December 23, 2002

While the United States is determined to find a peaceful solution to North Korea's resumption of its nuclear weapons program, it refuses to be "blackmailed" by the regime of Kim Jong-Il, says Philip Reeker, State Department spokesman.

"We will not give in to blackmail," he told reporters at the December 23 briefing at the State Department. "The international community will not enter into dialogue in response to threats or broken commitments, and we're not going to bargain or offer inducements for North Korea to live up to the treaties and agreements that it has signed."

Reeker emphasized that the United States seeks a peaceful resolution of the tense situation that North Korea has created by its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program.

In the past three days, North Korea has disrupted monitoring arrangements put in place by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Yongbyon, the site of a nuclear reactor capable of producing materials needed to make nuclear weapons. Its actions put it in violation of many of its international commitments, including the International Atomic Energy Agency Safeguards Agreement, the Nonproliferation Treaty, the North-South agreement on denuclearization, as well as the 1994 Agreed Framework signed with the United States.

North Korea committed itself under the Agreed Framework to freeze and dismantle nuclear facilities at Yongbyon. The facilities have been subject to IAEA monitoring since then.

In return, an international consortium -- the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) -- was established to supply heavy fuel oil to North Korea until a safer light water nuclear reactor could be built in North Korea. The new reactor would have produced fewer byproducts capable of fueling a weapons program while meeting North Korea's electric power needs.

The deal fell apart this year when North Korean officials admitted to a U.S. envoy that they had resumed their nuclear weapons program.

"We call upon North Korea," Reeker said, "to respond to the IAEA's repeated calls and requests to hold urgently needed discussions on the safeguard issues at Yongbyon and to allow IAEA to replace or restore the seals and cameras that the North has damaged."

"The international community is in agreement that North Korea's actions are a challenge to all responsible nations," he said, "and the international community is making clear that North Korea's relations with the outside world hinge on the elimination of its nuclear programs. North Korea only deepens its international isolation with these recent actions."

"We're going to continue the consultations with friends and allies," Reeker said. He noted that over the weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke with his counterparts in South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom, as well as the IAEA.

"We have made quite clear," Reeker said, "that the United States had been prepared to take bold new steps with North Korea and to help North Korea come out of its isolation, but with the disclosure of their nuclear weapons program we've also been quite clear that it's not possible to more forward in those steps that we had been prepared to take."