An accord with the United States that opens up North Korea's nuclear program to inspection should help resolve nuclear tensions "once and for all," North Korea's top negotiator said Tuesday.
The agreement, reached Monday night, requires North Korea to permit international monitoring of its nuclear facilities, where scientists were suspected of developing nuclear bombs. North Korea also promised to rejoin the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.In return, the isolated and impoverished communist state will win diplomatic links with Washington it desperately sought and two modern nuclear reactors to replace antiquated ones that produce more of the bombmaking ingredient plutonium.
North Korea's lead negotiator, Kang Sok Ju, said the accord would resolve the mistrust that has characterized relations between Washington and
Pyongyang. "I hope the improving of bilateral relations will make a significant contribution to peace in Asia and the rest of the world," Kang
said. Robert L. Gallucci, the chief U.S. negotiator, said the draft accord was being sent to Washington and Pyongyang for approval, and the two sides hoped to sign the document Friday in Geneva.
"I personally think it is a good agreement," Gallucci said at a midnight news conference. "It addresses those issues and concerns we've had about the North Korean nuclear program."
The draft seeks to ends years of controversy over whether North Korea was secretly building nuclear weapons - as the West feared - or whether its program was peaceful, as the North insisted it was.
Gallucci said some steps could take effect as soon as the deal was signed, but that others would need "continuing contacts" to accomplish.
In Seoul, South Korean officials said Tuesday the agreement lays the foundation for halting North Korea's alleged nuclear weapons development, but falls short of expectations.
President Kim Young-sam expressed hope that once the nuclear issue is resolved, the communist North would be more active in promoting dialogue with South Korea.
But Foreign Minister Han Sungjoo said the accord gives North Korea several years to allow inspections of two nuclear waste sites.
The West fears the sites are being used to store nuclear waste that could prove Pyongyang has been secretly developing bombs.
The accord builds on one reached in August.
In return for North Korea's concessions, Washington has offered low-level diplomatic links and help in providing North Korea with two light-water atomic reactors. Construction of the new reactors may take up to 10 years and cost about $4 billion.
State-run KBS television in South Korea, which obtained a copy of the draft, said the two countries also promised to gradually ease restrictions on trade and investment.
Gallucci did not say when diplomatic liaison offices would open. The United States had insisted that diplomatic ties depended upon a resumption of the stalled dialogue between North and South Korea. The North says Washington should not meddle in inter-Korean affairs.
The South Korean media also reported that the United States had agreed to let North Korea store 8,000 spent fuel rods in a concrete cell within North Korea, rather than move them to a third country. The rods are corroding in a cooling pond, where they pose a radiation safety threat.