U.S. to pressure N. Korea, Iran at NPT confab

Japan Policy & Politics, May 2, 2005

WASHINGTON, April 28 Kyodo

The United States aims to assemble an international agreement criticizing North Korea for its nuclear ambitions and urging it to immediately return to six-party nuclear talks, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker said Thursday.

The United States will make a pitch for such an agreement during an international conference from next Monday in New York to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, he said in a prepared statement for a House of Representatives subcommittee hearing.

''The conference should condemn North Korea's egregious behavior,'' Rademaker said in the statement for the House International Terrorism and Nonproliferation Subcommittee under the International Relations Committee.

''North Korea must cease and declare all past nuclear activity and dismantle its nuclear programs completely, verifiably and irreversibly,'' he said, noting that Washington remains committed to the six-party talks as ''the best approach for resolving this issue peacefully through negotiation.''

The U.S. move comes amid North Korea's renewed ''brinkmanship'' diplomacy such as its confirmation that it has stopped its nuclear reactor -- a step believed to be for removing spent fuel rods to reprocess and extract plutonium for more nuclear arms.

The latest threat came after Pyongyang declared in February that it possesses nuclear weapons and is indefinitely pulling out of the six-party talks also involving China, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

Rademaker also said the United States will try to convince other NPT members that Iran should not attain the capability of a full nuclear fuel cycle. To that end the United States intends to document Iran's ''long history of deception and violations'' about its nuclear program, he said.

Iran has long argued that the NPT allows for member states to develop a full cycle, which would give Iran the technical capacity to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons.

Against this backdrop, at the review conference Washington plans to focus on the issue of member states failing to comply with the treaty, Rademaker said, stressing the need to hammer out an agreement to strengthen the NPT.

''The central message of the United States...will be to urge strong action to confront the threat posed by NPT noncompliance,'' he said. ''We think the treaty is under threat from the problem of noncompliance.''

The U.S. focus on enforcing compliance and stopping the spread of full fuel cycle capability has led to strong protests from many nonnuclear states, which are seeking stronger commitments by nuclear powers toward disarmament.

Following the previous NPT review conference held five years ago, North Korea withdrew from the NPT in January 2003, escalating the nuclear crisis that had erupted in October 2002 when Washington alleged Pyongyang admitted to running a secret uranium enrichment program.

The tension led the six nations to launch the multilateral talks in August 2003, but the talks have remained stalled since the third round last June, with the North refusing to return to the table due to what it calls ''hostile'' U.S. policy.

Indicating that Washington may not agree to issue a final document if its key proposals are not included, Rademaker said the United States would not measure success on the basis of whether or not a final document is agreed upon.

If a consensus is achieved on some of the issues important to the United States, that would be a success, he said.