North KoreaÂ’s top envoy to six-party talks on its nuclear programme has told former US officials Pyongyang wants more than half a million tonnes of fuel oil a year in return for suspending its atomic reactor, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.
The demand would exceed the energy assistance North Korea received under a 1994 agreement with Washington, which collapsed when the current nuclear crisis began in 2002. The Asahi Shimbun said that North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan had set out PyongyangÂ’s position when he met former US State Department official Joel Witt and nuclear expert David Albright in the North Korean capital last week. Kim and other North Korean officials said the country would halt the operation of its reactor at Yongbyon if it obtained energy assistance equivalent to more than 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil a year, the Asahi said, quoting the two Americans.
North Korean officials also demanded that Washington lift its financial sanctions against the country as well as removing North Korea from the list of “terrorism-sponsoring” nations, the daily said. |