By Park Song-wu
Staff Reporter


One of the toughest issues in the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs, which resume today, is how to deal with Pyongyang’s demand for retaining peaceful nuclear facilities such as the light-water reactors in Sinpo, South Hamkyong Province.

There have been guesses on what Pyongyang really means when it refers to a light-water reactor. It could mean the two reactors in Sinpo, where construction is virtually stopped, or the future right to have nuclear power plants after resolving the current nuclear standoff.

But Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, told The Korea Times that Pyongyang hopes to see the completion of the Sinpo project, which it obtained in a deal with Washington in 1994.

First of all, North Korea has no financial ability to build a nuclear power plant if it looses the chance to get it now. The Kim Jong-il regime might have thought that Pyongyang could use its rich natural uranium later to fuel the light-water reactors.

Natural uranium is a toxic but barely radioactive material. As the reactor operates, nuclear fission converts the uranium to more radioactive substances, making it possible to produce the necessary energy.

Secondly, the Communist regime apparently wants to keep alive its energy sovereignty even after it accepts Seoul’s generous offer of 2 million kilowatts of electricity because North Korea feels uneasy about depending on energy from South Korea.

What irritates Washington is that the development of nuclear technologies can make it possible for rogue states such as North Korea to convert a peaceful nuclear facility into a generator of weapons of mass destruction. That’s why the U.S. is strongly trying to deny North Korea’s right to have the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

But Pyongyang may argue that only those countries with highly developed technologies, such as the U.S., can extract weapons-grade materials from light-water reactors.

Such a complicated background makes the light-water reactor issue a key sticking point that needs to be addressed carefully, according to Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, who heads the standing committee of the National Security Council.

Koh said he thinks the best solution he can think of is to mothball the Sinpo project, not fully scrapping it as the U.S. wants to.

``I think the best way now is to stop constructing the two light-water reactors until the dust settles,’’ he said. ``There would be no problem to resume construction when the North is unlikely to resort to the dangerous nuclear business.’’

Koh said the U.S. also agrees that the North’s demand for the right to peacefully use nuclear power is a ``downstream theoretical issue.’’ In other words, it could mean that Washington can accept the North’s right to have civilian nuclear facilities in the future if Pyongyang restores trust by rejoining the non-proliferation treaties and abiding by the U.N.’s nuclear safeguard regulations.

The $4.6 billion reactor project in Sinpo, part of the 1994 deal between North Korea and the U.S., was a reward for the energy-starved country’s promise to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

But the deal broke down in 2002 when U.S. officials claimed that North Korea had secretly developed enriched uranium-based nuclear programs. Pyongyang denied the claim.

im@koreatimes.co.kr