SOUTH KOREA: INTERNATIONAL TEAM BUILDING NUCLEAR REACTORS IN NORTH KOREA MEET FOR TALKS IN SEOUL.

Record ID: 640514

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA: INTERNATIONAL TEAM BUILDING NUCLEAR REACTORS IN NORTH KOREA MEET FOR TALKS IN SEOUL.
  • Date: 5th August 2002
  • Summary: (W2) SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AUGUST 5, 2002) (REUTERS) GV/MV: EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING OF KEDO (KOREAN PENINSULA ENERGY DEVELOPMENT ORGANISATION) (3 SHOTS) MV: E.U.'S JEAN-PIERRE LENG AND SOUTH KOREAN CHANG SEUN-SUP GV/CU: KEDO GENERAL SECREATARY CHARLES KARTMAN (2 SHOTS) MCU; U.S.'S CHARLES JACK PRICHARD MV: PRICHARD AND JAPAN'S KATSUNARI SUZUKI MV/GV: MORE OF MEETING (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 20th August 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SEOUL AND DONGHAE, SOUTH KOREA
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: Politics,Energy
  • Reuters ID: LVA2TGW4YP9AJMY35RCL00PQM9UR
  • Story Text: South Korean, U.S., E.U. and Japanese officials involved in building nuclear reactors in North Korea held a meeting in Seoul before their trip to North Korea.
    Officials of an international project to build nuclear reactors in North Korea gathered in Seoul on Monday (August 5), a day after North and South Korea set ministerial talks next week to revive their stalled dialogue.
    The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) officials will travel to North Korea to pour concrete on Wednesday for reactors being built under a 1994 pact which suspended the North's suspected nuclear weapons programme.
    KEDO executives from the United States, the European Union, Japan and South Korea will head a large delegation travelling to the isolated village of Kumho on the North's eastern coast for a ceremony to mark the start of work on the
    8 billion U.S. dollar reactors.
    After a tense showdown with the United States, North Korea pledged in 1994 to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons programme in exchange for supplies of heating oil and two light-water reactors, which experts describe as proliferation-resistant.
    The KEDO ceremony follows a flurry of international contacts with North Korea last week, capped off by an agreement on Sunday (August 4) to resume North-South dialogue, which set the stage for a busy diplomatic calendar on the world's last Cold War flashpoint.
    Officials from the rival Korean states said on Sunday they would hold cabinet-level talks from August 12 to 14 in Seoul to discuss economic cooperation, a railroad project and family exchanges and a resumption of long-suspended military dialogue.
    On Tuesday (August 6), the U.S.-led United Nations Command in South Korea will hold talks with the North Korean military at the Panmunjom truce village on the North-South border.
    The Panmunjom talks will discuss a June naval clash on the Yellow Sea in which North Korea sank a southern ship, killing five South Koreans. North Korea, which lost some 13 sailors, has expressed "regret" and pledged to prevent future incidents.
    The newest burst of inter-Korean contacts will be closely watched by Tokyo and Washington, which do not have formal diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, but are preparing to reopen contacts with North Korea.
    Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi held talks with their North Korean counterpart Paedk Nam-sun in Brunei.
    The United States wants to discuss security issues with North Korea, including the North's ballistic missile development and exports and unfinished business from the 1994 nuclear deal.
    Before North Korea receives critical nuclear equipment for the KEDO reactors, it must undergo U.N. nuclear inspections to clear up concerns about its pre-1994 nuclear activities.
    North Korea has dragged its feet on starting the inspections, which are expected to take about three years, since its relations with Washington deteriorated when George W. Bush became president in 2001 and put U.S. diplomacy with the communist state on hold.
    In January, Bush angered North Korea by branding it part of an "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq, each suspected of proliferating weapons of mass destruction.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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