[imText1]Foreign Minister Song Min Soon revealed that there were no recent indications to suggest that North Korea would end its nuclear facilities in Yongbyun.
At a briefing at the foreign affairs department on the 14th, Minister Song said regarding the freezing of Yongbyun reactor, “There are no signs to suggest that changes would be made to operations at this current point in time.”
Further, in regards to IAEA’s Director General Mohammad ElBaradei’s visit to North Korea, Minister Song said “The IAEA is working in accordance with the six party talks” and remarked that the Director would most likely inform the results of the visit to North Korea on return to Beijing.
Concerning the agenda of the 6 Parties’ Cabinet Talks that is expected to open in mid-April, he said “This is something the member states of the negotiations will have to decide at the talks” and revealed, “Once the talks are open, discussions with high political motives will have to be made, as well as efforts made to propel the Sept 19 Mutual Agreement.”
When questioned, “Is there any way to make North Korea report all its nuclear facilities,” Minister Song said “The course of the six party talks is to take small actions that will build (North Korea’s) trust,” adding that trust would be correlated to North Korea’s reports. He said that the voluntary and honest reports by North Korea was top priority as this would also gain trust for North Korea by the member states of the six party talks.
In response to the possibility of the RSOI (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration) organized by the United States Forces Korea being terminated or curtailed, he said “Military training is fundamentally a characteristic of defense” and remarked, “The whole course, nature and scale of training is determined by the overall situation of security on the Korean Peninsula.”
Further, Minister Song said that Korea and the U.S. had held meetings on at least 2 occasions during the past year and that these talks would also be necessary for 2007.
