North Korea Signs Nuclear Accord

NEW YORK, DEC. 15 -- North Korea and a U.S.-led consortium signed a $4.5 billion agreement here today for construction of two light-water nuclear reactors that were promised to North Korea under a 1994 deal for Pyongyang to freeze a nuclear development program that the West feared would produce nuclear weapons.

The agreement capped three years of difficult negotiations to replace North Korea's graphite nuclear reactor, originally obtained from the Soviet Union, with one that other countries consider safer because it will produce less weapons-grade plutonium.

Under the 1994 accord reached in Geneva, Pyongyang agreed to halt operations involving its graphite reactor in exchange for two 1,000-watt light-water reactors whose nuclear waste is less easily converted for weapons purposes.

North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Ho Jong, who signed today's agreement, noted that it "is the product of a political solution . . . of the nuclear issue," and he warned that failure to complete all aspects of the reactor deal would lead Pyongyang to "automatically" resume its own nuclear program.

Today's agreement was reached between North Korea and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), whose members are the United States, South Korea and Japan. South Korea is supposed to finance 70 percent of the costs and Japan about 25 percent, with North Korea making repayment on an interest-free basis over 20 years. The agreement calls for the United States to supply a contractor and engineers to oversee the project.

Stephen W. Bosworth, a former high-ranking U.S. diplomat who is executive director of KEDO, noted that while the agreement is "very significant," considerable work still must be done on such issues as working out specific financing details. Much of the repayment to South Korea is to be in the form of "in-kind" goods rather than cash, and a separate accord is required on what products will qualify.

The dispute began in 1992 when North Korea abruptly withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, triggering fears in the international community that it had extracted sufficient plutonium to make a nuclear device. Pyongyang consistently has denied it is engaging in nuclear weapons development.

After long negotiations with the United States, Pyongyang retracted its decision to quit the treaty. But further talks on building the reactors stretched from the six months called for in Geneva to 14 months because North Korea made additional demands that included a power grid and a fuel-fabricating plant. In the end, the North Koreans dropped these conditions in exchange for the consortium's agreement to build a port, access roads and a nuclear simulator for training purposes.

Although pleased by the completion of the deal, senior U.S. officials remain highly skeptical that its terms will be fulfilled. "Five years from now, North Korea is not going to be there," a senior Defense Department official said last week, referring to a U.S. intelligence assessment that North Korea's economic troubles could topple its leadership and force unification with South Korea.

That forecast is rejected by South Korean officials, however, who say the North may be able to remain intact for longer than a decade. Other senior U.S. officials have privately expressed skepticism that -- even if the current North Korean leaders remain in power -- the country will fulfill its obligations under the accord.

These include exporting spent nuclear fuel that contains plutonium and agreeing to inspections of suspected nuclear waste sites. Staff writer R. Jeffrey Smith in Washington contributed to this report.