23 December 2002
Will Not Give In to North Korea "Blackmail," U.S. Says
(State Department Report , December 23) (540)
While the United States is determined to find a peaceful solution to
North Korea's resumption of its nuclear weapons program, it refuses to
be "blackmailed" by the regime of Kim Jong-Il, says Philip Reeker,
State Department spokesman.
"We will not give in to blackmail," he told reporters at the December
23 briefing at the State Department. "The international community will
not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments,
and we're not going to bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to
live up to the treaties and agreements that it has signed."
Reeker emphasized that the United States seeks a peaceful resolution
of the tense situation that North Korea has created by its pursuit of
a nuclear weapons program.
In the past three days, North Korea has disrupted monitoring
arrangements put in place by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) at Yongbyon, the site of a nuclear reactor capable of producing
materials needed to make nuclear weapons. Its actions put it in
violation of many of its international commitments, including the
International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement, the
Nonproliferation Treaty, the North-South agreement on
denuclearization, as well as the 1994 Agreed Framework signed with the
United States.
North Korea committed itself under the Agreed Framework to freeze and
dismantle nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. The facilities have been
subject to IAEA monitoring since then.
In return, an international consortium -- the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization (KEDO) -- was established to supply heavy
fuel oil to North Korea until a safer light water nuclear reactor
could be built in North Korea. The new reactor would have produced
fewer byproducts capable of fueling a weapons program while meeting
North Korea's electric power needs.
The deal fell apart this year when North Korean officials admitted to
a U.S. envoy that they had resumed their nuclear weapons program.
"We call upon North Korea," Reeker said, "to respond to the IAEA's
repeated calls and requests to hold urgently needed discussions on the
safeguard issues at Yongbyon and to allow IAEA to replace or restore
the seals and cameras that the North has damaged."
"The international community is in agreement that North Korea's
actions are a challenge to all responsible nations," he said, "and the
international community is making clear that North Korea's relations
with the outside world hinge on the elimination of its nuclear
programs. North Korea only deepens its international isolation with
these recent actions."
"We're going to continue the consultations with friends and allies,"
Reeker said. He noted that over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin
Powell spoke with his counterparts in South Korea, Japan, China,
Russia, France and the United Kingdom, as well as the IAEA.
"We have made quite clear," Reeker said, "that the United States had
been prepared to take bold new steps with North Korea and to help
North Korea come out of its isolation, but with the disclosure of
their nuclear weapons program we've also been quite clear that it's
not possible to more forward in those steps that we had been prepared
to take."
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
