Tuesday, January 11, 2000
KOREA
Pyongyang 'up to old tricks'
in reactor deal
ROGER DEAN DU MARS in
Seoul
A month after the North Korean light water nuclear reactor deal was
finally sealed, Pyongyang has again resorted to brinkmanship to
extort more money - with an eye to for upcoming talks with
Washington - say observers.
Pyongyang is demanding pay be increased from US$110 (HK$854) to
US$600 a month for 200 labourers at the Keumho construction site.
The nuclear facility is being built by the Korean Energy
Development Organisation (Kedo).
Pyongyang said the wages were unfairly low, citing workers' pay
in South Korea of about US$2,000 for the same tasks.
Analysts said the wages were high by North Korean standards and
workers would probably never see the pay rise, which Pyongyang would
pocket.
Last month Seoul, Washington, Pyongyang and Tokyo - the members
of the consortium primarily responsible for funding construction of
the reactors - signed an agreement designed to cap North Korea's
ambitions of developing a nuclear arsenal.
Created a year after the 1994 Agreed Framework in Geneva, the
Kedo project had been routinely delayed. The December signing was
considered a major marker in taming the bellicose and outspoken
Stalinist regime.
Although North Korea had been threatening to withdraw the
workforce and disrupt the Kedo project, analysts said Pyongyang was
up to its old tricks again.
"Pyongyang is doing what it typically does, pushing the
envelope by making unreasonable demands to test the resolve of Kedo
members to extort more money," Professor Lee Chung-min, of the
graduate school of international studies at Yonsei University, said.
When North Korea argued for the wage rise last October, Kedo
executive director Dusaix Anderson sent a letter to Pyongyang
explaining that a written agreement in 1997 explicitly established
the fixed wages.
Analysts say North Korea is not expecting immediate capitulation
to its demand.
"That kind of demand is not accepted, especially with all
the countries involved," North Korea expert Lee Jong-heon said.
"The Kim Jong-il regime is placing a barricade in front of
the project to prepare for future Kedo negotiations and for the
upcoming Pyongyang/Washington talks."
Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan and US special envoy Charles
Kartman are due to meet in Berlin on January 22 to discuss bilateral
issues.
"This demand is a wake-up call for members," Professor
Lee said. "Kedo is a cash cow for North Korea and it's not
going to walk out of it. The countries involved should see this as a
litmus test."
<http://www.scmp.com/News/Asia/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-20000111025455826.asp> |
