N KOREA TO HALT DISABLING OF NUCLEAR FACILITIES

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By Daniel Dombey in Washington, Song Jung-a in Seoul and Jamil Anderlini in Beijing  
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
  

The future of the international effort to eliminate North Korea's nuclear weapons was in doubt last night after Pyongyang said it would suspend efforts to disable its nuclear facilities and would consider putting its Yongbyon reactor back into action.

The announcement, which North Korea said was in response to Washington's delay in removing it from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism, comes at a time of uncertainty about the so-called “six party” talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme, which involve US, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas.

“Since the US has broken its agreement, we must take counter measures according to the action-for-action principle,” the North's KCNA news agency said, quoting a foreign ministry official.

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Pyongyang said it had halted disablement work on August 14 in response to Washington's failure to take it off from the terrorism list, a process it says Washington should have completed after North Korea submitted a declaration about its nuclear activities in June. US President George W. Bush notified Congress in June of his intention to take Pyongyang off the list, but the US suspended the process this month because of what it said was unsatisfactory co-operation by the North on verification.

US officials say Pyongyang had failed to give an adequate account of its nuclear activities, in spite of a commitment to do so. They add that because of limited access to people, installations and documents, they have been unable to verify North Korea's account of how much plutonium it has produced.

Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state, sought to calm the dispute yesterday by suggesting differences could be worked out. “We actually are in discussions with the North Koreans and I think we'll just see where we come out in a few weeks.”