North Korea offered to freeze its nuclear power program yesterday and the US called this a positive step that may help lead to new six-way talks on ending Pyongyang's atomic weapons programs.
North Korea described its offer as a "bold concession" to restart the six-way talks, which are designed to find a way to persuade the secretive, communist nation to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.
Pyongyang made the offer as a private US delegation that included congressional aides, former US officials and an Asia scholar flew to North Korea hoping to visit the Yongbyon nuclear complex at the heart of the country's nuclear program.
The US hopes to persuade North Korea to agree to the complete, verifiable and irreversible end to its suspected nuclear arms program through six-way talks among US, Chinese, North and South Korean, Japanese and Russian officials.
With prospects for talks in January appearing to recede, Pyongyang called on Washington to accept an offer to freeze its nuclear arms program, throwing in for the first time the "bold concession" of offering to suspend nuclear power generation.
"The DPRK is set to refrain from test and production of nuclear weapons and stop even operating nuclear power industry for a peaceful purpose as first-phase measures of the package solution," said Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency, using the abbreviation of North Korea's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The comments on freezing North Korea's nuclear arms program largely reiterated a proposal it first issued on December 9th, when Pyongyang offered to freeze its "nuclear activities" if the US dropped it from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism and ended economic sanctions, among other steps.
The December 9th statement, however, did not explicitly refer to suspending North Korea's nuclear power program, which US officials fear may be a cover for weapons development. North Korea has no fully operational nuclear power station, but does have a small reactor at the Yongbyon complex.
US Secretary of State Mr Colin Powell welcomed the North Korean comments despite previous US statements dismissive of the idea of a freeze on Pyongyang's suspected arms program.
"It was an interesting statement. It was a positive statement. They in effect said they won't test and they implied that they would give up all aspects of their nuclear program, not just \ weapons program," Mr Powell told reporters.
"I'm encouraged by the statement the North Koreans made," he added. "We hope that it will allow us to move more rapidly toward six-party framework talks."
The two sides exchanged their statements as an unofficial US delegation flew to North Korea to begin a five-day tour that the visitors hope will include a visit to Yongbyon. - (Reuters)