China says North Korea likely to miss year-end deadline

China said Tuesday that North Korea was unlikely to meet a year-end deadline to disable and declare all of its nuclear programmes, although the "majority" of work will be finished. "Thanks to the joint efforts of all parties, the six-party talks have made constant progress," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told journalists.
"The Yongbyon nuclear facilities were suspended and disabled and the majority of work will be finalised by the end of the year." North Korea agreed to disable its plants at Yongbyon and declare all nuclear programmes by year-end in exchange for a million tonnes of fuel oil or equivalent energy aid.
Although the disablement of North Korea's nuclear facilities has gone as scheduled, it has increasingly appeared that Pyongyang is not ready to declare information concerning a suspected uranium enrichment programme.
On Monday, South Korea's top nuclear negotiator Chun Yung-Woo said a full declaration by North Korea of all its nuclear weapons programmes was essential to keep a six-nation aid-for-disarmament deal afloat.
"It's time for North Koreans to have the courage to tell the truth," Chun told AFP. "North Koreans have explained a lot about plutonium. But they seem to be less prepared to tell the truth about the UEP (uranium enrichment programme)."
Chun and his team were briefed last week by Sung Kim, the US State Department's top Korea expert, after Kim's three-day trip to review work on disabling the North's plutonium-producing nuclear plants. Spokesman Qin refused to directly comment on Pyongyang's nuclear declaration.
But he said the other five nations were gradually fulfilling their commitments to supply North Korea with energy and aid in return for the disablement and declaration.
South Korea, China, the United States and Russia have agreed to provide the North with 450,000 tons of heavy fuel oil and alternative energy aid equivalent to the value of another 500,000 tons. Japan is also a member of the six-party talks but it refuses to contribute any aid until a row over Japanese abducted in North Korea is settled.