BEIJING — North Korea will sign an agreement on international inspection of its nuclear facilities once the United States begins withdrawing its nuclear weapons from South Korea, Chu Chang Jun, North Korea's ambassador to China, stressed at a news conference here Wednesday.
The Bush Administration has already announced its intent to remove all U.S. nuclear arms from South Korea, so the North Korean statement may open the door for an agreement that could put a stop to what Washington believes is an effort by Pyongyang to build nuclear weapons.
At his news conference, Chu released the full text of a North Korean Foreign Ministry statement first issued Monday evening in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. Chu said he was giving a news conference in Beijing because the statement in Pyongyang had not received enough international attention.
The North Korean statement contained four key points:
* Pyongyang "will sign the nuclear safeguards accord (with the International Atomic Energy Agency) when the United States begins to withdraw its nuclear weapons from South Korea."
* "Inspection to verify whether U.S. nuclear weapons are present in South Korea or not, and inspection of our nuclear facilities shall be made simultaneously."
* "Democratic People's Republic of Korea-United States negotiations should be held to discuss simultaneous nuclear inspection and removal of nuclear danger to us."
* "Since the north and the south expressed the same intention not to develop nuclear weapons and to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, they should hold north-south negotiations for its realization."
Chu said the statement is important because it sets a time frame for Pyongyang to sign the nuclear safeguard agreement and because it proposes topics for negotiations with Seoul and Washington.
In Seoul, the South Korean Foreign Ministry issued a brief statement saying North Korea's latest comment "shows the possibility of a change" in its stand on inspections, the Associated Press reported. In the past, the north has said it would allow inspections only after all U.S. weapons were withdrawn from South Korea.
"We think the North Korean statement has nothing new in that it attaches conditions which have nothing to do with obligations North Korea has as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," the Foreign Ministry said.
North Korea signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985, but it has refused to allow the inspections required by the pact.
