U.S. and North Korea Sign Pact to End Nuclear Dispute

GENEVA, Oct. 21 -- After almost four months of difficult negotiations, the United States and North Korea signed an agreement today to end their dispute over North Korea's nuclear program but kept secret many details of how the accord will be put into effect.

The chief American negotiator, Robert L. Gallucci, said the two sides had signed a separate confidential document that is more specific than the four-page "agreed framework" that was made public after its signing at the North Korean mission to the United Nations here.

He insisted that the secret document was consistent with the main agreement and would be made available on a confidential basis to senior members of Congress. "Documents of this sort are not unusual in international agreements," he added.

Mr. Gallucci implied but would not say North Korea had asked that parts of the agreement not be divulged. "We agreed to respect the confidentiality of this document," he said.

The document is believed to address some of the questions raised by the public agreement, notably the issue of when North Korea will ship abroad some 8,000 fuel rods that are now being kept in a cooling pond and could in theory be processed into weapons-grade plutonium.

Under the broad agreement concluded here late Monday, North Korea will freeze its nuclear activities, renounce any ambition to become a nuclear power and open up two secret military sites to inspection by international experts so they can determine whether Pyongyang already has nuclear capability.

In exchange, an international consortium will replace North Korea's current graphite nuclear reactors with new light-water reactors, which are considered less dangerous because they produce little weapons-grade plutonium. The United States also agreed to low-level diplomatic ties with North Korea.

After the signing today, North Korea's chief negotiator, Kang Sok Ju, described it as "a very important milestone document of historic significance" that would resolve his country's nuclear dispute with the United States "once and for all."

He said the agreement, once put into effect, would resolve "all questions of the so-called nuclear weapons development by North Korea" that have raised "such unfounded concerns and suspicions."

"We have neither the intention nor the plan to develop nuclear weapons," Mr. Kang said.

At a news conference in Washington, President Clinton said the treaty was "a good deal for the United States."

"The United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments," he said. "Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations."

Washington's long concerns about North Korea's nuclear intentions surged into crisis last spring after North Korea removed fuel rods from a nuclear reactor without permitting monitoring by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

After the Clinton Administration threatened to seek United Nations sanctions against North Korea, former President Jimmy Carter held talks in Pyongyang with North Korea's dictator, Kim Il Sung, that defused the crisis and led to new negotiations with the United States.

These talks were interrupted after one day by the death of President Kim on July 8. But new talks started five weeks later. Although Mr. Kim's son, Kim Jong Il, has not yet been named his successor, Mr. Clinton addressed a so-called "letter of assurance" to him Thursday confirming Washington's commitment to the accord.

The agreement confirms that North Korea will be supplied with two new light-water reactors with a generating capacity of around 2,000 megawatts by "a target date of 2003." Contracts to provide the reactors should be signed within six months, it said. Mr. Gallucci added that South Korea would play "a central role" in financing and supplying the reactors, which are expected to cost about $4 billion.

To compensate North Korea for not refueling a small 5-megawatt reactor and not completing construction of 50-megawatt and 200-megawatt reactors, the United States said it would arrange for North Korea to be supplied with heavy oil -- some 500,000 metric tons annually by 1996 -- for heating and electricity production until the new reactors are operational.

The agreement commits North Korea to freeze all its nuclear activities within one month. It also provides that it dismantle its reactors and related operations and store its spent fuel rods while the light-water reactors are under construction. It will then "dispose of the fuel in a safe manner that does not involve reprocessing" in North Korea.

On the key question of when North Korea's secret sites will be opened for international inspection, the agreement said this would occur when "a significant portion" of the light-water reactor project was completed, "but before delivery of key nuclear components."