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Disarmament DocumentationBack to Disarmament Documentation North Korea statement on suspending activities to disable nuclear facilities, 26 August 2008Foreign Ministry's Spokesman on DPRK's Decision to Suspend Activities to Disable Nuclear Facilities, KCNA, 26 August 2008. Pyongyang, August 26 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday in connection with the stumbling block laid by the United States in the way of settling the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula by refusing to implement the October 3 agreement of the six-party talks. The statement said: Under the October 3 agreement stipulating the practical measures to be taken at the second phase for the implementation of the September 19 joint statement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula the DPRK was committed to presenting a nuclear declaration and the U.S. was also committed to writing the DPRK off the list of the "state sponsors of terrorism." The DPRK has honored its commitment by presenting the nuclear declaration on June 26. But the U.S. failed to delist the DPRK as a "state sponsor of terrorism" within the fixed date for the mere "reason" that a protocol on the verification of the nuclear declaration has not yet been agreed upon. This was an outright violation of the agreement. No agreements reached among the six parties or between the DPRK and the U.S. contain an article which stipulates the verification of the nuclear declaration of the DPRK as conditionality for delisting it as a "state sponsor of terrorism." As far as the verification is concerned, it is a commitment to be fulfilled by the six parties at the final phase of the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula according to the September 19 joint statement. It should be verified that there are no U.S. nuclear weapons in and around south Korea and that there has been neither new shipment nor passage of those weapons. This verification and the verification of the DPRK's fulfillment of its commitments should be done at the same time. This is the principle of "action for action". All that was agreed upon at the present phase was to set up verification and monitoring mechanisms within the framework of the six parties. The U.S., however, raised all of a sudden an issue of applying an "international standard" to the verification of the nuclear declaration, abusing this agreed point. It pressurized the DPRK to accept such inspection as scouring any place of the DPRK as it pleases to collect samples and measure them. The "international standard" touted by the U.S. is nothing but "special inspection" which the IAEA called for in the 1990s to infringe upon the sovereignty of the DPRK and caused it to pull out of the NPT in the end. The U.S. is gravely mistaken if it thinks it can make a house search in the DPRK as it pleases just as it did in Iraq. The U.S. insistence on the unilateral inspection of the DPRK is a brigandish demand for unilaterally disarming the DPRK, the other belligerent party, by discarding its commitment to the denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula the core of which is to remove the U.S. nuclear threat according to the September 19 joint statement. The DPRK's intention to denuclearize the peninsula is to remove the nuclear threat from the Korean nation, not to have a bargaining over the DPRK's nuclear deterrent. For whom is the six-way structure necessary if the six-party talks are reduced to a platform for a big country to trifle with a small country as it does at present? This time the U.S. postponed the process of delisting the DPRK as a "state sponsor of terrorism" under the pretext of verification even after officially declaring internally and externally that the DPRK is not a "state sponsor of terrorism". This is little short of admitting that the list is not related to terrorism in actuality. The DPRK does not care whether it continues remaining on the list of "those countries which are disobedient to the U.S." The U.S. is now keen to gravely encroach upon the sovereignty of the DPRK. Now that the U.S. breached the agreed points, the DPRK is compelled to take the following countermeasures on the principle of "action for action": First, the DPRK decided to immediately suspend the disablement of its nuclear facilities that had been underway according to the October 3 agreement. This step took effect on August 14 and the parties concerned have already been notified of this. Second, the DPRK will consider soon a step to restore the nuclear facilities in Nyongbyon to their original state as strongly requested by its relevant institutions.
Source: Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK, www.kcna.co.jp. |