Inspections of North Korean Nuclear Facilities To Begin Next Week
A photo op between the two leaders did not appear to go as planned.
SYDNEY, Australia, Sept. 7, 2007 — -- International nuclear experts will begin on-site inspections of North Korean nuclear facilities next week to develop a way to disable all of Pyongyang's nuclear sites by the end of the year, the Bush administration said today.
The announcement came just as South Korean President Moo Hyun Roh and President Bush, meeting at the Asia-Pacific summit in Australia, publicly clashed over why the United States has never formally declared an end to the Korean War.
Officials said that the nuclear experts will come from three nations in the six-party talks to disarm North Korea: the United States, China and Russia.
This would mark the first time that multilateral experts would inspect the facilities. The inspections follow an agreement in June in which North Korea committed to end its nuclear weapons program in a trade for fuel and other foreign aid.
Christopher Hill, the U.S. envoy handling the talks with Pyongyang, called the agreement "another significant step toward the goal of de-nuclearization" of the Korean peninsula.
The experts arrive Tuesday, but Bush administration officials said the day was not chosen for any symbolic link to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The experts leave Sept. 15.
North Korea initiated the offer, said Hill, also the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Hill is accompanying Bush at the 21-nation Asian economic summit.
Hill made the surprise announcement at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Sydney after final consultations with all six nations.
Inspectors will arrive in Pyongyang to survey sites that North Korea has agreed to disable, beginning with the Yongbyon site, which contains a fuel fabrication facility, a 5-megawatt reactor and a reprocessing facility.
The experts will examine the sites for ways to disable them by Dec. 31, 2007. The U.S. delegation will include officials from the National Security Council and the Energy and State departments.
Hill was careful in his phrasing, using the term "experts" rather than "inspectors" to abide by North Korean objections to the stronger term.
The parties also agreed to use the term "disable" rather than "dismantle," apparently leaving open the question of just how far North Korea will be required to go in shutting down the sites and how quickly the government of Kim Jong Il would be able to restart them.
