Accord elusive at North Korea nuclear talks
Source: Reuters
(Writes through) By Chris Buckley and Teruaki Ueno BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear weapons programme failed to reach agreement on Sunday, stalled on Pyongyang's demands for energy compensation and leaving one more day for negotiators to scramble for a deal. Envoys from North and South Korea, the United States, Russia, Japan and host China have agreed on most of a plan that would oblige Pyongyang to close nuclear facilities in return for economic and security assurances. But the initially promising session has faltered over North Korea's demand for a huge infusion of energy aid, which has left other countries suspicious that Pyongyang may then be unwilling to fully scrap its nuclear arms capabilities. "We're not looking to provide energy assistance so that they could avoid taking the further steps on denuclearisation," the chief U.S. envoy, Christopher Hill, told reporters late on Sunday. "I think we have a real problem if we can't reach an agreement on this." Negotiators will now have Monday to seek a deal. None sounded hopeful. "A breakthrough is not in sight," South Korea's Chun Yung-woo told reporters after Sunday's talks. He said the disputes were about the scope of energy aid "and the scope, pace and range of the North's actions to denuclearise". Behind the energy demands, the impasse at the six-party talks appeared to reflect abiding distrust between isolated North Korea and the other countries, especially the United States, that has stymied agreement on specific disarmament steps despite over three years of the stop-start negotiations. "Ultimately, you have to be assured that the other guy is interested in the direction that you're going," Hill said. "OUTRAGEOUS" DEMAND A diplomatic source said North Korea had demanded the United States and four other countries provide it with 2 million tonnes of heavy fuel oil annually and 2 million kilowatts of electricity in exchange for scrapping its nuclear arms programmes. "The North Korean demands are outrageous and incomprehensible by our standards," the source told Reuters. Another diplomatic source said the North had asked for either the heavy fuel or the electricity aid, not both. The talks that began on Thursday are the latest act in a long-running drama setting wary North Korea against the five other nations, which have urged it to end nuclear weapons ambitions that culminated in the North's first atomic test blast in October. Negotiators were aiming for a joint statement spelling out what Pyongyang would receive in return for shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear plant, which makes plutonium usable in nuclear weapons, diplomats have said. China may now instead issue a less weighty chairman's statement that would paper over the diplomatic rift. North Korea's calculations of 2,000 megawatts of electric power appear to be based on what could have been generated by two light-water reactors that were supposed to be built under a 1994 landmark deal between the United States and North Korea, another diplomatic source said. North Korea has insisted that the United States supply the fuel oil directly, rather than just arranging a deal through the other four countries, to demonstrate its goodwill towards its longtime adversary, the source said. In September 2005, North Korea agreed to a joint statement sketching out the nuclear disarmament steps Pyongyang needed to take to secure fuel and economic aid, as well as political acceptance from its adversary, the United States. But that deal languished after Washington accused the North of counterfeiting U.S. currency and other illicit activity. The ensuing U.S. crackdown on a Macau bank enraged Pyongyang, which boycotted the talks until international condemnation of its nuclear test drew it back in December. Hill warned of damage to efforts to coax North Korea into nuclear disarmament if no deal is sealed on Monday. "I think the diplomatic process certainly would be dealt a significant setback," he said. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Benjamin Kang Lim, Jack Kim, Nick Macfie and Lucy Hornby in Beijing and Chisa Fujioka in Tokyo)
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