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Pacific Stars And Stripes
July 30, 1999
Pg. 1

By Jim Lea, Stripes Osan Bureau Chief

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea - North Korean officials say they will pull out of a nuclear agreement signed with Washington and increase their defensive capability by building more missiles if economic sanctions are placed on their country.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have threatened to impose economic sanctions if Pyongyang test fires a Taepodong-2 missile, which military officials believe is imminent.

A report by Pyongyang's state-operated Korean Central News Agency monitored in Seoul on Monday quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying a missile will be launched "for peaceful scientific research into space and there is no need to be afraid of it." But U.S. and South Korean officials believe that Pyongyang is preparing to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile.

KCNA also quoted the spokesman as claiming U.S. officials have announced that if a missile is launched, the United States will cut money to pay for oil, which was promised under the 1994 agreement to fuel conventional power plants. The agreement specifies that oil will be provided until two light-water nuclear reactors to be built in the North are operational.

The 1994 pact also states that Tokyo and Seoul would provide $4.6 billion for the South Korean-built reactors, but Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura has said the Japanese government would withhold its $1 billion share of the financing if a missile is launched.

While no U.S. official has said that oil supplies to North Korea will be cut if a missile is fired, oil shipments have been slow. Last year, Congress passed resolutions requiring President Clinton to certify that the North is no longer engaged in a nuclear program before money to pay for the oil would be released.

Accusing the United States of "pursuing a hostile policy to isolate and stifle us at any cost," the North Korean spokesman said Pyongyang is "left with no option but to increase our own defense capabilities and develop missiles as its means."

The spokesman said Pyongyang "has sincerely implemented the Agreed Framework," and suspicions that the North is engaged in a clandestine nuclear program were cleared by a U.S. inspection of an underground facility at Kumchang-ri.

During the inspection, which was carried out earlier this year, investigators said they found nothing but "an empty tunnel." But U.S. State Department officials say there are suspicions that the facility may be linked to a nuclear program.

If Washington is "really interested in the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula" and wants improved relations with the North, it must take several "practical steps," the North Korean spokesman said.

Those steps include "totally lifting economic sanctions" against the North, refraining from "cooperative moves" against the North, withdrawing U.S. troops from South Korea, and signing a peace treaty with Pyongyang.

"If the United States wishes to abrogate the agreed framework, it may do as it pleases," the spokesman said. He added that if any financing for the project is suspended, "we will feel no need to pin hope on it any longer."

Washington has rejected the North's demand that it sign a peace treaty, saying that must be negotiated between the two Koreas. The United States also has made it clear that it has no intention of removing its 37,500 troops from South Korea.