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First Step for North Korea Is Full Nuclear Disclosure, Hill Says

05 October 2005

Next phase of talks to focus on sequence for implementing agreed principles

By Todd Bullock
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington - As the six nations involved in negotiations to dismantle nuclear programs on the Korean Peninsula prepare for a fifth round of talks, the most urgent issue they face is devising a sequence for implementing the accord they reached in the fourth round, says Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

At an October 4 briefing at the Washington Foreign Press Center, Hill said the initial phase of the implementation process, in which North Korea must follow through on its commitment to abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs, is critical. 

"That is going to be a very important aspect of implementation," he said.  "We're going to have to see … how we can implement that and then verify that it's been implemented."

A necessary first step in implementing the set of principles that all six parties accepted in the fourth round, Hill said, is for North Korea to make a full declaration of what nuclear programs and related equipment it has. 

"You cannot verify what you don't know is out there," he said. 

Hill said that North Korea voluntarily had agreed to give up its weapons and nuclear programs, and so the international community would not enter its territory to search for evidence of such activities.

"We hope the declaration is complete," he said.  "It's very important that it's complete, because we do have to overcome a lot of mistrust."       

The nations involved in the Six Party Talks -- China, Japan, Russia, the United States, and North and South Korea -- concluded their fourth round of negotiations September 19 with an agreement for Pyongyang to suspend and dismantle its nuclear programs in exchange for economic and diplomatic incentives. (See related article.)

The parties expect to resume negotiations in November, although no official date has been set.  Hill said all six nations have been engaged with internal discussions in the interim period. Asked what might happen if North Korea successfully meets its commitments to dismantle its programs, Hill said the negotiators would have to determine how to respond.

"We would obviously have to be discussing what we do versus what they do," he said.  "The DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea's official name] has not wanted to have all of its obligations front-loaded with all of our obligations back-loaded.  So we have to figure something out."

Hill declined to speculate further on that issue.  "This is the essence of what we're doing in the negotiations," he said.

Hill reiterated that discussions of future peaceful use of nuclear energy by North Korea must be delayed until the weapons program issues are resolved and North Korea once again accepts the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

The Pyongyang regime has insisted that a light-water nuclear reactor should be built to meet its electrical energy needs.  But Hill argued that North Korea's past use of nuclear energy has created mistrust.   

"They have had nuclear programs for 25 years. They have not produced nuclear power; they have produced plutonium," he said. "So to say that they now want nuclear programs in order to produce electricity and not bomb-making material is to some extent, a hope for the future rather than a lesson from the past."

Hill said South Korea has offered to provide North Korea with 2,000 megawatts of conventional electricity in exchange for verifiable elimination of the North's nuclear programs.

Despite rumors that the World Food Program will end food aid shipments to North Korea by January 2006 and focus on development assistance, Hill said the United States believes North Korea still needs food aid and will continue its policy that humanitarian assistance should not be affected by politics.

"When we last looked at this, and when the U.S. government provided 50,000 tons of food aid, it was based on our assessment that there was a very real need; that the need was substantial and substantial in terms of competing needs," he said. 

For more information, see U.S. Policy Toward North Korea.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)