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DPRK accuses US of delaying N-project, demands compensation

TOKYO: North Korea accused the United States on Thursday of delaying the construction of nuclear reactors for the Stalinist state and demanded Washington pay compensation for losses and damages caused by the delay.

North Korea's Vice Premier Jo Chang-dok said his country had suffered a huge loss of electricity as the result of a 1994 agreement with Washington to halt operations of its existing nuclear plants.

In the landmark deal, the United States agreed to build two light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea in exchange for a vow by Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear development programme.

"The U.S. should own responsibility for having caused such acute shortage of electricity in the DPRK (North Korea) and brought enormous economic losses to it and make compensation for them in any form," Jo said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO), a U.S.-led international consortium, signed a $4.6 billion deal with South Korea's Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) on December 15 to build two light-water nuclear reactors for North Korea.

KEDO and North Korean negotiators originally agreed to complete the $4.6 billion project by 2003, but KEPCO officials later said the construction of the two nuclear reactors would not be completed until 2007.

KEDO held a ground-breaking ceremony at the reactor site near North Korea's east coast in 1997 but the actual construction was delayed by financing problems and the complicated task of setting rules on foreign access to the reclusive country.

"In fact, it was only the DPRK that suffered losses due to its unilateral freezing of the building of nuclear power base. The U.S., however, has not honestly fulfilled its commitments," North Korea's Jo said.

"Due to the unreasonable U.S. delaying tactics the LWR (light-water reactors) construction is not likely to be completed even in 2010, to say nothing of 2003, the deadline," he added.

He said cash-strapped North Korea could have solved its energy problem if it had used graphite-moderated nuclear reactors that would produce weapons-grade plutonium.

"It had nothing to do with the development of nuclear arms," he said.

U.S. and North Korean diplomats wound up a week of talks in Berlin last week on improving long-hostile relations and a senior U.S. official said good progress had been made.

U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin said on Monday that North Korea has accepted an invitation to send its first high-level delegation to Washington.-Reuters