South Korean president offers nuclear technology to North Korea<\/p>\n
SEOUL (AFP): President Kim Young-sam said yesterday South
\nKorea was ready to help North Korea with sensitive nuclear power
\ngeneration, saying the project could become the first joint
\nventure of the new \"Korean community.\"<\/p>\n
\"The Korean people cannot live divided forever. We must pool
\nall our national determination and energies,\" he said in a
\nnationwide speech on the 49th anniversary of the end of Japanese
\ncolonial rule over Korea.<\/p>\n
\"If and when the North guarantees the transparency of its
\nnuclear activities, we are ready to support their development of
\nthe peaceful use of nuclear energy, including light-water nuclear
\nreactor construction, by providing them with the necessary
\ncapital and technology,\" Kim said.<\/p>\n
He said the program could become \"the first joint project for
\nnational development,\" leading to the establishment of a \"single
\ncommunity of the Korean people.\"<\/p>\n
Kim's statement came amid South Korean maneuvers to have its
\nown interests reflected in the results of U.S.-North Korea talks
\naimed at solving disputes over the North's suspected nuclear
\nweapons program.<\/p>\n
After serial talks in Geneva, U.S. and North Korean officials
\nissued a statement on Saturday on steps agreed to end the North's
\ndrawn-out nuclear stand-off against the international community.<\/p>\n
The four-point agreement calls on Washington to seek
\ndiplomatic ties with the North and to help provide light-water-
\nmoderated reactors to replace its graphite reactors as a way to
\nstem weapons-grade plutonium production.<\/p>\n
South Korean press reports, quoting unidentified South Korean
\nofficials, have said North Korea had tacitly agreed in talks with
\nWashington to accept South Korean-made light-water reactors.<\/p>\n
North Korea, whose nuclear program is based on Russian
\ntechnology, is understood to have indicated earlier that it
\npreferred Russian reactors to South Korean.<\/p>\n
South Korea has been pitching to have its own reactors
\nselected.<\/p>\n
Complaints<\/p>\n
Analysts here said South Korea had argued that its reactors
\nshould be used to assuage complaints among hardliners here that
\nWashington has been going too fast in talks with Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung-joo apparently had
\nthese complaints in mind when he said Sunday that North Korea
\nwould not be given light-water reactors unless it first accounted
\nfor its past nuclear activities and revealed the amount of its
\nplutonium stockpile.<\/p>\n
In contrast to the conciliatory tone over the nuclear issue,
\nKim Young-sam reaffirmed South Korea's unification formula
\nenvisioning a phased merger, stressing that Korea must be unified
\nunder a democratic formula.<\/p>\n
\"The Cold War is finally leaving the Korean peninsula ... the
\ncompetition between the South and the North over which can create
\na better society has already been decided,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Kim criticized the North's unification idea, saying:
\n\"Unification should be grounded on the values of freedom,
\ndemocracy and well-being for all, rather than on any ideology
\nfocused narrowly on a specific class or group.\"<\/p>\n
Pyongyang's Chungang Bangsong radio said North Koreans
\nattending a conference on unification dismissed the Southern
\nunification formula as a rehash of that of past military
\n\"fascist\" regimes in Seoul.<\/p>",
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