SEOUL, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- North Korea has largely focused its demands at the international nuclear talks on a supply of heavy fuel oil in return for steps toward nuclear disarmament, reflecting the country's acute energy shortages, officials and analysts in Seoul say.
The communist country, which conducted a nuclear weapons test last October, returned to the long-stalled six-nation talks in December, during which it called for the lifting of U.S.-led financial sanctions in return for any denuclearization steps. As face-to-face talks late last month on the financial issue between North Korea and the United States made some progress, Pyongyang has shifted its demand to energy shipment during this week's six-way talks, officials here say.
Negotiators at the six-nation talks, aimed at ridding the North of its nuclear weapons programs, entered their second day of talks Friday with growing hope of substantial progress to end the years-long nuclear standoff.
"North Korea seems to aim at winning an energy package of electricity and oil at this round of talks in return for freezing its nuclear facilities," a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A diplomatic source also said North Korea has called for massive energy shipments, noting it would, in return, halt the operation of its graphite-moderated 5-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex. The North said it was also willing to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to enter the country to confirm whether North Korea halts the operation.
Earlier, U.S.-based broadcaster NBC News also said, citing U.S. officials, the North is offering to suspend and eventually disable its nuclear program and permit U.N. inspections of facilities in return for hundreds of millions of dollars in fuel aid to the energy-starved country.
"The North's strong calls for fuel oil shipment reflect its severe energy shortage which has forced the country to shut down factories and disrupt transportation service," the official said.
The North's chronic energy shortage has deepened after the United States stopped an annual shipment of 500,000 tons of fuel oil in January 2003 in retaliation for Pyongyang's revival of its nuclear weapons program.
The construction of light-water nuclear reactors for electricity in the North has also been scrapped following the North's nuclear crisis which erupted late 2002.
To make up the loss of fuel oil, the North has imported more electricity and crude oil from its patron China, but it remains far short of the country's energy demand. Still worse, China is under pressure to reduce its oil shipment to the North to join the U.N.-backed squeeze following its nuclear test.
North Korea is believed to have the capacity of 7.5 million kilowatts, but its actual production remains less than half of the capacity, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.
"Power was frequently going out at industrial factories because of acute energy shortages," the ministry said in a recent report.
North Korea has been pushing to build more power stations, while launching nation-wide campaigns to reduce energy consumptions in an apparent bid to brace for worsening energy shortages in the wake of U.N.-backed sanctions for its nuclear test.
The country's supreme leader Kim Jong-Il has called for constructing more hydraulic power stations as a way to ease the country's electricity crisis. Kim stressed hydro-electric power projects as a shortcut to satisfactorily meeting the increasing demand for electricity, the North's state media said.
If North Korea fully uses its rich hydropower resources, Kim said, it would bring about a signal turn in settling the problem of electricity in the near future, said the North's Korean Central News Agency.
The North has built hydroelectric power stations at small rivers across the country for the past decades. But the hydraulic power stations produce less electricity during winter time due to lacks of water in the rivers.
The North has also pushed for developing wind energy as a long-term project to find alternative sources.
