N Korea fires short-range missile

US nuclear envoy says parties involved need to “pick up the pace” of six-way talks.

Hill says he hopes to get six-party talks ofsome kind to resume iin early July [AFP]

North Korea nuclear deal

On February 13, 2007, at six-nation talks in Beijing, North Korea agreed to:

Start shut down of main Yongbyon nuclear reactor facility within 60 days of deal

Allow UN nuclear inspectors entry for all monitoring and verification

Discuss list of all nuclear programmes and materials including plutonium extracted from fuel rods

Declare all nuclear programmes and disarmament of all existing nuclear facilities

Begin talks on normalising diplomatic ties with the US and Japan, and resume high-level talks with South Korea

In return US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea promise initial shipment of 50,000 tonnes heavy fuel oil within initial phase

The five nations agreed to establish working groups for initial and full implementation of action plan

Additional aid up to the equivalent of 1m tonnes of heavy fuel oil to be delivered to North Korea upon compliance

Hill also said that the parties involved would “have to pick up the pace if we’re to get back on our timelines”.

Deadline

North Korea missed a mid-April deadline to shut its Soviet-era reactor as part of a six-way deal struck in February.

The communist state said it would not move until about $25m of its funds, frozen in a Macau bank, were released and has boycotted talks on dismantling its nuclear program for over a year because of the dispute.

Last week, the money started making its way to North Korea through a route that will take it through banks in the US and Russia.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said it will send a senior delegation later in June to agree on details for a return of its inspectors to monitor Pyongyang’s promised nuclear reactor shutdown.

North Korean state media said on Saturday that a “working-level delegation” from the IAEA had been invited to discuss procedures for the monitoring of the reactor’s shutdown.

North Korea plans to seal its Yongbyon reactor, located about 100km north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in the second half of July, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.

Source: News Agencies