U.S. NUCLEAR ENVOY HILL PLANS NORTH KOREA VISIT TO END DEADLOCK
Viola Gienger
Bloomberg, September 30, 2008
U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill visits North Korea this week as he seeks to break a deadlock in international disarmament talks and persuade the communist nation not to restart its Yongbyon reactor.
Hill arrives in South Korea late today before traveling to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the State Department said. He will also go to Beijing and Tokyo during the Asian tour.
Kim Jong Il’s regime last month began reassembling parts of the Yongbyon reactor, the source of the country's weapons-grade plutonium, to protest delays in being removed from a U.S. terrorism blacklist. The Bush administration says it won't remove North Korea from the list without a credible way to verify the extent of the atomic program.
“The North Koreans invited Chris Hill to come, so we hope that there is some effort to address the verification protocol, because that's what we need,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in New York yesterday.
North Korea signed an agreement with South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia in February 2007 to disable its nuclear programs in return for normalized diplomatic ties with the governments in Washington and Tokyo and fuel aid. It agreed to disable the five-megawatt reactor last October and blew up a cooling tower at the site in June.
Viola Gienger
Bloomberg, September 30, 2008
U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill visits North Korea this week as he seeks to break a deadlock in international disarmament talks and persuade the communist nation not to restart its Yongbyon reactor.
Hill arrives in South Korea late today before traveling to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the State Department said. He will also go to Beijing and Tokyo during the Asian tour.
Kim Jong Il’s regime last month began reassembling parts of the Yongbyon reactor, the source of the country's weapons-grade plutonium, to protest delays in being removed from a U.S. terrorism blacklist. The Bush administration says it won't remove North Korea from the list without a credible way to verify the extent of the atomic program.
“The North Koreans invited Chris Hill to come, so we hope that there is some effort to address the verification protocol, because that's what we need,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters in New York yesterday.
North Korea signed an agreement with South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia in February 2007 to disable its nuclear programs in return for normalized diplomatic ties with the governments in Washington and Tokyo and fuel aid. It agreed to disable the five-megawatt reactor last October and blew up a cooling tower at the site in June.
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