By Park Song-wu
Korea Times Correspondent


BEIJING _ North Korea’s demand for a light-water reactor is a ``nonstarter,’’ Christopher Hill, the top U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, said on Thursday.

It is the most straightforward remark made public so far since the resumption of the talks Tuesday.

Chief officials from the six participating countries _ the two Koreas, the U.S., host China, Russia and Japan _ held a plenary session, but failed to find a breakthrough. They agreed to meet again on Friday.

No date has been set for the end of this round of talks, the fourth since 2003.

``I don’t want to use terms like deal breaker,’’ Hill said in answer to a question on whether Pyongyang’s demand for the reactor is a deal breaker. ``But a light-water reactor, for us, is a nonstarter.’’

Pyongyang has said that it wants to have the reactor as a way to achieve its ``sovereign right’’ of retaining peaceful nuclear activities such as electricity generation and medical research.

But the U.S. said it cannot allow North Korea to have any nuclear facility, arguing that Pyongyang may transform the electricity-generating facility into a plant to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.

The U.S. delegation held negotiations with its North Korean counterpart for the second day in a row, but the two sides were not able to narrow their differences.

After the end of the bilateral meeting, which lasted around one and a half hours, ``zero visibility’’ was one phrase making its round in diplomatic circles, regarding the future of the six-party talks.

Song Min-soon, the chief delegate from South Korea, said that the door is still open for North Korea to have the reactor in the future.

``We clearly know what North Korea wants to have,’’ he told reporters. ``We have opened the window of opportunity for Pyongyang so that it can have the light-water reactor in the future. The target of this six-party talks is to discuss the process and methods for the North to get what it wants through the window.’’

Senior Seoul officials have said that North Korea could have the light-water reactors in the future when it gains the trust of the international community by returning to the non-proliferation treaty and abiding by the U.N.’s nuclear regulations.

Hill said that Pyongyang has been offered a ``very generous’’ proposal, which he described as something he would not want to see just pass by if he were a North Korean official.

``The deal consists of really a lot of what (North Korea) should want _ security guarantees, a (regime) recognition package, access to international financial institutions, and a very serious energy package,’’ Hill said.

Answering a question on the possibility of calling another recess, the former U.S. ambassador to South Korea said: ``I don’t know. But we are prepared to participate in the talks as far as we believe that the talks are useful.’’

The six delegations convened on Tuesday after a 37-day recess. China announced the intermission on Aug. 7 after failing to reach compromises on the scope of denuclearization and the North’s demand for peaceful nuclear activities.

North Korea was to get two light-water reactors in 1994 as a reward for its promise to scrap its nuclear weapons programs. But the construction works have been stopped since late 2002 when U.S. officials said that North Korea was secretly developing uranium-based weapons program.

im@koreatimes.co.kr