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BEIJING: North Korea was expected to finally deliver
an overdue account of its nuclear activities Thursday, the next step
in years of international talks to get the secretive country to
abandon atomic weapons.
China said it would hold a press
conference at 5 p.m. (0900 GMT) to release “important news”
related to the North Korean nuclear issue.
“At 5 p.m. there will be
important news released in a press conference,” Foreign Ministry
Spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters.
Liu later confirmed the news
would be related to the North Korean nuclear disarmament issue.
Six months later than had been
agreed, officials were to present a complete dossier of the
country’s nuclear material, facilities and programs to China, host
of the long-running talks and the North’s closest ally.
The declaration is part of a
series of measures aimed at getting North Korea, which tested an
atom bomb two years ago with the talks under way, to agree to
nuclear disarmament in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
The United States and China,
along with South Korea, Russia and Japan, have been in talks with
North Korea since 2003, trying to persuade the isolated regime not
to pursue nuclear weapons.
But the North has repeatedly gone
back on its commitments as the talks have progressed, even testing a
nuclear weapon in October 2006—the first and only time it has done
so.
Christopher Hill, the chief US
negotiator in the talks, said on Wednesday that the declaration
would “probably” be made Thursday.
And South Korea’s Yonhap news
agency quoted the foreign ministry in Seoul as saying the
declaration would be handed over late Thursday.
North Korea, deeply suspicious of
the outside world, wants security guarantees as part of the
disarmament deal. It is said to particularly fear an attack by the
United States, which it harshly criticizes in state propaganda.
Hill said the first declaration
would detail all aspects of the North’s nuclear dossier except any
atomic weapons themselves, which are due to be handled in the next
phase of negotiations.
It is unknown how many nuclear
weapons the North may have produced. The US-based Institute for
Science and International Security estimated last year that the
country had separated enough plutonium for up to 12 nuclear weapons.
--AFP
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