North Korea has reached agreement with the United States to ship nuclear fuel rods with enough plutonium to make five nuclear weapons out of the country for safekeeping.
Announcing the accord Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Gallucci said delivery of heavy fuel oil to North Korea would be resumed and U.S. diplomats would go to Pyongyang to find a location for a diplomatic office.The developments grew out of an accord reached earlier in the month reaffirming the supplying of South Korean light-water reactors to North Korea to replace a gas graphite reactor suspected of being part of a nuclear weapons program.
North Korea had balked at the ties to South Korea, with which it has been at odds for nearly a half-century. Under the accord, South Korea will be the prime contractor, but parts of the new reactors, valued at about $4.2 billion, may be manufactured in the United States or in other countries.
A North Korean demand for an additional $1 billion in transmission lines and other equipment was deferred.
In talks concluded this week in Pyongyang, the two sides agreed that the rods would be exported to a safe location in containers after the fuel is stabilized, Gallucci said.
The Clinton administration also will resume shipment of heavy fuel oil for civilian energy use, he said.
But Gallucci said North Korea would have to install a monitoring system to ensure against diversion. The fuel is intended to replace energy provided by the experimental gas-graphite reactor that North Korea shut down under U.S. pressure last year. American analysts said the reactor had helped produce at least one nuclear weapon.
North Korea diverted about 20 percent of the first oil shipment to a steel plant, Gallucci said. Secretary of State Warren Christopher responded to the breach by barring further shipments until the issue was resolved and final terms reached for safer reactors.
Some 30 kilograms (about 65 pounds) of weapons-grade plutonium can be extracted from the 8,000 spent fuel rods, enough for five nuclear weapons, Gallucci told reporters.