PYONGYANG, North Korea, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- The United States should compensate North Korea for electric power it has not received from delayed light water nuclear reactors the U.S. is helping build, the communist regime's broadcasting network said Sunday.
The demand for money from the United States came as officials from Japan, which has also pledged a large portion of the reactor project, visited North Korean officials in their capital in talks intended to establish diplomatic relations.
"The most urgent matter in maintaining the Democratic People's Republic of Korea-U.S. Agreed Framework is the issue of compensating DPRK's electricity loss due to the United States delaying the provision of light water reactors," the broadcast commentary said. The United States, it said, "has made several excuses, intentionally delayed the construction and recently just started the basic concrete tamping."
The project, deemed crucial to relieving North Korea's desperate shortage of electricity, "still lingers at the starting point" eight years after it was begun, the commentary said.
"Severe difficulties," it continued, "are seriously threatening our livelihood."
Instead of hastening the project, the United States has again raised the issue of nuclear facility inspection, the commentary said, an issue that "will be resolved" when the reactors are built.
The $4.9 billion reactors project was originally set to be completed next year and is now slated to be finished in 2008. The greatest share of construction costs is being provided by South Korea. The European Union has also pledged some funds. Japan has pledged $1 billion and its companies are building the reactors.
Under the Agreed Framework negotiated with the United States in 1994, North Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for two new pressurized light-water reactors and until they are completed, to receive about 3.3 million barrels of heavy fuel oil a year.
