US, Japan expect NKorea to move on nuclear pact

Washington, May 2: The United States and Japan expect North Korea to meet immediately its initial obligations under a six-nation disarmament pact, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today, two weeks after the North missed a deadline for shutting down its main nuclear reactor.

''We agreed that we must continue to expect North Korea to immediately fulfill its initial action agreements,'' Rice said.

''We don't have endless patience. We do recognize that North Korea has continued to publicly affirm its obligation under the Feb. 13 agreement and to affirm its intention to carry through.

We expect them to do so,'' she said.

Rice's talks with her Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma followed a warning issued by the two countries' leaders last week that North Korea could face tougher steps such as sanctions if it did not begin implementing the pact.

US President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday expressed concern that North Korea missed an April 14 deadline to start shutting its Soviet-era Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of plutonium for its bombs.

The deadline was required by a deal North Korea reached on Feb. 13 with South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States under which Pyongyang would get energy and economic aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament.

Money Issue

That disarmament deal is languishing amid arguments over the return of 25 million dollar North Korean money once frozen in a Macau bank account in connection with counterfeiting and money-laundering allegations.

North Korea said last month it remains committed to the pact and will move once it gets the money. The freeze on the funds has been lifted but North Korea has not drawn on the money.

Rice acknowledged that resolving the financial issue was ''considerably more complicated than perhaps we had realized.'' ''And so, we have been willing to step back and give some time for this to be resolved,'' she said, adding that Washington believed it ''has done what it needs to do'' to resolve the case.

A Japanese official told reporters this week's bilateral meeting of defense and foreign ministers spent considerable time focusing on the Korean peninsula in the wake of North Korean missile tests in July and nuclear test in October.

Concern about North Korea's ambitions has accelerated bilateral cooperation in ballistic missile defense, the Japanese official said. He cited U.S. deployments of PAC-3 and SM-3 anti-missile capabilities in Japan and the Pacific.

''North Korea's missile and nuclear tests last year were a reminder of the potential threats we face,'' Gates said.

''In this context, our cooperation validated the previous investments we have made and the approaches we have taken to modernize and strengthen our alliance, while reminding us of the work that remains to be done,'' he told reporters.

Reuters>