YONHAP NEWS

NORTH KOREA THIS WEEK NO. 463 (Aug. 23, 2007)

*** TOPICS OF THE WEEK

Koreas Agree to Reschedule Summit to Oct. 2-4

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea agreed over the weekend to reschedule the inter-Korean summit slated for late August in Pyongyang to Oct. 2-4 after North Korea requested a delay because of its extensive flood damage.

   South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had planned to meet in the North's capital Aug. 28-30 to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and inter-Korean economic cooperation.

   In a telephone message on Aug. 18, the North asked the South to postpone the summit until early October, citing severe flood damage sustained by the North's capital, key industrial facilities and crops, according to Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Cheon Ho-seon.

   The North's official Korean Central News Agency reported that in the message, "the North referred to the fact that torrential rain hit most of its areas every day, causing great damage, and this made it top priority to recover from the flood damage and make the living of the people in the afflicted areas return to normal and, accordingly, proposed to the South side that President Roh's Pyongyang visit take place early in October by unavoidably postponing it at least one month in connection with the above said flood that struck those areas all of a sudden."
South Korea accepted the North's request and proposed holding the summit Oct. 2-4 in the North Korean capital, and in a prompt reply, the North announced its agreement, Cheon said. "North Korea sent a telephone message to the chief of the National Intelligence Service, Kim Man-bok, this morning, saying that it is forced to put off President Roh Moo-hyun's visit to Pyongyang from late August until early October, due to the urgent task of flood recovery," Cheon said in a media briefing.

   "Instead, the North left the decision on the specific date for the rescheduled summit up to the South. The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae held an emergency meeting later in the day and proposed rescheduling the summit to Oct. 2-4," Cheon said.

   In the message, North Korea said it has endeavored to make President Roh's visit to Pyongyang a success but is now faced with a more urgent task of recovering from flood damage and stabilizing its people's livelihood. "The North said its attitude towards the inter-Korean summit, as well as the previous inter-Korean agreements on summit procedures and protocol, would remain unchanged," said Cheon.

   The North's state media has said that about 46,580 homes of 88,400 families had been flooded or destroyed, while more than 300,000 people were displaced. North Korean officials also told international aid agencies that over 220 people were dead or missing and 11 percent of the grain harvest -- equivalent to 450,000 tons -- was lost. About 400 commercial plants were flooded and landslides severed railways in 43 places while some 300 mine shafts had collapsed, they said.

   Over the past several days, South Korea, the United States and international agencies have offered help to North Korea after receiving reports of the devastating floods. "The South Korean government will try to send its aid shipments to the North as soon as possible. It will also seek ways, together with the National Assembly, Red Cross, civic organizations and international aid agencies, to extend further assistance to the North," said Cheon.

   Seoul's Unification Ministry said on Aug. 17 the South Korean government will send 7.1 billion won ($7.5 million) worth of emergency aid to North Korea this week to help the communist country recover from the damage caused by the heavy rains.

   The ministry said South Korea will also discuss ways of sending equipment and additional aid needed to overcome the damage in the North after transporting the emergency aid via inter-Korean sea and land routes. North Korea allowed the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to send four assessment teams to areas hit by flooding.

   The sudden rescheduling of the summit to early October elicited various responses and interpretations from diplomatic and political experts in Seoul. Many experts in the South said the North's claim that it needs to recover from extensive flood damage sounds convincing, but some suspected there could be a hidden purpose behind the North's abrupt request for a delay.

   "Flood damage in North Korea appears to be deteriorating. There seems to be no political motive behind the North's demand to postpone the summit," said Paik Hak-soon, a senior researcher at the Sejong Institute. "The North seems to want to receive guests from the South in a cleaner atmosphere as much of Pyongyang, the venue of the summit, is said to be inundated by the recent flood. It takes about a month to repair damage in the capital city."
But the office of President Roh and the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) are in an escalating conflict over the timing of the summit. The dispute surfaced on Aug. 21 when the GNP leadership, including its presidential nominee Lee Myung-bak, formally demanded that the summit be postponed again until after the inauguration of the next government in February 2008.

   "The scrapping of North Korea's nuclear weapons is unlikely to be included in the summit agenda this time. The GNP's position is that the next inter-Korean summit has to take place after the nation elects its new president this December," GNP chairman Kang Jae-sup said.

   Roh's spokesman Cheon asked the GNP not to blindly object to efforts for inter-Korean peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. "The GNP's request is preposterous. The inter-Korean summit and the six-party talks on disabling North Korea's nuclear weapons program should go hand in hand."

-----------------------

Nuclear Talks End Amid 'Positive' Atmosphere, but Without Agreement

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Working-level talks on ending North Korea's nuclear ambition were held in the Chinese city of Shenyang last week after dealing with how to proceed with the February agreement on dismantling the North's nuclear weapons program. The six nations closed the two-day meeting on Aug. 17 in what a South Korean official called a "positive and friendly" mood, but they failed to reach agreement on how to disable the communist country's nuclear facilities.

   The lack of an agreement apparently came as a disappointment to the chief U.S. nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, who earlier said he hoped to have a "common definition of disablement" by the end of the meeting.

   But after the talks, North Korea's deputy chief negotiator said it is prepared to reveal all its nuclear programs and facilities in a transparent manner under the six-party disarmament deal struck in February.

   "We will transparently disclose all our nuclear programs and nuclear facilities," Ri Gun, the North's Foreign Ministry director in charge of U.S. affairs, told reporters before returning home. However, Ri, the North's chief negotiator at the meeting, didn't respond to a reporter's question about his country's alleged uranium enrichment program, which the North has previously denied having.

