North Korea Says Won't Give Up Nuclear Weapons Unilaterally

North Korean nuclear reactor, yongbyon. Photo courtesy of AFP.

by Staff Writers
Seoul (AFP) Nov 30, 2006
North Korea said Thursday it will not give up its nuclear weapons unilaterally but remains committed to denuclearisation in the region. The communist state's chief nuclear negotiator made the comments in Beijing, after talks aimed at restarting six-nation disarmament negotiations ended without apparent major progress.

Kim Kye-Gwan was responding to a question on whether his country, which staged its first nuclear test on October 9, would be willing to give up its atomic weapons.

"There are many commitments in the September 19 joint statement and at this stage, there won't be any unilateral abandonment (of nuclear weapons)," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted Kim as saying.

"The denuclearization (of the Korean peninsula) was the wish by the Great Leader (Kim Il-Sung) and we are willing to implement our commitments made in the joint statement."

In the statement, agreed at the six-party talks in September last year, the North agreed to scrap its nuclear weapons programmes in exchange for energy and economic aid and security guarantees.

But it boycotted the forum two months later in protest at a US-inspired freeze on its overseas bank accounts.

The North has agreed in principle to return to the six-party talks if the issue of the US financial curbs is settled. But the nuclear envoys meeting in Beijing this week failed to agree a firm date.

The countries involved in the talks are the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Source: Agence France-Presse

NUKEWARS

North Korean Options

Washington (UPI) Nov 28, 2006
The North Korean Army with about 1 million active-duty troops is roughly three times the size of the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein. A unified Korea would not need such a large armed force on top of the existing 550,000-person South Korean Army. But if the North Korean Army were reduced in size or even disbanded, a large number of trained fighters would suddenly find themselves out of work and desperate to make a living at a time of economic turmoil with few available jobs.

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