World Watch: Rice welcomes S. Korean energy plan
SEOUL—Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed a new South Korean offer to rebuild North Korea's electricity grid and supply 2 million kilowatts to the poverty-stricken nation, calling it a "very creative and very useful" idea that addresses North Korea's energy needs without risking further nuclear proliferation. She said the Bush administration will look for ways to incorporate the offer, which is contingent on the North giving up its nuclear weapons, into six-party talks that will also include China, Russia, and Japan.
"We recognize the North Koreans have energy needs," Rice said at a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon. She cited satellite photos of the North at night that show a country largely bereft of light, in contrast to its economically dynamic neighbor to the south. She called the South Korean initiative a "considerable improvement" in laying the groundwork for the talks.
At the same time, she sharply rejected the suggestion that the Bush administration had wasted several years—during which the North may have bolstered its nuclear arsenal from one or two bombs to as many as eight—by opposing incentives for North Korea to deal them away in negotiations. The South Korean idea is "quite similar" to a U.S. proposal of June 2004, she insisted. China, South Korea, and others involved in the talks have complained that the U.S. proposal was vague about inducements, contributing to the diplomatic standoff.
Rice has emphasized in all of her stops in Asia that North Korea will need to forswear nuclear weapons permanently if the talks are to succeed. At times, North Korean officials have suggested that their status as a nuclear weapons power was a fact of life that had to be accepted; at others, they have said they accept the goal of a denuclearized Korean peninsula. Rice said Wednesday that the talks must lead to the end of a secret North Korean program to build bombs with highly enriched uranium, which Pyongyang denies even exists. The North's plutonium-based bomb program has been acknowledged by its own officials.
North Korean negotiators took the latter tack over the weekend when they confirmed they would join six-party talks in Beijing the week of July 25 for the fourth round of what so far have been nearly fruitless negotiations. The decision ended a de facto boycott of the talks by the North of more than a year.
The South Korean energy aid would, in effect, replace electricity that would have been provided by light-water reactors that were to have been built in the North as part of an earlier, failed nuclear deal. Rice also met Wednesday with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun. As Rice headed back to Washington, several U.S. officials stayed on for further consultations on the nuclear talks.
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