North Korea threatened to slow down disablement of its main nuclear facility yesterday after Washington said energy aid to the reclusive state had been suspended because of failed talks on verifying the North’s operations.
US State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack said all five countries negotiating with North Korea — Japan, Russia, China, the US and South Korea — had agreed that fuel shipments would not go forward until there was progress on a so-called verification protocol with Pyongyang.
“This is an action-for-action process,” McCormack told reporters in Washington. “Future fuel shipments aren’t going to move forward absent a verification regime ... they [the North Koreans] understand that.”
North Korean nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan was quoted by Kyodo news agency as telling reporters in Beijing that Pyongyang would “probably adjust the pace of disablement at nuclear facilities if [the aid] is suspended.”
The US negotiator with North Korea, Christopher Hill, returned to Washington after the failed Beijing talks and briefed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday, said McCormack, adding that Hill would continue trying to get a deal.
“There’s the opportunity for North Korea to sign on to this verification protocol,” he said. “That still exists. We’ll see. The ball is in their court.”
Under an agreement last year, up to 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel aid was promised to North Korea as a reward for progress on denuclearization. Countries outside the five-nation group also have volunteered to supply North Korea with energy as a reward.
By the middle of last month, North Korea had received about half of the amount promised, the State Department said.
An unspecified amount of fuel was delivered this month by Russia and will finish being offloaded in North Korea next week, State Department spokesman Robert McInturff told reporters.
But McCormack said Russia made it clear in this week’s talks in Beijing that any future shipments would not be made until North Korea agreed to the verification protocol.
On the sidelines of talks with China and Japan and Beijing yesterday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said he expected nuclear talks to restart after US president-elect Barack Obama takes office.
“Once the United States has the Obama administration, full-fledged discussions are expected,” Lee told reporters. “The North Korean nuclear issue turned out to be 10 years of disappointment, but it is also true that we have progressed little by little.”
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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