U.S. scraps 1994 deal with North Korea

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has decided to scrap the 1994 arms control accord with North Korea that has provided Western energy aid in return for North Korea's promise to freeze the development of nuclear arms, the New York Times reported Saturday.

North Korea acknowledged two weeks ago it was pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program, and accused the United States of taking steps that forced Pyongyang to nullify the accord. The White House has since debated whether to end the accord, with some aides warning such a step could lead North Korea to even greater nuclear violations.

For that reason, senior officials said, the administration plans to warn North Korea of serious consequences if it tries to remove nuclear material now stored under international supervision at Yongbyon, the reactor site that was the centerpiece of a previous nuclear standoff with North Korea in the early 1990s.

The immediate practical effect of the decision to scrap the agreement is the halting of the annual shipments of 500,000 tons of fuel oil from the United States to North Korea.

But abandoning the accord is also likely to mean that the United States will urge its allies Japan and South Korea to suspend, if not terminate, a multibillion-dollar project to provide modern nuclear power plants to the North.

The symbolic importance of the U.S. decision is even greater: It signifies the start of an effort by the United States to pose a stark choice for North Korea, between abandoning all of its nuclear weapons programs and facing near-total economic isolation.

In Seoul on Saturday, James Kelly, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific, said the United States wanted to bring "maximum international pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions."

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