The nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula emerged in the early 1990s, and has cast a huge influence on the situation on the peninsula since, attracting attention from the international community.
On July 14, 2007, after hard negotiations and efforts from relevant parties, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced the closure of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, marking a big step forward to solving the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.
However, the United States and the DPRK have had bitter disputes on some difficult points such as the nuclear declaration and the lifting of sanctions, dragging the issue into a stalemate.
On Oct. 3, 2007, the six-party talks passed an agreement on the second-phase actions toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Under the agreement, the DPRK agreed to disable all its existing nuclear facilities subject to abandonment under the September 2005 Joint Statement and the February 13 agreement in 2007. It also agreed to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007.
In return, the U.S. would start the process of removing the DPRK from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism, and pushing to lift sanctions on the DPRK under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
However, under the nuclear declaration issue, the DPRK and the U.S. later held different views on specific points including the verifiable figure for how much bomb-making plutonium has been produced at Yongbyon over the years, which the DPRK reported to the U.S. in November 2007 to be 30 kilograms, while the U.S. estimates it to be 50 kilograms.
Disputes also exist on issues such as the DPRK's uranium enrichment programs, and nuclear cooperation with Syria, both of which the DPRK denies.
Due to serious differences, the DPRK did not submit the nuclear declaration by the end of last year as agreed, and expressed its intention to "readjust the speed of nuclear disablement."
The DPRK also thought the relevant sides had not kept their promises of providing heavy oil and other assistance every month to the country, and the U.S. was not able to initiate the process of removing the DPRK from the terrorism sponsors' list and lifting trade sanctions against it either.
The U.S. had expressed repeatedly that before the DPRK submits a complete and accurate nuclear declaration, the U.S. would not start the process.
Source: Xinhua
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