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Disarmament Documentation

'Time to Decide Who Is to Blame for the Collapse': North Korean Statement on Agreed Framework, November 21

Statement by the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), November 21.

Note: the Foreign Ministry statement was issued in response to the November 14 decision by the Executive Board of the Korean Peninsular Energy Development Corporation (KEDO) to suspend shipments of heavy oil to North Korea in protest at Pyongyang's apparent admission of a clandestine uranium-enrichment programme. See Disarmament Documentation, November 2002, for the text of the November 14 KEDO announcement.

The decision [by KEDO] is a wanton violation of article 1 of the [1994 Agreed] Framework [AF] which stipulates that the United States of America, representing the Korean Energy Development Organization in accordance with the October 20, 1994, guarantee message of the US President, shall adopt a measure to make for the loss of energy in return for the freezing of the graphite moderated reactors and their related facilities of the DPRK till the completion of light water reactor [LWR] no. 1 and it shall supply heavy oil for the use of heat and electricity production as alternative energy.

The above-mentioned article is the only one of the four articles of the framework that has been observed.

With a view to playing down the responsibility for breaking its international commitment, the US described the decision as "collective will" of KEDO member nations. It is as clear as noonday that in actuality the US Government made a decision to stop supplying heavy oil before forcing it upon KEDO, which is not a signatory of the framework.

In making public the decision the US claimed that the DPRK violated the framework first.

Now that the US unilaterally gave up its last commitment under the framework, the DPRK acknowledges that it is high time to decide upon who is to blame for the collapse of the framework. It is well known to the world that the US has violated the framework and boycotted the implementation of its commitments. The US has drastically delayed the construction of LWRs, worked out a plan for a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK and listed the latter as part of an "axis of evil." It is also well known to the world that the US has so far threatened the DPRK by incessantly staging large-scale nuclear war exercises of various types against the DPRK, a variant of the "Team Spirit" war exercise, in South Korea and its vicinity.

The US hard-line policy to stifle the DPRK fully betrayed its true colors in the wake of the Bush administration's listing the DPRK as part of an "axis of evil" and announcement of its plan for a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK. The US outcries for disarming the DPRK are, in essence, little short of calling upon the DPRK to abandon its system. This was more clearly evidenced by the statement of the US President issued on November 15.

The US gravely insulted the spirit of the UN Charter by listing a UN member nation as part of an "axis of evil", to say nothing of the agreed framework. It also wantonly transgressed the basic spirit of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by singling out nuclear-free states as the targets of its preemptive nuclear attack.

The DPRK has exercised its forbearance to the full.

With a view to keeping the AF from being derailed at any cost the DPRK proposed the US for concluding a non-aggression treaty between the DPRK and the US as a way of settling the nuclear issue on October 25. The DPRK proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty is, in essence, the only realistic solution to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula as it is aimed to settle the issues caused by the threat from the US by the way of removing it. The US President and all other authorities said that the US has no intention to invade the DPRK. So, if they are sincere in their remarks, there is no reason whatsoever for them not to give legal assurances of non-aggression to the DPRK. But the US responded to the DPRK proposal for concluding a non-aggression treaty with a decision to stop supplying heavy oil to the DPRK.

The US assertion that the DPRK violated the framework is a burglary logic of America-style superpower chauvinism that a big country may threaten a small country as it wishes but a small country should not try to cope with such threat.

The US is seriously mistaken if it thinks this logic will work on the Korean Peninsula.

Source: DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman on US decision to stop supplying heavy oil, Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), November 21, http://www.kedo.co.jp.

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