“The Possibility of Uranium Separation Issue Settling in a Disadvantageous Way for Korea”

Secretary-General Lee Jong-seok of the National Security Council (NSC) stated on November 10, “The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspection report on Korea’s uranium separation experiment will be released this week or early next week. There is a possibility that the issue will be settled in a disadvantageous way for Korea because there isn’t an international norm (for handling cases like that of Korea).”

Secretary-General Lee said as above on November 10 at a bull session of special correspondents after visiting Washington on November 9 and discussing the issue for an hour with U.S. State Department’s Deputy Secretary John Bolton.

Subsequently, Lee said, “Deputy Secretary Bolton also agreed that Korea’s experiment is a slight problem and it does not deserve such suspicion, saying that Korea actively cooperated with the IAEA and clarified transparently.”

He said, “I explained to the U.S. government that an impartial treatment (so that Korea will not suffer disadvantages) is necessary as there is no precedent for it.” Yet to the question, “What does impartial treatment mean?” he answered, “We can only decide after the report is released.”

Lee prospected that the issue will be resolved, depending on the content of the report, at the level of IAEA or even if it is be submitted to the U.N. Security Council, it will be forwarded not formally but just simply.

Concerning the Japanese press report that the U.S. “set the ‘transfer of nuclear materials to a third party’ as the ‘red line’ over which North Korea should not step,” Secretary-General Lee remarked, “The U.S. government has not informed the Korean government about the red line concerning the North Korea nuclear issue. This issue was not discussed during my visit to the U.S.”

Seung-Ryun Kim srkim@donga.com