NKorea seeks oil in return for halting reactor

Tokyo, Feb 4: North Korea's top envoy to six-party talks on its nuclear programme has told former US officials Pyongyang wants more than half a million tonnes of fuel oil a year in return for suspending its atomic reactor, a Japanese daily said today.

The demand would exceed the energy assistance North Korea received under an 1994 agreement with Washington, which collapsed when the current nuclear crisis began in 2002.

The Asahi Shimbun said that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan had set out Pyongyang's position when he met former US State Department official Joel Witt and nuclear expert David Albright in the North Korean capital last week.

Kim and other North Korean officials said the country would halt the operation of its reactor at Yongbyon if it obtained energy assistance equivalent to more than 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil a year, the Asahi said, quoting the two Americans.

North Korean officials also demanded that Washington lift its financial sanctions against the country as well as removing North Korea from the list of ''terrorism-sponsoring'' nations, the daily said.

Kim was likely to have made the demands to US counterpart Christopher Hill at their meetings in Berlin in January, but might have decided to reiterate them to seek concessions when the six-party talks resume in Beijing on Thursday, Asahi said.

North Korea has insisted it would not scrap its nuclear programme until the United States ended a crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang in illicit activity such as counterfeiting. Analysts say the curbs have severely hurt the North's international finances.

Talks in Beijing between US Treasury Department and North Korean officials seeking to resolve the matter that led a Macau bank to freeze 24 million dollars in North Korean funds ended on Wednesday with no sign of a breakthrough.

The six-party talks involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Reuters

Related Stories