Translated material
Alignment with Pyongyang
Nuclear experts and the Minister of War went to the DPRK
Today in Pyongyang, for the first time in seven years, the heads of the military departments of North and South Korea - Kim Il Chol and Kim Jang Soo, arriving from the South on a special flight, will meet. They will discuss “military measures to implement the provisions of the Declaration on the Development of North-South Relations, Peace and Prosperity.” The document was signed at the inter-Korean summit in the capital of the DPRK in early October.The agreement between the two military ministers will determine the prospects for inter-Korean economic cooperation, including the creation of a joint fishing zone in the disputed border area of the Yellow Sea and the organization of a trans-Korean railway connection. So far, rail freight transportation has been agreed only for the area of the special industrial zone of the North Korean town of Kaesong. Now the military will have to discuss the conditions for train traffic along the east coast. Kim Jang-soo also intends to raise the question of the fate of more than half a thousand South Korean soldiers captured by the North during the 1950-1953 war.
Today, nuclear experts from Russia, China, Japan and South Korea are arriving in the DPRK as part of the six-party negotiation process on the Korean nuclear issue. The Americans have been working in North Korea since November 1, they head the working group to disable the DPRK's nuclear facilities. Representatives of South Korea and Japan will visit the northern nuclear facilities for the first time. Over the course of three days, experts will assess Pyongyang's progress in fulfilling its obligations to dismantle three facilities in Yongbyon: a five-megawatt nuclear reactor, a radiochemical laboratory and a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. According to the agreements reached by the “six” (Russia, the USA, China, Japan and the two Koreas) in early October, the DPRK must disable these facilities by December 31. The experts will present their report to the next round of the “six-party” in Beijing, scheduled for December 6-8.