5365

Korea Times (13 September, 2004)
By Reuben Staines
Staff Reporter



Unification Minister Chung Dong-young talks about a recent explosion in Ryanggang Province, North Korea, at the ministry in Seoul, Sunday.



Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Sunday that recent revelations of secret nuclear research by South Korean scientists should not interfere with dismantlement negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.

``At present, we don't know exactly what North Korea's intention is, but one clear thing is that South Korea's uranium and plutonium experiments are not matters that should be linked to the North Korean nuclear crisis,'' Chung told reporters during a briefing.

The comments come one day before the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convenes a meeting in Vienna where its 35-nation board will receive a verbal report on the small-scale experiments, which were conducted at a state-run nuclear research institute in 1982 and 2000.

Chung reiterated that the tests were conducted for academic purposes and were not endorsed by the government. ``We have repeatedly explained that they were not related to any government-level nuclear-arms program,'' he said.

But the unification minister refused to comment on whether South Korea violated IAEA safeguards in its late reporting of the experiments, saying that the government will wait for the nuclear watchdog's final judgment.

The IAEA board of governors will meet for between three and five days from Monday but a decision on South Korea's conduct is unlikely until it reconvenes in November. If Seoul is found to have seriously breached nuclear safeguards, the IAEA will refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council.

On Friday, a top U.S. arms official denied North Korean claims that the United States was applying a double standard to South Korea's nuclear disclosure.

``We will not allow a double standard in terms of how we treat violations of safeguard agreements,'' John Bolton, U.S. under secretary of state for arms control and international security, told a news conference in Geneva. ``There are a variety of steps we might take (against South Korea),'' he said.

However, his boss, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, placed minimal importance on the South Korean research. ``It's quite clear that these were not intended other than for academic, experimental purposes, and it's over with and I think that's the end of the matter,'' Powell said.

Meanwhile, North Korea reiterated that it will take issue with the South's nuclear research, saying it was ``clearly of a military nature.''

Pyongyang cannot help linking the experiments to six-party talks over its own nuclear programs, the North's Korea Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. ``The United States might have controlled (the experiments),'' he alleged.

Seoul admission of the nuclear research to the IAEA, which was made public on Sept. 2, has further complicated faltering attempts to draw North Korea back to the bargaining table for a fourth round of six-party talks.

Officials from Japan, the U.S. and South Korea concluded over the weekend that holding working-level negotiations ahead of a full round of nuclear talks is highly unlikely, a Japanese daily newspaper reported.

The Asahi Shimbun said the three allies decided to seek to convene a fourth round of six-party talks in Beijing without the preparatory negotiations due to time constraints.

At the end of the third round of talks in June, participating nations agreed to meet again in the Chinese capital before the end of September.

However, North Korea has been increasingly unwilling to negotiate, and many analysts believe it may be seeking to buy time until after the U.S. presidential elections in November.





rjs@koreatimes.co.kr