WASHINGTON (AFP) — A top US nuclear envoy will travel to Beijing Thursday in a bid to break a deadlock in North Korea's disarmament deal amid reports that Pyongyong was rebuilding its atomic plant.
The State Department said Christopher Hill, its lead North Korea nuclear negotiator, would hold talks with Chinese officials to discuss efforts to end a dispute over the verification of Pyongyang's nuclear declaration in June.
"It's to consult with the Chinese, who are the chair of the six-party process, and who also do have a unique relationship with North Korea, to consult with them about how to move the process forward," said department spokesman Sean McCormack.
McCormack also expressed doubts over reports that North Korea was taking steps to rebuild its Yongbyon nuclear plant, whose dismantlement is a key part of a six-nation denuclearization agreement.
The spokesman said North Korea appeared to be moving equipment at the Yongbyon site but that it was not rebuilding the plant.
"To my knowledge, based on what we know from the reports on the ground, you don't have an effort to reconstruct, reintegrate this equipment back into the Yongbyon facility," he told reporters.
McCormack spoke before the South Korean foreign ministry confirmed Japanese, South Korean and US media reports that North Korea has begun steps to restore its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.
The ministry, in an overnight statement, expressed "serious concern" at the development which it said could disrupt the six-nation talks.
The ministry said Pyongyang should not take any measures that could worsen the situation, adding that Seoul is talking to the United States and other members of the six-way talks about the latest developments.
A South Korean diplomatic source said Seoul received its intelligence from the United States, which had got a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Last November, North Korea began disabling its plutonium-producing reactor and other plants at Yongbyon under US supervision as part of a six-nation disarmament-for-aid deal. It even blew up Yongbyon's cooling tower in June.
But on August 26 it announced that it had stopped disabling its nuclear plants and would consider restoring them in protest at the US refusal to remove it from the terror blacklist.
Japan's Kyodo News, quoting unnamed diplomats in Beijing, reported that North Korea began putting the nuclear facility back together on Tuesday.
The United States says the North must accept strict procedures to verify a declaration it made in June of its nuclear activities before it can be taken off the blacklist, which blocks US economic aid.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sidestepped questions about the reports that North Korea was rebuilding Yongbyon, but she said the United States expects Pyongyang to comply with its "obligations."
"We are expecting North Korea to live up to its obligations and we will most certainly live up to our obligations," Rice said, conceding that the process of getting North Korea to agree to disable the plant has not always been smooth.
"Look, that process has had its ups and downs, as any complex negotiating process will," she said.
Nevertheless, Rice said, "we believe that we should keep moving forward.
"All of the states in the region have a great stake in success of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and we are going to continue to work toward the completion of a verification protocol which can verify the North Korean declaration," she added.
"We are in contact with our partners about doing that."
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