N. Korea talks broke over light-water reactors, US envoy says

BEIJING -- North Korea's unexpected insistence that it still has the right to build light-water reactors to generate electricity became the main deal-breaker during 13 days of sometimes acrimonious discussions on eliminating nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, the chief US negotiator said yesterday.

The goal during a three-week recess called by China will be to encourage senior North Korean leaders to make a strategic decision to forgo and dismantle all nuclear capacity in return for recognition and economic aid, said the diplomat, Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

The resurgent issue of light- water reactors was surprising because Chung Dong Young, South Korea's unification minister, had said after meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in June that the Pyongyang government was willing to drop a $5 billion plan to complete two such reactors in return for a South Korean pledge to transmit electrical power across the border. That step had been considered a breakthrough toward the new round of six-party talks.

Light-water reactors are considered less likely than plutonium reactors to be a potential source of weapons-grade material, but US officials still have nuclear proliferation concerns about such installations.

Despite the prolonged negotiations, the six nations represented here failed to reach agreement on a set of principles that would serve as the basis for more detailed talks. They resolved, however, to return for more negotiations the week of Aug. 29, after what Chinese officials described as a period during which diplomats can touch bases with their governments.

China is the host and sponsor of the talks, which began in August 2003 and include the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, and Russia, as well as China.

The chief North Korean delegate, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, insisted that his country retain the right to operate nuclear reactors for electricity production as part of any agreement.

The United States has maintained North Korea should not even be allowed to maintain nuclear reactors for civilian use because it had turned a research facility at Yongbyon, near the capital, into a production center for weapons-grade plutonium after the collapse of a 1994 agreement restricting nuclear activity. Going a step further, the North Korean government announced in February that it has used the material to make nuclear weapons.