N Korea statement puts nuclear deal in doubt

SEOUL - North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons until the United States provides civilian atomic reactors, Pyongyang said today in a statement that significantly undermined a deal reached just a day earlier.

Six countries, including the North and the United States, had agreed yesterday to a set of principles on dismantling North Korea's nuclear programmes in return for aid and recognising its right to a civilian nuclear programme.

Sceptics had said the deal was long on words, vague on timing and sequencing, and short on action. The North's comments made clear just how short.

The US "should not even dream" of North Korea dismantling its nuclear deterrent before providing light-water reactors, Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry statement said.

Experts say light-water reactors are more proliferation-resistant than other reactors.

North Korea's claim it will not give up its nuclear weapons until the United States provides civilian atomic reactors was not in line with the deal signed in Beijing, a senior US official said.

"This was obviously not the agreement they signed and we will see what the coming weeks bring," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

South Korea's financial markets did not react sharply to the North's statement.

The statement said Pyongyang would not need a single nuclear weapon if relations with Washington were normalised. The North said in February it had nuclear weapons.

South Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China -- the other players in the six-party talks -- expressed a willingness in Monday's agreement to provide oil, energy aid and security guarantees in return for the North ditching its nuclear weapons programmes.

Washington and Tokyo agreed to normalise ties with the impoverished and diplomatically isolated North, which pledged to rejoin the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Again, Tuesday's statement said that would happen only after it got the reactors.

Failure to reach a deal in Beijing could have prompted Washington to go to the UN Security Council and seek sanctions. North Korea had said sanctions would be tantamount to war.

- REUTERS