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The United States and its key allies -- the European Union (EU), Japan and South Korea -- announced a decision Thursday in New York to suspend fuel oil shipments to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from December for the DPRK's alleged development of a nuclear weapons program.
The four parties consist of the so-called Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium administering the 1994 nuclear agreement with the DPRK.
Diplomats on the executive board of KEDO said in a statement after a one-day meeting that its future activities with the DPRK hinged on its "complete and permanent elimination" of the nuclear weapons program.
"North Korea (DPRK) must promptly eliminate its nuclear weapons program in a visible and verifiable manner," said the statement read to reporters by South Korean official Chang Sun-Sup at the New York headquarters of KEDO.
"Heavy fuel oil deliveries will be suspended beginning with the December shipment," the statement said. "Future shipments will depend on North Korea's concrete and credible actions to dismantle completely its highly enriched uranium program. In this light, other KEDO activities with North Korea will be reviewed."
The DPRK acknowledged its nuclear weapons program during a trip to Pyongyang in early October by US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly.
Under a framework agreement signed in October, 1994, the two sides -- KEDO and the DPRK -- agreed to cooperate in replacing the DPRK's graphite-moderated nuclear plants with light-water reactors and move toward full normalization of their political and economic relations.
Pyongyang accused Washington of being responsible for the nullification of the agreed framework.
Washington responded with similar charges but has stated that it intends to seek a peaceful solution to the issue.
(Xinhua News Agency November 15, 2002)
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