New phase as N. Korea shuts down reactor

International observers are monitoring the step. Six-party talks on the North's nuclear program resume in Beijing on Wednesday.

By Donald Kirk | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 16, 2007 edition

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WASHINGTON - The shutdown of North Korea's five-megawatt reactor at its nuclear complex ushers in a new phase in a standoff that is likely to face many more cycles of tension and talks.

The central problem, say analysts in Seoul, South Korea, is that the shutdown leaves unresolved major issues that are not specifically mentioned in the six-nation agreement reached in February for North Korea to get rid of its entire nuclear program.

"Yes, it's significant," says Kim Tae Woo, senior researcher at the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses, "but its significance is limited."

"Even though they shut down the reactor, we should think about their nuclear weapons," adds Mr. Kim, alluding to six to a dozen nuclear warheads that the North is believed to have fabricated at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang. "North Korea will try every attempt to maximize the confrontation."

Kim Sung Han, a professor at the Korea Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, cites North Korea's nuclear stockpile as among the topics that are likely to emerge when six-party talks resume this week in Beijing. Next on the agenda, he says, will be North Korea's commitment to reveal everything related to its nuclear program.

"North Korea is suspected of reprocessing 50 kilograms of nuclear material," says Mr. Kim. There's also the question of North Korea's program for fabricating warheads with highly enriched uranium – something the North has denied doing.

The February agreement, signed by North and South Korea as well as the US, China, Japan, and Russia, avoids mention of the North's existing warheads or highly enriched uranium. North Korean negotiators made clear they would not go along with any deal that mentioned uranium.

Under the accord, North Korea was to have shut down the five-megawatt reactor within 60 days of its signing but delayed pending the return of $25 million from its frozen accounts in Banco Delta Asia in Macao – an issue that held up talks ever since a September 2005 "memorandum of understanding."

About that time, the US Treasury blacklisted the bank as a conduit for $100 "supernotes" counterfeited in Pyongyang and banned any firm doing business with the bank from dealings in the US financial system. That snag was removed only when the US arranged for the transfer of the funds through the Federal Reserve Bank to the Russian central bank.

North Korea further delayed the shutdown until last weekend, when it received 6,200 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea – the first of a series of shipments under which the North will get 50,000 tons for fulfilling the initial condition of the six-party agreement. South Korea has also sought to soothe tensions by resuming rice shipments, suspended after the North test-fired seven missiles in July last year and then conducted an underground nuclear test last October.

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