Posted on 11/23/2002 4:41:30 PM PST by knighthawk
SEOUL: North Korea reiterated on Saturday that the United States must sign a non-aggression treaty with the communist state if it wants to salvage a 1994 nuclear arms control agreement.
The 1994 Agreed Framework pact which requires the North to freeze its nuclear weapons program had suffered "total collapse," said the North's state-run news agency, KCNA.
"If the Agreed Framework is to be alive and the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula to find a fundamental solution, the US should drop its hostile policy toward the DPRK and conclude a nonaggression treaty with the DPRK," it said.
The DPRK, short for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is the official name of North Korea.
North Korea has offered to resolve US security concerns if Washington signs a nonaggression treaty with it. But Washington has ruled out any talks unless the North first scraps its uranium-based nuclear programme that violated the Agreed Framework and other international agreements.
Pyongyang's foreign ministry said Thursday that the 1994 nuclear agreement collapsed because of the US-led decision to suspend fuel oil deliveries to the communist country.
Last week, the United States and its allies, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, suspended deliveries of fuel oil to the energy-starved North to punish it for violating the 1994 pact by embarking on a second nuclear weapons programme.
Under the Agreed Framework, North Korea promised to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear program in return for two modern nuclear reactors and fuel oil shipments until those reactors are built.
Before it signed the 1994 accord, North Korea is believed to have extracted enough plutonium from its nuclear facilities to build a few nuclear bombs.
Despite recent revelations that the North has a second nuclear programme using enriched uranium, North Korea blames Washington for the erosion of the Agreed Framework.
In recent months, North Korea had repeatedly threatened to abandon the accord, complaining about delays in the construction of the reactors. It also accused Washington of trying to undermine its political system and even invade, citing US President George W Bush's labeling of the North as part of an "axis of evil," along with Iran and Iraq.
LOL
Yeah, because they keep stealing all the materials!
Last week, the United States and its allies, South Korea, Japan and the European Union, suspended deliveries of fuel oil to the energy-starved North to punish it for violating the 1994 pact by embarking on a second nuclear weapons programme.
Gee. Anyone for timeline continuity check on those two statements.
Not that their foriegn ministry or their state run media really gives a crap what their peasants think. I think they're just aiming at the braindead liberals here in the U.S. in the hopes they'll erode any attempted corrective action by people with common sense. Daschole is probably working up a comment right now about how G.W. and Rush scared them with their shrill rhetoric and caused them to feel so afraid that they decided it was high time the startup their nuclear program 8 years ago.
Darn U.S. it's your fault we restarted our nuclear weapons program and violate the 1994 because we knew that once you found out that you would impose some sanctions on us which would make us restart our nuclear weapons program and voilate the 1994 pact.
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