   The talks opened on Aug. 16 as the six nations -- South and North Korea, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia -- work toward implementing the second phase of the agreement in which the North agreed to shut down and eventually disable its key nuclear facilities and submit a complete list of all its nuclear programs.

   Hill, the chief U.S. envoy, said the Shenyang meeting was a very useful two-day session. "I think we were able to cover a lot of ground. I think, most importantly, people came prepared to discuss the issues (involved)," he told reporters after the second day of talks.

   Pyongyang has already shut down five nuclear facilities at Yongbyon -- including its only operational 5-megawatt nuclear reactor -- under the February agreement, which entitles it to 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid. South Korea provided the initial 50,000 tons of heavy oil promised in the accord. The rest, totaling 950,000 tons, will be provided once the North completes implementing its commitments under the second phase of the February deal.

   The working-level talks mainly focused on what should be done to disable the North's plutonium-producing facilities at Yongbyon, and what should be included in its list of nuclear programs to be abandoned. "We need to have a common definition of disabling, and ... there are different ways you can define it. And that's why we have a working group to define it," the U.S. envoy told reporters on Aug. 17. Hill said the countries still did not have one definition of what disablement means, or what is required to disable the North's nuclear reactor and facilities, but noted that they now have the "basis" for achieving a common definition.

   Lim Sung-nam, deputy chief of the South Korean delegation, agreed the meeting was "meaningful," as it provided an opportunity to learn what the reclusive North had in mind. "There were active consultations and question-and-answer sessions, and through these procedures our understanding of the North's position has significantly deepened," Lim told a press briefing after the meeting.

   The South Korean envoy said the countries were also able to closely examine what North Korea's nuclear experts had offered to do under the second phase, and add to their initial plans regarding the more disabling of the North's nuclear facilities. "It is too early to say whether the difference (between North Korea and the other countries) can be narrowed," Lim said. "For now, we can say the North Korean side is returning home with homework, and I suspect the North Korean side will review this with a more active and positive attitude."
The U.S. earlier said the declaration of the North's nuclear programs would have to come before the disabling process so the countries would have a better idea of what needs to be disabled. Hill earlier said the two processes could overlap, hopefully without further delay, as the countries are already aware of certain facilities that need to be disabled, such as the Yongbyon ones.

   Earlier reports suggested that Pyongyang may be hoping to receive nuclear energy plants in return for implementing its denuclearization commitments, but the U.S. envoy Hill made it clear there will be no additional incentives until the North completely abandons its nuclear ambition and returns to the international non-proliferation regime. "We've had a long-standing view that they have to get out of this nuclear business that they are in, get back into the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty), and then we'll begin discussions on something like that," he said.

-----------------------------

Nuclear Envoys Hold Two-day Talks on Peace in Northeast Asia

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Officials from six nations working to denuclearize North Korea held a two-day meeting in Moscow early this week to discuss ways to establish peace and security in Northeast Asia after the communist North abandons its nuclear weapons program. Although the meeting did not produce tangible results, delegates from the countries gave a positive assessment of the meeting.

   The working-level talks were established under a February accord signed by North Korea and five other nations in which the North agreed to shut down and eventually disable its key nuclear facilities while declaring all of its nuclear programs.

   The first round of working-level talks, which also discussed the denuclearization of North Korea and the provision of promised energy assistance to the communist state, came shortly after the landmark denuclearization deal was signed on Feb. 13.

   This week's talks came after Pyongyang shut down its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon last month under the February agreement in exchange for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

   A separate working group on energy and economic assistance for the North met on the South Korean side of a border village jointly controlled by the divided Koreas earlier this month, while working group talks on how to denuclearize the communist nation were held in the Chinese city of Shenyang last week.

   The key issues in these working-level talks are how the North's next denuclearization steps to disable the Yongbyon facilities and declare its nuclear programs should be sequenced and carried out, as well as when and how the 950,000 tons of heavy oil promised in return will be provided.

   The Moscow meeting had little to do with the actual denuclearization of the North, but rather with the question of "what comes after North Korea denuclearizes," a South Korean official close to the six-nation nuclear talks said.

   "Considering the nature of the issues discussed here, it wouldn't be wise to expect quick results," Vladimir Rakhmanin, a Russian ambassador at large and the chairman of the Northeast Asia peace and security working group, was quoted as saying on Aug. 20 by his country's Itar-Tass news agency.

   The U.S. State Department said on Aug. 21 the six-party working group meeting on Northeast Asian peace proved useful and cooperative in discussing confidence building. "Talks were full, open and undertaken in a cooperative spirit," State Department deputy spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said of the talks held in Moscow. "The working group discussed the principles and norms that might guide the Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism and touched on possible confidence-building measures among the six parties," he said. "These were working discussions to explore ideas and make recommendations to the heads of delegations for further consideration."
Checkered by a history of war and unresolved disputes, Northeast Asia is considered one of the world's regions in need of a multilateral mechanism to guarantee peace and security. Each of the working groups are to report the results to the six-nation plenary session expected next month.

   Also created by the February agreement were two bilateral working groups, one consisting of North Korea and the United States and the other of the North and Japan, aimed at normalizing diplomatic ties as a reward for the North's denuclearization steps. The U.S.-North Korea normalization group is expected to meet later in the month, but the Japan-North Korea group has yet to set a date for its next meeting.

  (END)