China makes offer to US, North Korea
Nuclear plan seeks to break impasse
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asi...s_north_korea/
By Edward Cody By Bo-Mi Lim, Associated Press | September 17, 2005
BEIJING -- China proposed a compromise yesterday in the US-North Korean standoff on nuclear disarmament negotiations, suggesting that North Korea be accorded the right in principle to develop peaceful nuclear energy in the future, diplomats said.
The Chinese suggestion received a cool response from North Korea, which insisted on carrying out the civilian part of its nuclear development program without interruption. ''We will just do it our way," said Hyun Hak Bong, a spokesman for North Korea, reading a statement to reporters. ''For us, we cannot stop our way of peaceful nuclear activities for one month."
Hyun said North Korea must be given a light-water nuclear reactor as an integral part of any deal to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. The reactor could be comanaged and submitted to international inspection, he said in the statement, but its establishment cannot be replaced by a promise for the future.
So far, the Bush administration has adamantly refused North Korea's demand for a nuclear reactor for electricity production, the major impasse in this round of six-nation negotiations that have been underway under Chinese sponsorship for more than two years.
The US chief delegate, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, declined to speak with reporters after China proposed its compromise. He was seeking instructions from Washington, diplomats said.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she thought the status of negotiations would be clear ''in the next five or so days." ''The North Koreans have a way of moving the goal posts all the time," she said in an interview with the New York Post. ''And they've apparently come back determined that they have to have a light-water reactor. Well, we're, you know, we're not going there."
Hill has said that North Korean electricity needs can be met more swiftly and cheaply by South Korea, which has proposed repairing the electrical grid between the countries. Also, US officials said, the United States believes North Korea cannot be trusted with a light-water reactor because the installation could be converted for weapons production.
China called on diplomats from North and South Korea, Russia, Japan, and the United States to confer with their capitals overnight and reconvene today to discuss the new proposal.
© Copyright 2005 Globe Newspaper Company.
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