By KUNA,
Tokyo : North Korea’s nuclear dialogue partners agreed on Wednesday, that the delivery of promised energy aid for the communist state should be accelerated, but called on Pyongyang to simultaneously hasten the disablement of its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Speaking to reporters after the morning session of the one-day meeting of the representatives from the six nations, Hwang Joon-kook, head of the South Korean Foreign Ministry’s North Korean nuclear issue bureau, emphasized that the North and its counterparts should make joint efforts for a speedier denuclearization process on an action-for-action basis, according to the report. The working-group talks at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom discuss details on the energy aid for Pyongyang.
Hwang, who chairs the meeting, said, “Given the importance of the remaining measures, it is hard to say that North Korea has completed 80 percent of the disabling work.” The North has reportedly discharged only 3,200 of the total 8,000 reprocessed spent fuel rods from the reactor.
North Korea signed a deal with South Korea, the US, China, Russia, and Japan last year under which it will abandon its nuclear program in exchange for political incentives and a million tons of fuel aid. Half of the aid is heavy oil, and the rest is energy facilities equivalent to 500,000 tons of heavy oil. But North Korea, claiming eight of the total 11 required measures have been made, says the shipment of energy aid from its negotiating partners lags far behind its implementation of denuclearization obligations.