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| 等 级：资深长老 |
| 经 验 值：5282 |
| 魅 力 值：433 |
| 龙 币：14711 |
| 积 分：6742.6 |
| 注册日期：2004-08-22 |
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N Korea delay raises nuclear risk, Park warns
North Korea is posing a growing threat to its Asian neighbours by dragging its feet in dismantling its nuclear weapons programme, a leading candidate to become South Korea’s next president said Monday.
“Time only serves to turn North Korea’s weapon development into a fait accompli,” Park Geun-hye, a candidate from the conservative opposition Grand National party and daughter of the country’s former dictator, told foreign reporters.
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Ms Park, who is polling second to former Seoul mayor Lee Myung Bak in most polls ahead of December presidential elections, also said Seoul’s resumption of aid before the implementation of a February nuclear deal “has actually held back change in North Korea.”
The warning came amid concerns that North Korea is unlikely to shut down its main nuclear reactor before a deadline Saturday because of delays resolving a dispute over frozen assets linked to Pyongyang.
North Korea reached an agreement February 13 with the US, China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea to detail all its nuclear weapons programmes and shut its Yongbyon reactor within 60 days in return for energy aid.
But diplomats have said Pyongyang was not likely to meet the deadline because Washington and North Korea have struggled to find a way to return $25m frozen at a small bank in Macao to North Korean accounts as agreed.
”Clearly, we’re aiming for the complete implementation of the February agreement by day 60. ... But that timeline is becoming difficult,” the lead US negotiator, Christopher Hill, told reporters in Tokyo on Monday.
Mr Hill said transferring the money to North Korean accounts was still “proving to be a very difficult task”. ”Frankly, the North Koreans would find the international financial system much more hospitable if they weren’t manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. I think that is the fundamental problem,” he said.
He said, however, that the US would continue to push Pyongyang to meet all of its obligations under the February agreement. ”There’s no such thing as partial implementation,” he said.
Kim Kye-Gwan, North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator, yesterday told a visiting US delegation that Pyongyang would struggle to shut the Yongbyon reactor by Saturday.
“They can make a beginning, but whether they can completely shut down a nuclear reactor in such a short time would be very difficult,” Anthony Principi, a former US secretary of veterans affairs, told reporters on a four-day visit to Pyongyang led by Bill Richardson, a Democratic US presidential candidate, and Victor Cha, President George W. Bush’s top adviser on North Korea.
But he added that Mr Kim indicated that Pyongyang would immediately invite UN nuclear inspectors back into the country if the frozen $25m was released to the North Korean government. The US treasury department last month signaled its approval to Macao to return the money held at Banco Delta Asia but logistical problems have hampered the transfer of the cash.
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2007-04-10 00:31:44
