Pacific Stars and Stripes
November 5, 1999
Pg. 7Construction On Reactors For North Korea May Start Soon
By Jim Lea, Stripes Osan Bureau Chief
A contract to provide two light-water nuclear reactors to North Korea should be signed later this month, paving the way for the start of construction on the $4.6 billion project.
The announcement was made Wednesday by a spokesman for the Unification Ministry, the agency that handles North Korean matters for the South Korean government.
The spokesman said the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization and the government have agreed to complete plans for providing the reactors and start construction in December.
The reactors - which produce less plutonium than the North's old graphite-based reactor did - were promised to Pyongyang in an 1994 agreement with the United States. Site preparation on North Korea's east coast began two years ago, but actual construction of the reactors hasn't begun. The reactors will be built by the South Korea Electric Power Corp.
Seoul will pay $3.22 billion of the construction cost, and Tokyo will pay $1 billion. Other nations (except the United States) who are members of KEDO also will contribute.
Under the 1994 agreement, the United States is to provide annually enough heavy oil to fuel conventional power plants until the reactors go online. Pyongyang has complained that Washington is dragging its feet in providing that oil, but the Government Accounting Office - the investigative arm of Congress - said the U.S. commitment is being met.
A number of factors has stalled the start of construction. Among them was the 1996 incursion into the South of a North Korean submarine carrying 24 armed infiltrators and the 1998 firing of a Taepodong-1 missile that flew across the northern tip of Japan's main island.
Former South Korean President Kim Young-sam halted his country's involvement with the project for about four months following the submarine incursion.
Tokyo held up its financial contribution to the project for nearly a year after North Korea test-fired a missile that flew over Japan. Meanwhile, Republican members of Congress on Wednesday issued a report denouncing what they call the Clinton administration's "policy of appeasement and bribery" of North Korea, pointing to the 1994 nuclear agreement as an example.
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