Allies back U.S. on suspending oil deliveries

Key U.S. allies late Thursday backed a Bush administration decision to suspend oil deliveries to North Korea as punishment for its secret nuclear program.

The decision was announced after a day-long meeting of the four parties that operate the 8-year-old oil assistance program -- Japan, South Korea, the European Union and the United States in New York.

The allies coupled the suspension with a condemnation of North Korea for violating a 1994 agreement with the United States and its treaty obligations to remain nuclear-free. They also warned that North Korea's future relations with the four parties "hinge on the complete and permanent elimination of its nuclear weapons program."

President Bush made the decision to suspend oil shipments Wednesday night, ahead of Thursday's meeting of the four members of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, known as KEDO, which runs the program.

Other activities reviewed

A statement from KEDO's executive board said the suspension would begin with the December shipment and "future shipments will depend on North Korea's concrete and credible actions to dismantle completely its highly enriched uranium program."

"In this light, other KEDO activities with North Korea will be reviewed," said the statement read by South Korean Ambassador Sun-Sup Chang, who chairs the board.

At the White House, senior administration officials celebrated their allies' agreement to "condemn" the North Koreans outright and unequivocally demand immediate elimination -- "not steps to begin elimination," noted one of the officials -- of Pyongyang's nuclear program.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, also underscored the KEDO member countries' threat to cancel other interaction beyond the oil program, including economic aid and construction projects.

KEDO was founded after North Korea signed an agreement with the United States in 1994 pledging to become a nuclear weapons-free state.

In exchange, the United States promised to provide more than 500,000 tons of heavy oil per year. In addition, South Korea and Japan offered to pay most of the cost for two light water nuclear reactors that are of limited use for a country intent on developing nuclear weapons. The fate of that project is unknown.

Bush decided to suspend the oil shipments following North Korea's acknowledgment last month that it was secretly developing a uranium-based bomb. His only concession was to agree to allow a vessel already en route to North Korea to deliver what would be the last U.S. oil shipment unless Pyongyang decides to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

The four KEDO members condemned North Korea's nuclear weapons program and demanded that it be eliminated "in a visible and verifiable manner."

They accused North Korea of violating the 1994 agreement, its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and a joint declaration with South Korea on the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"North Korea's program ... threatens international security and undermines the international non-proliferation regime based on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," the KEDO statement said.

North Korea's future relations with the United States, the European Union, South Korea and Japan "hinge on the complete and permanent elimination of its nuclear weapons program," it said.