North Korea said Wednesday that the United States had offered food aid and a suspension of sanctions if it halted its uranium enrichment programme. The comments by a foreign ministry spokesman to Pyongyang’s official news agency were the first by the North on the issue.
Before the sudden death of the North’s leader Kim Jong-Il on December 17, there were several media reports that such an agreement was imminent. At talks in July last year, Washington “proposed to take confidence-building steps such as suspension of sanctions, as well as food aid” in return for a “temporary suspension” of uranium enrichment, the North’s spokesman said.
Experts say the uranium programme disclosed in November 2010 could give the communist state a second way to make nuclear weapons. The disclosure spurred efforts to revive stalled six-party nuclear disarmament negotiations. The US and North Korea last year held two rounds of bilateral talks aimed at restarting the negotiations last held in December 2008.
A third round was reportedly scheduled in Beijing before the announcement of Kim’s death put the process on hold. The spokesman’s statement suggested that a deal was still on the cards if the US raised the amount of food it is willing to offer.