forecasts predict continued heavy rains until Aug. 17.”

The Red Cross emergency operations room is on a 24-hour alert, it said, with its staff in the field assessing damage.

In a rare admission of a crisis, North Korea’s state run news agency said Monday the downpour so far has left hundreds of people dead or missing and destroyed more than 30,000 homes for 63,300 families.

The Korean Central News Agency said hundreds of public buildings, bridges and railway sections also were destroyed.

Korea Herald
Choi He-suk
8/13/2007

The Inter-Korea Cooperation Fund is riddled with problems, a team of civilian experts reported.

At present, the country’s support measures for North Korea are carried out using the Inter-Korea Cooperation Fund.

According to reviews evaluating public funds’ relevance and the efficiency of asset management carried out by civilian experts, the management of the Inter-Korea Cooperation Fund is inefficient and poorly planned. The panel also said that the Unification Minister-led committee in charge of the fund lacks the expertise required for asset management.

However, the team, comprised of 67 civilian experts including university professors, accountants and researchers, did not include the fund among those slated for abolition.

The reviews, carried out during the first half of the year, showed that the fund’s sources of revenue must be diversified. The review panel said that most of the fund’s revenues are generated from the government budget and that the proportion of resources raised from the private sector and through in-house projects remain insignificant.

The reports added that despite the fact that those responsible for managing the fund realize the need to find new sources of revenue and to draw up detailed expenditure plans, such changes have failed to materialize.

The reports also highlighted the need to draw up long-term plans for the fund’s management and said that the Ministry of Unification should take the lead in establishing long term plans and strategies for the management of the fund to reflect the changes in inter-Korea relations.

The review panel also suggested that the private sector’s participation in the fund needs to be increased.

The reports said that although the government should continue to provide support for private organizations in inter-Korea projects, local financial institutions should be at the core of related projects in the future when non-governmental exchanges become the mainstay of economic relations between the two Koreas.

The reports also showed that some of the projects operated through the fund overlap with those financed by other public funds and that such projects should be operated in collaboration with concerned bodies.

Yonhap
Lee Joon-seung
8/13/2007

Repairing North Korea’s existing power generation infrastructure is an effective way to help North Korea cope with its chronic power shortage, a South Korean state-run think tank said Monday.

The Korea Energy Economic Institute (KEEI) said refurbishing North Korea’s existing infrastructure may be a more effective way to boost electric power than building new thermal generators and nuclear reactors.

Yonhap
8/11/2007

North Korea said Saturday that it is struggling to cope with flood damage across the country, but no deaths were reported.

Rice farms, residences and public buildings have been submerged or destroyed in dozens of regions due to heavy rain that started on Thursday, reported the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North’s official news outlet monitored in Seoul.

The North Korean government “has mobilized all of its capacity,” dispatching recovery workers to several regions, and “is working on projects to place people’s lives in good condition by sending daily necessities like medicine to those in damaged regions,” the report stated. No deaths were mentioned.

Meanwhile, “showers and heavy rains … are continuing in many regions” of the country, it added.

Up to 367 mm of rain fell in Pyonggang County in the country’s eastern Kangwon Province, while the capital, Pyongyang, received over 257 mm of rain in just three days.

Due to heavy deforestation, North Korea frequently suffers from flooding during the summer monsoon season. Last year, the South Korean government provided food and supplies to the communist country to help repair damage amid increased tension following Pyongyang’s July test-firing of several ballistic missiles into the East Sea.

Korea Times
Ryu Jin
8/9/2007

South Korea is expected to propose a large-scale investment plan in social overhead capital (SOC) in North Korea in the inter-Korean summit late this month to help the impoverished state revive its economy, according to officials on Thursday.

Officials in Seoul said that the package proposal will likely include the provision of electricity, renovation of the Pyongyang-Gaeseong highway, improvement of facilities in Nampo port and establishment of a fertilizer factory.

President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il are set to meet in Pyongyang Aug. 28-30, seven years after Roh’s predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, met with the reclusive North Korean leader.

While the Roh administration finds itself in a difficult position to give direct assistance to the North, such as provisions of rice and fertilizer — not to mention cash — it appears to have opted for “indirect’’ SOC investment, according to the sources.

Former President Kim Dae-jung won the Nobel Peace Prize for the first-ever summit in June 2000, but his achievement was partly tainted by later revelation that Seoul had secretly transferred $500 million to Pyongyang to foster the historic summit.

Roh, who has put more weight on transparency in North Korea affairs, often stressed the need to help North Korea repair its devastated economy with its own hand and get out of its economic slump.

In February, the Unification Ministry drew up a roadmap for a large-scale economic cooperation, focusing on “what the North really wants.’’ Seoul will likely make some offers to Pyongyang in the upcoming summit, according to government sources.

