|
SLUG: 2-298816 IAEA Nokor (L)
DATE: NOTE NUMBER: |
||
DATE=1/26/03 TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT TITLE=I-A-E-A/NORTH KOREA (L) NUMBER=2-298816 BYLINE=MELANIE SULLY DATELINE=VIENNA CONTENT= VOICED AT: INTRO: The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has postponed an emergency meeting on North Korea. Melanie Sully reports from the Austrian capital. TEXT: The International Atomic Energy Agency says it has put off the meeting of its board of governors, intended to discuss the nuclear standoff with North Korea, to give more time for diplomacy to work. The agency announced Friday that the 35-member board would meet on February 3rd. But after pressure from South Korea, it decided to shelve that date. South Korea urged the I-A-E-A to postpone the meeting, saying it could complicate the mission of its envoys going to Pyongyang. The I-A-E-A board last met three-weeks ago and sent what it said was a "strong message to North Korea to comply with the international community." The agency wants the return of its inspectors to monitor the reactivation of a nuclear facility at Yongbyon, but a spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, says this is a "long shot."
Ms. Fleming says the I-A-E-A board will have to meet at some stage. /// FLEMING ACT /// We have to register the seriousness of this, and it is procedural on the one hand, but political on the other, and we are most concerned, as you said, that the inspectors get back. But we do not want to have a meeting for the sake of a meeting. We want to have it when it's wise. /// END ACT /// Ms. Fleming says the meeting that had been planned for February 3rd could still go ahead, but that everything, in her words, "is up in the air."
Any I-A-E-A board meeting is expected to refer the North Korea crisis to the United Nations Security Council. (SIGNED) NEB/MS/ALW/RAE |
||
