BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea appears committed to a nuclear disarmament deal but remains unwilling to complete two big steps until complaints over aid and U.S. concessions are solved, U.S. experts just back from North Korea said on Saturday.
Under disarmament terms announced in October last year, North Korea was offered 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid, and the United States agreed to move to take the North from a sanctions list aimed at sponsors of terrorism.
In return, North Korea agreed to "disable" its Yongbyon nuclear facility and fully declare all nuclear activities by the end of 2007.
But those two steps have stalled after North Korean complaints that the energy aid and U.S. concessions were not coming soon enough.
North Korean officials appeared willing to proceed with disarmament steps, but only after their own demands were met, said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University researcher who went to the North with two other U.S. experts on a non-government trip.
"We found that significant hurdles actually remain before the DPRK will offer a complete declaration of its nuclear program," Hecker told reporters after arriving in Beijing. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, DPRK, is the North's official name.
"We were told (by North Korean officials) the DPRK is looking forward to having these obligations met as quickly as possible so they can move to the next stage." said Hecker.
North Korea's complaints come during quickening regional diplomacy over the six-party nuclear talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions. But negotiations are caught in bind over who makes the next concessions, and the U.S. experts' comments suggest that that bind remains serious.
North Korea held its first nuclear test blast in October 2006, alarming Washington and also Asian neighbors.
Under the pact between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, North Korea has committed to abandon all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs in return for economic and diplomatic concessions.
The chief U.S. envoy to the nuclear talks, Chris Hill, will visit Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo next week, ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who will attend the inauguration of South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-bak on February 25 and then go on to China and Japan.
Hecker, former director of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, said North Korean officials told him they had slowed down removing nuclear fuel rods from the Yongbyon reactor to 30 rods a day. About 80 rods can safely be removed each day, experts say.
With 1,440 of the 8,000 or so rods removed as of Thursday, that meant totally disabling Yongbyon could take many months, he said.
Pyongyang believed too little of the heavy fuel oil, used to generate electricity, had arrived. And the North Korean officials also said South Korea and China have been tardy in sending energy equipment as part of the agreement, Hecker added.
CANDOUR
But he and Joel Wit, a former U.S. State Department official who has long dealt with the isolated communist state, said they were struck by North Korea's candor and cooperation with U.S. disarmament technicians at Yongbyon.
"The level of cooperation was extremely good, better than I've ever seen in the ten years that I have been visiting that facility," Wit said.
North Korean officials "repeatedly emphasized that the problem is a technical problem, not a political problem," Wit said, adding that he took it to mean they saw the disputes as surmountable.
Wit and Hecker said their talks also focused on what could be done with the nuclear engineers and workers at Yongbyon if nuclear disarmament moves forward. An aide to U.S. Senator Richard Lugar accompanied them to North Korea.
Finding a productive role for the people employed around the atomic site was a looming challenge, Wit said. "It's essentially a small city, with thousands of people there," he said.
