North Korea yesterday angrily reacted to a US-led move to suspend construction of two nuclear power plants in the impoverished country, saying it will seize all equipment and technical data for the US$4.6 billion project.
Pyongyang, however, did not revoke its earlier promise to return to six-nation talks aimed at resolving a standoff over its nuclear weapons program -- a scenario some US allies had feared when they agreed to halt work on the North Korean reactor project.
The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), a US-led consortium based in New York, has been building two light-water reactors in Kumho, a remote village on North Korea's northeast coast, as part of a 1994 "agreed framework" deal between Washington and Pyongyang.
Halting the project looked inevitable yesterday, however, as all four members of KEDO's executive board said they favored suspending it for at least one year.
Washington led the initiative, suggesting that KEDO kill the project because North Korea has flouted the 1994 accord by running a secret nuclear weapons program.
The US and KEDO must fully compensate North Korea "under relevant articles of the light-water reactor agreement," an unidentified spokesman of North Korea's Foreign Ministry said.
KEDO's executive committee met earlier this week and discussed the fate of the reactor project. They said they would make a final announcement before Nov. 21.
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