U.N. Confirms North Korea Closed Nuclear Reactor
U.N. inspectors verify that North Korea shut down its only nuclear reactor. But Western governments want Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons. Six-party talks are to resume this week. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill talks with Steve Inskeep.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
United Nations inspectors have verified that North Korea is telling the truth. North Korea shut down its only nuclear reactor. Western governments want more than that, though. They want the North to give up its nuclear weapons, and six-party talks resume this week.
The U.S. State Department's Christopher Hill will be participating and is on the line once again. Welcome back to the program.
Mr. CHRISTOPHER HILL (Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs): Thank you very much.
INSKEEP: What's the next thing that's supposed to happen?
Mr. HILL: Well, this is a first step to get them to shut down this nuclear facility at Yongbyon. So we have a long way to go after this. So the second thing we're going to do is we'll sit down with the six parties and start working out how we are going to get a full list, a full declaration for the North Koreans of all their nuclear programs, and then how we are actually going to disable some of these facilities. For example, with respect to the reactor, we have it shut down now, which is a good first step. But now we have to disable it, and you can do that by drilling a hole in it or cutting some drive shafts or doing a bunch of different things. So we've got to work out the details of that.
INSKEEP: What about the North Koreans actually handing over their bombs?
Mr. HILL: Well, that's going to be the subsequent step. And I would kind of put that in an end-game stage. What's that going to be is, they have produced some 50, 60 kilos of fissile material and that has to be turned over. So that has to be turned over along with the explosive devices that they have.
So we would hope that we could get to disabling of the nuclear facilities and a full declaration, try to get through that in this calendar year. And then in calendar year '08, get going with getting them to give up the fissile material that they have already produced.
INSKEEP: Ambassador, I wonder if this is a sign of how far there is still to go here. It's been pointed out that by getting the North Koreans to shut down their nuclear reactor, you've gotten back to the point that you were at back in 2002, five years ago or more, when the Bush administration named North Korea as part of the Axis of Evil. You've just gotten back to that point except North Korea has more nuclear weapons now, probably, than it did then.
Mr. HILL: Well, I understand why you make that point. But frankly we have them shutting down a reactor on the basis of a six-party agreement, that is five countries that are guarantors of this agreement. We also have an agreement where they shut it down for 50,000 tons of fuel oil. The agreement in the 1990s was we had to keep providing them fuel oil every month or they'd turn it back on. So we don't have that kind of situation.
INSKEEP: You're referring to the deal during the Clinton administration, okay.
Mr. HILL: Yeah, but again I don't want to be critical of what people did before. It was a different era, a different agreement. But I think my point is to tell you that we have - indeed, we have a long way to go. And if we don't follow this up with additional steps, yeah, I think there's a lot of room for criticism here.
INSKEEP: So the North Koreans have agreed to keep this nuclear reactor shut down period, even if they don't get more shipments of fuel oil or some other kind of payment or concession?
Mr. HILL: That's correct. Now, the additional shipments of fuel oil that we envisioned, are to do more than just keep the thing shut down. It's to actually disable the thing. And what we're looking for after disablement is to actually dismantle it and cart it away. So I think we're on the road here. But, believe me as someone who has been working on this awful problem for so many months, we're not going to be there till we get to the end of the road. And the end of the road is complete denuclearization.
INSKEEP: Christopher Hill is the chief American envoy in negotiations with North Korea. He's in Seoul. Ambassador, good to talk with you again.
Mr. HILL: Thank you very much.
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Inspectors Say N. Korea Closed Nuclear Reactor
Christopher Hill, U.S. envoy to the six-party talks, answers reporters' questions after meeting with South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung on Monday.
Christopher Hill, U.S. envoy to the six-party talks, answers reporters' questions after meeting with South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-Joung on Monday.
U.N. inspectors on Monday verified that North Korea shut down its nuclear reactor, the first concrete achievement toward scaling back Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions since an international standoff began in late 2002.
The main U.S. envoy on the issue, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, told NPR that the inspectors have verified North Korea's claim to have closed the reactor.
"This is a first step," Hill said. "We have a long way to go."
"They have 50 or 60 kilos of fissile material that still have to be turned over," Hill said in an interview on Morning Edition
North Korea pledged in an international accord in February to shut the reactor at Yongbyon and dismantle its nuclear programs in return for 1 million tons of oil and political concessions.
However, it stalled for several months because of a separate, but now-resolved dispute with the U.S. over frozen bank funds.
The shutdown over the weekend was confirmed by a 10-member team of IAEA inspectors, said Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The process has been going quite well and we have had good cooperation from North Korea. It's a good step in the right direction," ElBaradei said, speaking in Bangkok ahead of an event sponsored by Thailand's Science Ministry.
The Yongbyon reactor, about 60 miles north of the capital, generates plutonium for atomic bombs; North Korea conducted its first nuclear test explosion in October.
Shutting down the reactor is the first step in the long process toward denuclearization, Hill said.
The six-party talks will resume this week.
"The second thing we're going to do is we'll sit down with the six parties and start working out how we're going to get a full list, a full declararion, from the North Koreans of all their nuclear programs and then how we're actually going to disable some of these facilities," Hill said.
Turning over the fissile material and other explosive devices will be one of the last steps in the process and likely will not happen until 2008, he added.
On Monday, South Korea sent the second of two initial shipments of what eventually will be 50,000 tons of oil to reward North Korea specifically for the reactor shutdown. The first arrived Saturday, prompting North Korea to begin the shutdown of the Yongbyon. The second shipment departed Monday, South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said.
North Korea has agreed to keep the nuclear reactor shut down even if they don't get more shipments of fuel oil or some other kind of payment or concession. The additional shipments of fuel oil that the U.S. envisions are to do more than just disable the reactors, Hill said.
"What we're looking for is after disablement to actually dismantle it and cart it away," Hill said.
The North's Foreign Ministry said Sunday that further progress under the disarmament accord would now depend "on what practical measures the U.S. and Japan, in particular, will take to roll back their hostile policies toward" North Korea.
In an interview with The Associated Press, U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill laid out an aggressive agenda of a steps Washington hopes can be made in the reconciliation process as Pyongyang lays aside its nuclear weapons program.
From NPR reports and The Associated Press
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