North Korea will not get any more shipments of heavy fuel oil until it agrees to specific steps to verify its nuclear activities which it rejected in talks this week, the United States said today.
State department spokesman Sean McCormack said all five countries negotiating with North Korea - Japan, Russia, China, the United States and South Korea - have agreed future fuel shipments would not go forward until there was progress on a so-called verification protocol with Pyongyang.
"This is an action-for-action process," Mr McCormack said. "Future fuel shipments aren't going to move forward absent a verification regime ... they (the North Koreans) understand that."
Multilateral talks in Beijing with North Korea failed yesterday to break an impasse on checking Pyongyang's nuclear declarations, scuppering the Bush administration's hopes for a diplomatic success before president-elect Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20th.
North Korea has been in negotiations with the United States over its nuclear arms program for more than a decade and experts believe Pyongyang is holding out on the verification protocol until the Obama administration takes over next month.
The US hope is that by refusing to provide heavy fuel aid, this will force the North Koreans to rethink their refusal to agree to the verification measures.
Under an agreement last year between energy-starved North Korea and its five negotiating partners, up to 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel aid was promised as a reward for progress on denuclearisation.
By mid-November it had received about half of that amount. Japan has so far refused to give any energy aid to North Korea because of a dispute over abducted Japanese citizens.
Countries outside of the five-nation group also have volunteered to help supply North Korea with energy as a reward.
Mr McCormack said he believed Russia had already sent off an unspecified shipment of fuel oil to North Korea and it was unclear what would happen to that.
But he said Russia and the others had agreed during their meetings in Beijing this week that future fuel shipments would not go on.
The US negotiator with North Korea, Chris Hill, returned to Washington after the failed Beijing talks and briefed US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice today, said Mr McCormack, adding that Mr Hill would continue trying to get a deal.
"There's the opportunity for North Korea to sign on to this verification protocol," he said. "That still exists. We'll see. The ball is in their court."
"It's not going to move forward if the North Koreans don't agree to this verification protocol."
Reuters