In a potential setback to efforts to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, North Korea has suggested that it will reject South Korea's offer to provide it with modern reactors, officials in Seoul said on Sunday.
A North Korean radio broadcast on Saturday monitored in Seoul said that the reactor issue should be settled by the United States and North Korea, without interference by South Korea.The statement is another reminder of how difficult it might be to follow through on the preliminary agreement on North Korea's nuclear program announced this month in Geneva by the United States and the North. But the statement could be posturing, and the issue could be resolved in discussions that are expected to be held by the United States and North Korea early next month.
In the Geneva agreement, the North said it was prepared to freeze its nuclear program if, among other things, Washington arranged to provide modern light-water reactors to replace the North's existing graphite-moderated reactors, which produce a lot of plutonium that can be converted to weapons use.
The agreement does not say which country would provide the reactors. The United States, barred by its own laws from providing technology to North Korea, intends to put together an international consortium to pay for the $4 billion project.
Shortly after the Geneva agreement was announced, the South Korean president, Kim Young-Sam, offered to supply the technology and financing for the reactors if the North can assure that it has not developed or will not develop nuclear weapons.
South Korea, which has felt somewhat left out of the Geneva negotiations, wants to supply the reactors so it can maintain some control of the nuclear situation on the Korean peninsula.