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(LEAD) Light-water reactors not part of grand bargain for N. Korea: Seoul
INCHEON, Sept. 27 (Yonhap) -- South Korea ruled out the construction of light-water reactors Sunday as part of a "grand bargain" that President Lee Myung-bak had recently proposed to press North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms programs.
The United States stopped building two light-water reactors in North Korea in late 2002 after suspicions arose that the communist state was running a secret nuclear program based on uranium enrichment.
The halt prompted North Korea to exit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) the following year. The reactors -- incapable of producing weapons-grade plutonium -- would have provided a significant source of energy for the impoverished North.
Wi Sung-lac, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, told Yonhap News Agency that the construction would not resume at least until Pyongyang dismantles its nuclear programs and returns to the NPT.
"Construction of light-water reactors is an issue that can be discussed once the North is denuclearized and returns to the NPT regime," he said at an airport in Incheon, west of Seoul.
Wi was returning from a weeklong trip to the U.S. where he met with senior officials of the U.S., Japan and Russia, which are members of the six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programs.
The talks -- which the North declared defunct earlier this year in protest at U.N. condemnation of its rocket launch -- also include South Korea and host China.
South Korea's President Lee on Sept. 21 urged North Korea to return to the talks, proposing a "grand bargain" in which Pyongyang would be given a set of economic and political incentives if it completely abandoned its nuclear programs.
"The reactors the North demanded in the past are not part of the grand bargain," Wi said, adding that sanctions and dialogue will be pursued simultaneously to put pressure on the North.
The six-party talks began in 2003 to replace the bilateral nuclear agreement between the U.S. and North Korea. The talks produced a deal in 2005 for the North's denuclearization in exchange for energy and economic aid, normalization of ties, and establishment of a permanent peace regime to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War.
Despite the progress in talks, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006 and its second in May this year.
South and North Korea remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty. Uranium enrichment provides a second track to developing a nuclear bomb.
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