Dubbed “Roadmap to Hope,’’ the ministry plan includes as many as 16 items such as the provision of 2 million-kilowatt electricity, worth some $900 million every year, and renovation of the 170-kilometer Pyongyang-Gaeseong highway ($307.7 billion).

Other items include the improvement of facilities in Nampo port, the construction of a 330,000-ton fertilizer plant and installation of tree nurseries in Pyongyang, Gaeseong and Hamheung.

“We are sorting out items that could be offered,’’ a high-profile government official said on condition of anonymity. “I think our proposal for the SOC investment could be discussed in the working-level preparatory talks in Gaeseong next week.’’

Experts estimated that the aid package could reach 9 trillion won to 13 trillion won ($9.7 billion to $14 billion) in the coming several years, if major items such as the highway renovation are included on top of the ongoing supply of heavy fuel oil.

Seoul is expected to demand the establishment of liaison offices across the border and the regularization of military talks headed by the defense ministers from the two sides in return for the economic incentives, according to the sources.

But the large-scale economic assistance is expected to trigger fiery debate in the South, as conservatives, represented by the opposition Grand National Party (GNP), have often lashed out at the government’s “single-handed’’ assistance amid the nuclear standoff.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Kwon O-kyu, who is to accompany Roh to Pyongyang, stressed on Thursday that the aid package would be offered “transparently’’ in close coordination with the international community.

“South-North Cooperation Fund, operated under the endorsement of the National Assembly, could be used first,’’ he told reporters. “I think we should also try to create a favorable environment for the inter-Korean economic projects in close cooperation with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.’’

Yonhap
Kim Hyun
8/8/2007

North Korea’s agreement to hold a second inter-Korean summit is seen as an attempt to improve relations with the United States, and possibly normalize its diplomatic ties, experts said Wednesday.

The communist North could also want the summit to elicit more aid from South Korea and to influence the coming presidential elections in the South, they added.

“It seems North Korea has decided that its relations with the United States and its relations with the South could be in a win-win situation,” Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist with Seoul’s Dongguk University, said.

“In the summit, North Korea may try to generate an agreement on peace on the peninsula, and through the agreement it will try to reach out to the United States and even Japan to establish diplomatic relations in the Bush administration’s term,” he said.

The Bush administration has gradually softened its hard-line policy on Pyongyang since the communist nation conducted its first-ever nuclear bomb test in October last year. Thereafter, multilateral negotiations to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have made major progress, with Pyongyang shutting down its operating nuclear reactor in Yongbyon last month.

Announcing the summit set for Aug. 28-30 in Pyongyang, North Korea said the historic meeting will help bring “a new phase of peace on the Korean Peninsula, co-prosperity of the nation and national reunification.”

“With the United States now moving in the direction of softening on North Korea, North Korea seems to understand that there will be more things to gain from the U.S. after the summit with the South,” Lee Soo-seok, a North Korea specialist with the Institute of Unification Policy affiliated with Seoul’s Hanyang University, said.

Before Bush leaves office, North Korea expects to be removed from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations and excluded from U.S-imposed trade sanctions, experts said, adding the North may hope the summit will serve as a stepping stone for those breakthroughs.

At the inter-Korean level, Pyongyang must have considered the coming presidential election, and calculated the summit would help rally South Korean liberal voters, who advocate detente with the North, experts said. President Roh Moo-hyun has been suffering from low public support and public surveys have indicated the conservative Grand National Party (GNP) would win the December presidential election. That prediction may have prompted Pyongyang to criticize the conservative GNP.

“The people of all classes in South Korea should achieve a grand alliance against the conservatives and gear up their struggle to bury the pro-American forces at the time of the presidential election,” North Korea said in a New Year editorial.

The GNP, meanwhile, said in a statement, “We oppose the South-North summit talks, whose timing, venue and procedures are all inappropriate.”

The summit also comes amid rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has health problems. He reportedly underwent heart surgery in Germany and is supposed to be looking for an heir, South Korean media reports said.

“Above all other needs, to establish a stable structure for his successor, North Korea needs to keep its relations with outside regions on good terms,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.

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 Herald
8/5/2007

China will begin shipping 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to North Korea in mid-August as part of the 950,000 tons promised in exchange for the North’s disabling of its nuclear facilities in the second phase of denuclearization agreement, informed sources here said Sunday.

The agreement, signed February 13 by the two Koreas, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S., also commits North Korea to declare all of its nuclear programs.

South Korea completed Thursday the shipment of 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North in exchange for the North shutting down its nuclear facilities in the first phase of the denuclarization agreement.

“We understand China will begin providing 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North in mid August,” a diplomatic source here said. “A working group dealing with energy and economic aid slated for Aug.7-8 in Panmunjeom will decide on detailed measures of the provision.”

The working group is one of five groups launched under the February nuclear deal. Other groups deal with denuclearization, normalization of ties between North Korea and the U.S. and Japan and the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula to replace the current armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.