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N. Korea is removing equipment, report says
Source: Agencies |
December 31, 2009, Thursday
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NORTH Korea has been taking equipment left at a nuclear reactor site that was mothballed when an international consortium halted work on grounds the country was breaking an agreement, a news report said yesterday.
If the report is true, the looting would be in defiance of a deal the North reached in the 1990s with regional powers and could cloud a recent push to restart disarmament-for-aid discussions.
Billions of dollars were poured into the project to build two relatively proliferation-resistant light water reactors for the North in return for a promise to freeze its nuclear plant that produces arms-grade plutonium. The deal was halted in 2002 with a third of the work finished.
North Korea may have used some of the more than 200 pieces of heavy equipment taken from the site in the country's northeast to stage a nuclear test in May, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, quoting government officials.
"The removal of equipment without taking steps to settle financial issues is a clear violation of the agreement and can be construed as theft," one official was quoted as saying.
South Korea bore the majority of the costs spent on the project arising from a deal called the Agreed Framework, signed in 1994 by the United States and North Korea. A consortium called KEDO to build the nuclear plants also grew out of the deal.
Equipment left behind at the site is valued at 45.5 billion won (US$39 million), including cranes and bulldozers, the newspaper said.
If the report is true, the looting would be in defiance of a deal the North reached in the 1990s with regional powers and could cloud a recent push to restart disarmament-for-aid discussions.
Billions of dollars were poured into the project to build two relatively proliferation-resistant light water reactors for the North in return for a promise to freeze its nuclear plant that produces arms-grade plutonium. The deal was halted in 2002 with a third of the work finished.
North Korea may have used some of the more than 200 pieces of heavy equipment taken from the site in the country's northeast to stage a nuclear test in May, South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, quoting government officials.
"The removal of equipment without taking steps to settle financial issues is a clear violation of the agreement and can be construed as theft," one official was quoted as saying.
South Korea bore the majority of the costs spent on the project arising from a deal called the Agreed Framework, signed in 1994 by the United States and North Korea. A consortium called KEDO to build the nuclear plants also grew out of the deal.
Equipment left behind at the site is valued at 45.5 billion won (US$39 million), including cranes and bulldozers, the newspaper said.
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