Yonhap
9/13/2007
The United States is preparing to provide heavy fuel oil to North Korea as part of incentives it pledged for Pyongyang’s denuclearization, the State Department said Thursday.
Sean McCormack, the department spokesman, said the notification this week to Congress of such intent was “done with an eye towards” North Korea fulfilling its commitments.
“What it does is, it prepares us in the case we do need to fulfill some commitments” on the part of the U.S., he said.
South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan are members of the so-called six-party talks that in February struck an agreement to eventually dismantle Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and programs. The communist state would receive in return political and economic benefits, including diplomatic normalization with Washington and Tokyo.
One of the economic incentives is 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil to be provided by the five parties. South Korea already delivered 50,000 tons as North Korea shut down its primary nuclear facilities, fulfilling the first phase of the denuclearization deal.
The second phase requires North Korea to disable the facilities and declare all of its nuclear stockpile.
Reuters reported Wednesday that the U.S. administration sent the legislative notification this week, saying it was prepared to give North Korea US$25 million in heavy fuel oil.
According to the document cited by Reuters, the administration deems the initial progress in the six-party talks “sufficient justification to begin preparations for a first shipment by the United States.”
McCormack said while there is preparation, the actual aid is still predicate on North Korea’s fulfillment of its promises.
“If North Korea does in fact follow through on their commitments as stated under the understanding of that phase two commitment, then the other parties have some commitments,” he said. “This would be part of the U.S. fulfilling that commitment, although it’s not done yet.”
After a bilateral nuclear deal in 1994 between Pyongyang and Washington, the U.S. had annually shipped 500,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North as energy assistance. The shipment was stopped after the U.S. accused North Korea in 2002 of cheating by running a secret uranium-based weapons program.
