The top US delegate at six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions dismissed Pyongyang's demands to be allowed a civilian atomic energy programme on Wednesday, the second day of negotiations.
Christopher Hill instead urged the North to focus on a draft joint statement, which sets out the principle of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and contains an offer from South Korea to provide conventional energy to its impoverished neighbour.
"I think they should focus on what is on the table," Hill told reporters after lunch with South Korea's chief negotiator, Song Min-soon.
"One of the most important elements on the table is ... a very significant conventional energy proposal, which would get for the DPRK electricity at a very early date," he said, adding that there were no plans for a light-water reactor in the draft. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is North Korea's official name.
The six countries, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas, agree in principle to denuclearising the divided Korean peninsula. But Pyongyang and Washington, the main protagonists, are at odds over how to reach that goal. Hill said a bilateral meeting with North Korea in the afternoon had made little progress.
"The DPRK was quite insistent that they want to include in the agreement a light-water reactor," he said. "It is very clear that they wanted to spend today making this a light-water day. I hope this does not become a light-water week."
The United States, which once described North Korea as part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq, insists that Pyongyang must dismantle all nuclear programmes verifiably and irreversibly, after which it could expect energy aid and security guarantees. The North wants aid and guarantees first and the right to keep civilian programmes.
"I want to stress that the DPRK has had something called graphite-moderated nuclear technology," Hill said. "Although they have been engaged in the technology for some 25 years, they have not used this technology for electricity. Rather they have used the technology to develop weapons-grade plutonium."
US President George W. Bush on Tuesday endorsed Iran's right to civilian nuclear energy, saying that right could be supported only if it did not gain expertise or materials to build an atomic weapon. "It's a right of a government to want to have a civilian nuclear program," he told a news conference in Washington.