YONHAP NEWS

(2nd LD) N.K. to destroy nuclear facility as symbolic gesture

   WASHINGTON, May 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is expected to destroy a part of its nuclear installations as a symbolic gesture around the time it submits a declaration on its nuclear stockpile, a South Korean envoy said Tuesday.

   The destruction of the "cooling tower" would mark the beginning of the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear programs, said Kim Sook, the chief South Korean representative to the six-party talks. "It has the symbolic meaning of giving impetus to the denuclearization process," he told reporters.

   Kim was visiting Washington to participate in South Korean-U.S.-Japanese tripartite discussions ahead of the expected resumption of the six-nation talks that also involve North Korea, China and Russia.

   He said North Korea provided Washington with a substantive preview of its declaration of its nuclear inventory during the last two visits by a U.S. delegation.

   "We received a detailed briefing on the declaration," Kim said, declining to elaborate.

   The three envoys met after the U.S. delegation returned from Pyongyang earlier this month with some 18,000 pages of a daily operation log of North Korea's reactor and reprocessing facility, the key installations believed to have been producing weapons-grade plutonium.

   The material is under review by U.S. experts who will spend the next couple of weeks determining whether the documents are useful and credible.

   Kim confirmed earlier press reports that the North will blow up the cooling tower attached to the reactor as tangible evidence of nuclear dismantlement.

   Asked about the timing, the envoy said it will occur between the time the North provides its declaration and the resumption of six-party talks, but closer to the former. He said the U.S. is expected to take steps to remove the North from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states around that time as well.

   Getting off the terrorism list is one of North Korea's most coveted benefits promised by the U.S. in exchange for denuclearization.

   Kim said that although Japan has yet to participate in energy assistance to North Korea, there is still time for the two countries to resolve their bilateral issues, mainly Pyongyang's past abduction of Japanese citizens.

   "We agreed that there has to be bilateral efforts on these issues. We agreed that once there is progress, Japan will promptly begin to take part in the assistance," said Kim.

   One of the incentives for North Korea's denuclearization is delivery of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or its equivalent. So far, South Korea, China, the U.S. and Russia have been taking turns in shipping the energy aid. Japan has conditioned its participation to North Korea's efforts to account for the Japanese citizens Pyongyang earlier admitted it abducted to train its spies.

   "We have delivered 310,000 tons of heavy fuel oil so far. We still have 690,000 tons remaining," said Kim. "There is still time and more scheduled deliveries left for Japan to take part in."
The plan is to complete the energy aid within this year, Kim said.

   ldm@yna.co.kr
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