03/04/2002 20:50:42 | Asia Pacific Programs
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Relations between the United States and North Korea appear to be thawing, just a few months after President George W. Bush labelled Pyongyang as part of the 'Axis of Evil', along with Iran and Iraq. Mr Bush today agreed to release 95 million dollars to be spent on power and heating in North Korea, despite his earlier tough talk criticising North Korea's appalling human rights record and its programme of building weapons of mass destruction. And on another front, a South Korean envoy has arrived in Pyongyang as part of a last attempt by the outgoing president, Kim Dae Jung, to persuade the north to revive their stalled peace talks.
Transcript:
WERDEN: Relations between the two Koreas has never been smooth since the division of the Korean peninsula in 1945 and subsequent Korean war five years later.
North Korea's relationship with the West is also, almost non-existent. But in 1994 in an attempt to bring peace to the region, an international consortium made up of the United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to construct two " so called safer" light water - nuclear reactors, in return for Pyongyang's undertaking to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
The reactors were to have been built by next year but so far not even the concrete has been poured. Both sides are blaming each other.
CLARK: "The reactors being built are behind schedule but one has to look at why they are behind schedule, you have labour problems in North Korea, I mean that's almost an oxymoron."
WERDEN: Ambassador William Clark, former United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific. He says North Korea has failed to live up to its end of the bargain which was to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to ensure Pyongyang had in fact halted its nuclear weapons program.
CLARK: "I think the North's playing games with us and I am not terribly sympathetic to the view that the United States has fallen behind in fact I think we have bent over backwards. This is a bankrupt regime that is acting as if it were the leader on the peninsula. It isn't."
WERDEN; "Well what's in it for them why are they refusing to allow the inspections?
CLARK: "Because the regime in North Korea is basically so fragile, that if you ever allowed sunlight in it would wither like a mushroom. It is the last of the ideological regimes based on a father figure and the father figure is dead and you've got the son now and he is still running around in an Eisenhower jacket."
WERDEN: For its part North Korea has accused the consortium particularly the United States of wanting to withdraw from the agreement and claims Washington wants the inspections so it can find a reason to stop work on the reactors.
It's threatened to abandon the agreement and resume work on the older soviet built nuclear plants which it had earlier agreed to dismantle.
CHANG: "That's rhetoric of course, there have been consistent rhetorical threats to back away from the project but its not easy to for them to do so."
WERDEN: Chang Sun Sun, South Korea's ambassador to the project.
CHANG: "Apart from the rhetoric I think the North Koreans, we have an indication that North Koreans are really observing or complying with this agreement so far. Again my point is that it's not easy for anyone to run away from this project."
WERDEN: While the inspections are a key part of the agreement which states they must be completed before any key components of the twin reactors are delivered, the United States has moved to ease the stalemate.
In an unsual move, the US has waivered the inspection requirement and agreed to another part of the bargain and released 95 million dollars funding for heavy fuel oil to make up for the loss of power from Soviet built reactors Pyongyang shut down as part of the 94 agreement.
Chang Sun Sun, says this shows the US committment to the project.
CHANG: "They are appropriating the funds for the heavy fuel and if just simply they can't certify North Korea are complying which doesn't mean to say they are not complying at all. So that's the difference between the two points."
WERDEN: Washington has described its decision to waive the inspection requirement for this year only, as vital to its national security interests, in so doing it's giving North Korea another chance at making the agreement work.
CHANG: "Abandoning this project might cause very considerable impact on the overall security situation in South Korean peninsula which is not easy to anybody to deal with. So peace and stability is at stake so abandoning this project immediately causes will bring about tension and possibly confrontation between the two sides."
CLARK: "This is a regime that has a long history if you go back of assassinations, bombings and nuclear development. And it would almost criminal to say that we're just going to overlook all of that and assume that they are good guys, on the other hand we need to try and work with them."
Transcripts from programs "AM", "The World Today", "PM", the "7:30 Report" and "Lateline" are created by an independent transcription service. The ABC does not warrant the accuracy of the transcripts. ABC Online users are advised to listen to the audio provided on this page to verify the accuracy of the transcripts.
03/04/2002 20:50:42 | Asia Pacific Programs
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