By Byun Duk-kun
Yonhap News
September 26, 2007

Six-way talks to reopen for discussion of post-disablement steps

Beijing -- A new round of six-party talks that opens in Beijing on Thursday is likely to become a watershed in more than four years of off-and-on international efforts to end North Korea"s nuclear weapons program, South Korean officials say.

New hopeful signs have emerged that North Korea may really mean business this time and carry through its promise to disarm. It has already shut down key facilities at its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon under an aid-for-denuclearization deal struck in February.

The February deal with South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia binds North Korea to disable those facilities that have been shut down and declare all its nuclear weapons and weapons program in return for economic and political benefits.

US and South Korean officials have voiced guarded optimism that the North"s communist regime, despite its long history of flouting international accords, will keep its end of the six-party accord if it is given proper incentives.

"Basically, the countries will discuss what disablement is and how the nuclear facilities will be disabled, but a joint statement (if issued) could also include fundamental discussions on the dismantlement phase that should follow the disablement of the Yongbyon facilities," a South Koreawn Foreign Ministry official said.

The South Korean official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said this week"s discussions will most likely be based on a report by a team of US, Russian and Chinese nuclear experts who visited Yongbyon last week to discuss how to disable bomb-making facilities there.

US experts on the nine-member team later said in Seoul that North Koreans were businesslike in discusing how to disable the facilities, including the country"s only functioning 5-megawatt reactor that produces plutonium, the key material to make atomic bombs.

"There were specific discussions on ways to disable the facilities during the team"s visit to Yongbyon," Lim Sung-nam, deputy chief of South Korea"s mission to the six-nation talks, said after meeting with the US members of the survey team.

Another ministry official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that in a meeting with the survey team, North Korean officials agreed to disable the Yongbyon facilities in a way they would be "nearly dismantled."

No timeline has been set for the disablement phase of the Februry deal but the chief US nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, has expressed hope that the disablement process would be completed by year"s end and move on to the next stage of what he called the nuclear "endgame," or the dismantlement phase early next year.

Barring any "unforeseen" developments, many experts believe that further progress now hinges on how Washington would respond to a key North Korean demand to remove it from a US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

North Korea claims that the US has already accepted its demand but Hill has denied it. However, Hill said Pyongyang officials have agreed to meet the suggested year-end target of disabling their nuclear facilities during a recent bilateral contact in Geneva.

The issue has taken on extra urgency since October last year when the North conducted its first nuclear test. The US has since actively engaged the communist regime with an offer of economic assistance and political benefits.

The current nuclear crisis erupted in late 2002 when US officials accused North Korea of pushing a secret uranium weapons program, in addition to its much documented plutonium-based one, a claim denied by the North.

Six-party talks began a year later but have often been interrupted because of military and political tension. The latest dialogue opened early this year after a banking dispute between Washington and Pyongyang was resolved.

The ongoing nuclear tension is expected to be high on the agenda when South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun visits North Korea from Oct. 2-4 for a second-ever inter-Korean summit with leader Kim Jong-il. The first inter-Korean summit took place in 2000.

Ahead of this week"s six-party talks, concern has risen over allegations that North Korea may be helping Syria build a nuclear program. North Korea has denied the allegaton but US officials have raised alarm.

"The concept of proliferation is equally important as getting rid of programs and weapons," US President George W. Bush said in Washington last week, commenting on reports of alleged Pyongyang-Damascus nuclear ties.

"We have made it clear, and will continue to make it clear to the North Koreans through the six-party talks that we expect them to honor their commitment to give up weapons and weapons programs, and to the extent that they are proliferating, we expect them to stop that proliferation, if they want the six-party talks to be successful," he said.

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Related articles:
09/26/2007 Russia upbeat about six-party talks, Xinhua
09/26/2007 US hopes NKorea will disable nukes by year-end, AFP
09/26/2007 Denuclearization talks to reopen this week, Yonhap News
09/25/2007 Six-nation round to focus on de-nuclearization 2nd stage, Itar-Tass
09/25/2007 North Korea nuclear talks face uncertain hurdles, Reuters