North Korea threw a deal on dismantling its nuclear program into doubt today, just one day after it was struck, vowing not to give up nuclear arms until Washington provides it with civilian atomic reactors.
Satellite image taken on September 11, 2005 shows Yongbyon nuclear reactor, North Korea
The US State Department said the North's views, set out in a lengthy Foreign Ministry statement, did not match the agreement it signed at six-country talks in Beijing. Japan said the North's demand was unacceptable, Kyodo news agency reported.
The six countries, including North Korea and the United States, had agreed only yesterday to a set of principles on winding up Pyongyang's nuclear programs in return for aid and recognising its right to a civilian nuclear program.
While official reaction to the end of the fourth round of talks had been upbeat, skeptics had said the deal was long on words, vague on timing and sequencing and short on action.
The North's comments exposed those shortcomings, although it has backtracked from seemingly rock-solid positions before.
"The US should not even dream of the issue of the DPRK's dismantlement of its nuclear deterrent before providing LWRs," said the statement, published by KCNA news agency. "This is our just and consistent stand as solid as a deeply rooted rock."
DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. LWRs are light-water reactors that experts say are more proliferation-resistant than other reactors.
As the North has set apparently impossible conditions before only to give ground, its statement may not be the last word. The North pulled a similar stunt after the first round in August 2003, saying just a day after the talks it saw no need for more.
"It could be a lot of bluster," said one US official in Washington. But today's statement posed at least a challenge to a deal which less than 24 hours earlier delegates applauded.
"This was obviously not the agreement they signed and we will see what the coming weeks bring," said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, referring to the gap before talks are set to resume in November. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda took the same view.