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More power to Korean
talks
SEOUL - The United States
and South Korea were optimistic that North Korea would
agree to a deal on abandoning its
nuclear plans, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
on Wednesday after a meeting with South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon.
"We are very optimistic that our
joint efforts to improve the security situation on
the Korean peninsula could indeed bear
fruit, although, of course, there is still much work
to be done," Rice said.
Her comments come two
weeks before the resumption in Beijing of stalled
six-way nuclear talks and after South Korea
offered to supply electricity to North Korea if it
dismantled its nuclear programs. South Korea said
on Tuesday it had promised North Korea massive
electricity aid if it agreed to completely
dismantle its nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang declared in February that it was
a nuclear power. After holding out for over a
year, it agreed last week to return to the
six-party talks, which include South Korea, China,
Japan, Russia and the US.
South Korea says
that the direct energy aid represents an
"important proposal" that it would formally
present to the North when the talks resumed,
according to Unification Minister Chung
Dong-young. If Pyongyang committed to nuclear
dismantlement, Chung said, Seoul would start
construction on power transmission facilities to
provide 2 million kilowatts of electricity to the
North annually. The minister said he expected the
cross-border power transmission would begin in
2008, after the North completed scrapping its
nuclear program.
Last month, Chung briefed
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on the plan. Kim
was quoted as saying at that time that he would
"carefully study" the proposal. Chung also visited
Washington early this month to outline the offer
to US Vice President Dick Cheney and Rice.
Officials said the US reaction was positive.
South Korea first mentioned the idea at
vice minister-level talks with the North in
mid-May. The South accelerated finalizing the
offer after North Korea agreed on Saturday to
rejoin the six-party talks in the final week of
July.
"Our direct power supply proposal
calls for providing electricity to replace the
North's nuclear energy, which is a key factor in
resolving the nuclear issue," Chung said. In
exchange for the power provision, the proposal
calls for terminating a suspended project to build
two light-water reactors in North Korea, Chung
said.
Under a 1994 deal with the US, the
North was promised two light-water reactors in
return for freezing its nuclear facilities. A
US-led consortium had worked toward implementing
the US$4.6 billion project before suspending it in
2003 amid a renewed crisis over the North's
nuclear weapons ambitions.
As Seoul has
already pumped over $1.12 billion into the North's
light reactor project, however, its latest
proposal is likely to trigger a heated debate.
"In case of the resumption of the light
reactor project, South Korea was supposed to spend
an additional $2.4 billion. The cost for our
direct power supply plan will be less than that,"
Chung said.
The massive power supply to
the North is expected to reduce the South's
peak-season power reserve rate from the current
12%, or 6.67 million kilowatts, to about 8%,
prompting critics to warn of possible power
shortages in the South.
Chung also
dismissed such concerns, insisting that the
dedication of additional atomic power plants in
the South in the coming years would help the
nation maintain its current power reserve rate
beyond 2008.
"As soon as the upcoming
six-party talks in Beijing produce an agreement on
the North's dismantlement of its nuclear programs,
the Seoul government will start construction of a
cross-border power line linking Gyeonggi
province's Yangju and the North Korean capital
Pyongyang," the minister said. "The timing for
commencement of the power supply will be strictly
linked to the North's implementation of a nuclear
dismantlement agreement."
He estimated
that the 200 kilometer power supply line between
Yangju and Pyongyang would cost about 500 billion
won ($485 million), with an additional 1 trillion
won to be needed for the construction of power
transformer facilities.
On Tuesday in
Tokyo, Rice urged North Korea to make a "strategic
decision" to give up its nuclear program. "What we
really need is a strategic decision on the part of
the North that they are indeed ready to give up
their nuclear weapons program," she said after
meeting with her Japanese counterpart, Nobutaka
Machimura. "Without that, these talks cannot be
successful."
Chung also stressed that
there should be progress from the upcoming talks.
"The upcoming talks should never be talks for the
sake of talks," he said. "We should achieve
progress with a firm determination that this will
be the last chance."
North Korea has
suffered an acute energy shortage since the US cut
off fuel oil shipments in 2002 after claiming the
country was pursuing a secret nuclear weapons
program. The oil provision was one of the key
components of a 1994 deal between the US and the
North, under which the communist state promised to
freeze its nuclear facilities.
The deal,
known as the Agreed Framework, unraveled in 2002
after the US claimed North Korea had admitted to
pursuing a secret uranium enrichment program,
prompting the beginning of the latest nuclear
weapons crisis.
(Asia Pulse/Yonhap) |
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