ACCESSION NUMBER:357311
FILE ID:POL303
DATE:08/17/94
TITLE:ADD STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17 (08/17/94)
TEXT:*94081703.POL
ADD STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17
(North Korea) (740)
NEWS BRIEFING -- Spokesman Michael McCurry discussed the following topic:
BROADER TALKS EXPECTED WHEN N. KOREA NUCLEAR ISSUE RESOLVED
The spokesman said the United States anticipates a broader dialogue with
North Korea once the nuclear problem is resolved.

He said inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the
North Korean nuclear reactor facility at Yongbyon have assured the United
States that "there is no diversion of material and that there's no
reprocessing taking place connected to the spent fuel rods that have been
removed from the reactor."

As a result, McCurry said, "we are not aware of anything that would disrupt
the premise that exists for our talks."  Last week the United States and
North Korea recessed their third round of high-level talks in Geneva with
agreement to resume the discussions on September 23.  In the meantime,
technical talks at the experts' level are anticipated in early September to
prepare for a resumption of the higher-level dialogue.

McCurry acknowledged there are "two special sites" believed to be nuclear
waste disposal sites that the United States and the IAEA would like opened
to "special inspections" to allow a better understanding of the history of
North Korea's nuclear program.

1That is one of those issues that remains under discussion," and it will
come up again when the talks resume in September, he said.  An agreed joint
statement issued in Geneva last week "pointed toward a willingness on the
part of the DPRK to adhere to the safeguards agreement that they have with
the IAEA," the spokesman said.  "We believe that could lead to greater
transparency and understanding of the North Korean program."

He reiterated that North Korea's restarting the Yongbyon reactor "would
raise the possibility they could add to their stock of plutonium and that
is something that we would consider a step that would undermine the premise
for our dialogue."

In return for a North Korean pledge to freeze its nuclear program, the
United States agreed to explore the possibility of providing light water
nuclear reactor technology to Pyongyang, and McCurry noted related talks
already have begun with a number of countries.

"We will need to have further conversations with South Korea and indeed with
other countries as we explore the issue, most likely prior to the
resumption of the talks in September," he said.

"We have not developed a proposal yet on how that technology should be
provided, and we will remain in dialogue with others, including South
Korea, on that point," McCurry said.

As part of the U.S. effort "to build a broad and thorough approach to the
nuclear issue, we have engaged the DPRK delegation in discussions of other
issues," the spokesman told questioners.  "Meeting some of the world
community's non-proliferation objectives has been a feature of that
dialogue.

"We would hope that as a diplomatic relationship is established -- if it is
established through the exchange of liaison offices -- that the opportunity
would then arise to discuss in greater detail our non-proliferation
objectives and some of our concerns related to their sales and some of
their transfers" of missile technology to other countries, McCurry said.

He emphasized that the focus of the Geneva discussions has been the nuclear
issue and the broad and thorough relationship that might develop as a
consequence of resolving the nuclear issue.  "I don't know that we will
anticipate resolving all these non-proliferation issues in the current
round of high-level discussions with DPRK.  It is a subject that we have
identified as one that we want to explore further," he added.

One of the issues expected to be dealt with in the technical-level talks
planned for early September is extending the life of the roughly 8,000
spent fuel rods currently stored in a water-filled pond near the Yongbyon
reactor, he said.  "There are technical ways in which they might be able to
prolong the storage of those fuel rods in the tank in which they're
currently stored.

"Frankly," he noted, "there is a lot of expertise in Britain and France on
exactly that.  Our technologies are somewhat different so we will be
working at that experts' level with those who are more familiar with the
technology to see if there's a way of prolonging the life of the spent fuel
rods inside the storage pond."

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