S. Korea, U.S. to extend nuclear pact for 2 more years

SEOUL, April 24 (Xinhua) -- South Korea and the United States have decided to prolong their nuclear cooperation agreement for two more years until 2016 and to hold the next round of meeting in June, the Foreign Ministry said in a press briefing Wednesday.

There have been meaningful progress in the consultations such as disposal of nuclear waste and South Korea's nuclear export, the spokesman for the ministry said, adding there are also some technical details to discuss in the future.

South Korea failed to clinch a deal on revising the agreement for nuclear enrichment with its ally the United States, according to Yonhap News Agency.

South Korea and the United States have held a series of consultations to revise the 1974 nuclear pact that prohibits South Korea from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. The current pact, signed in 1974, had been due to expire next year.

South Korea has called for a revision to the agreement as its storage facilities for spent fuel from local nuclear power plants are expected to reach full capacity in 2016.

The country proposed a pyroprocessing technology, considered to be less conducive to proliferation, as a solution, and the two sides agreed in 2010 to conduct joint research into the technology.

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