Trio may freeze N Korean N-reactor project

Senior government officials of the three countries are to discuss the issue during a two-day meeting in Honolulu, which is to end later in the day, Kyodo News said, quoting diplomatic sources.

Under the plan, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium created to build two light-water reactors in North Korea, would delay placing orders for major parts needed for the construction, according to Kyodo.

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Such a postponement would effectively mean the three countries, which are executive board members of KEDO, had frozen the development, it said.

Government officials in Tokyo declined to confirm the report.

The KEDO project is already behind schedule despite its original target of completing one of the two reactors in 2003.

Construction of the building to house one of the reactors only began in August last year, with operations now expected to start sometime after the middle of 2005, officials said.

The consortium was created under the 1994 Agreed Framework between North Korea and the United States.

The accord was to provide North Korea with two nuclear-power reactors to deemed unsuitable for weapons production, plus 500,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil a year, in return for a freeze on the Stalinist state's nuclear arms programme.

KEDO has maintained construction work on the reactors but suspended shipments of fuel oil to North Korea from December as punishment for Pyongyang's admission in October to running a secret enriched uranium nuclear weapons programme in violation of the 1994 agreement.

Meanwhile, a North Korean freighter left a western Japanese port on Friday as relations between the two countries worsened after Tokyo warned of tighter inspections on North Korean vessels.

The 298-tonne freighter Namsan-3 left Maizuru port some 400 kilometers (248 miles) west of Tokyo, carrying home electronics goods, machinery parts and used bicycles, officials said.

The freighter also carried some of the cargo that the Man Gyong Bong-92, a North Korean ferry providing the only direct passenger link between the two countries, had been due to ship back to North Korea this week.

The ferry called off a scheduled port call here Sunday as protests grew against Pyongyang over the nuclear standoff and other issues.

Japan has warned it would boost inspections of North Korean ships to check Pyongyang's suspected drug smuggling and missile parts trade.

"We sent three extra officers this time after we concluded that we needed strict inspections," an official of Osaka Immigration Bureau said, referring to the Namsan-3.

Suspicions are growing that North Korean ships visiting Japan -- the Man Gyong Bong in particular -- are engaged in smuggling narcotics into the country and illegally purchasing components for missile development from Japanese firms.