|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
 |
 |
    |
|
|
|||
 |
|
||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
||||||||
|
KEDO Officially Suspends Nuclear Reactor Project
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization today formally announced that it would suspend the construction of two nuclear power plants in North Korea on Dec. 1, the Korea Times reported (see GSN, Nov. 20). The U.S.-supported suspension is the latest step in a tit-for-tat series of moves away from a 1994 agreement to provide North Korea with nuclear energy in exchange for an end to all other North Korean nuclear activities. The one-year suspension is being viewed as the end of the project by many in Washington. KEDO officials, however, say that the project’s work must be maintained in case the current nuclear crisis is resolved and construction can resume. “The suspension process will require preservation and maintenance both on- and off-site,” a KEDO press statement said (Seo Soo-min, Korea Times, Nov. 21). While the nuclear power plant project seems to be unraveling, some experts said that KEDO should continue as an organization. “It makes eminent sense that KEDO would be called upon to adjust itself,” said Charles Pritchard, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and recently the top U.S. State Department negotiator with Pyongyang. “KEDO was certainly able to accomplish things a lot of us individual countries were not able to do,” he added. “It has already a legal framework with North Korea,” said Robert Carlin, KEDO’s assistant director for policy planning and North Korea affairs. “If that’s junked, it’s all going to have to be negotiated again,” he added (Paul Eckert, Reuters/Planet Ark, Nov. 21). James Kelly, the top U.S. State Department envoy to Asia, continued talks today with South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck on the future multilateral talks with North Korea. “They also had tense one-to-one discussions through several hours of informal talks during and after dinner yesterday without interpreters,” a Foreign Ministry source said (Agence France-Presse, Nov. 21).
| ||||||||||
Back to top
