Beijing – North Korea demanded on Wednesday that the United States and other nations give it money to build a new light-water nuclear reactor before it will end its nuclear-weapons program, a condition that appeared to undermine prospects for a breakthrough in the talks.
The demand, made during the second day of six-nation nuclear talks, suggested that the North Korean regime was coming up with fresh obstacles to signing a broadly worded commitment to denuclearize, the main goal of the negotiations.
“I must say it was a meeting in which we did not make a lot of progress,” the top American negotiator, Christopher Hill, said. “Neither the United States nor any other participant is prepared to fund a light-water reactor.”
A light-water reactor would cost $2 billion to $3 billion and take about a decade to build, Hill said. While such reactors are less likely than North Korea’s existing nuclear facilities to produce the raw materials for nuclear bombs, the United States has argued that they still pose proliferation risks.
“There are not too many other ways I know how to say no,” he said after the United States had a one-on-one session with the North Koreans on Wednesday afternoon.
The Beijing talks resumed Tuesday after a five-week recess.
China, Japan, Russia and South Korea are participating, as well as North Korea and the United States.
North Korea has said it is prepared to end its nuclear program in principle. But the conditions it sets for doing so have included, at various times, security guarantees, food and economic aid, diplomatic concessions and the withdrawal of American forces from South Korea.
The main stumbling block now is Pyongyang’s insistence that it has the right to retain a civilian nuclear program even if it gives up its nuclear weapons.
The issue has divided the participants in the talks, with China, Russia and South Korea accepting North Korea’s demand, while the United States and Japan have argued that the country cannot be trusted with any kind of nuclear technology, whether nominally peaceful or military.