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North Korea nullifies accord to keep peninsula nuke free
Seoul, May 13: Ditching its last legal obligation to keep itself free of nuclear weapons, North Korea today said a 1992 agreement with South Korea not to deploy nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula was `a dead document`.
Seoul, May 13: Ditching its last legal obligation to keep itself free of nuclear weapons, North Korea today said a 1992 agreement with South Korea not to deploy nuclear arms on the Korean peninsula was "a dead document".
The announcement, initially made last night in Korean and
then repeated today in English, came as US President George W
Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun planned to meet
this week in Washington to discuss North Korea's nuclear
programmes.
US officials say North Korea told them last month it already possesses nuclear weapons. In the past week, the North has said it has built "a deterrent force" to protect itself from what it calls a pre-emptive US nuclear attack.
"The inter-Korean declaration on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was thus reduced to a dead document due to the US vicious hostile policy to stifle the DPRK with nukes," the North's official news agency, KCNA, said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The two Koreas signed the agreement in January 1992, pledging not to develop or deploy nuclear weapons on the divided peninsula.
The accord was the last remaining legal obligation under which North Korea was banned from developing atomic arms. In January this year, North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a global accord to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Bureau Report
US officials say North Korea told them last month it already possesses nuclear weapons. In the past week, the North has said it has built "a deterrent force" to protect itself from what it calls a pre-emptive US nuclear attack.
"The inter-Korean declaration on denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula was thus reduced to a dead document due to the US vicious hostile policy to stifle the DPRK with nukes," the North's official news agency, KCNA, said. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The two Koreas signed the agreement in January 1992, pledging not to develop or deploy nuclear weapons on the divided peninsula.
The accord was the last remaining legal obligation under which North Korea was banned from developing atomic arms. In January this year, North Korea withdrew from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a global accord to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.
Bureau Report