N. Korean Reactor Deal Is Signed

North Korea and a U.S.-led consortium signed a $4.5-billion agreement here Friday for construction of two light-water nuclear reactors that were promised to North Korea under a 1994 deal for Pyongyang to freeze a nuclear development program that the West feared would produce nuclear weapons.

The agreement capped three years of difficult negotiations to replace North Korea’s graphite nuclear reactor, originally obtained from the Soviet Union, with one that other countries consider safer because it will produce less weapon-grade plutonium.

Under the 1994 accord reached in Geneva, Pyongyang agreed to halt operations involving its graphite reactor in exchange for two 1,000-watt light-water reactors whose nuclear waste is less easily converted for weapons purposes.

Friday’s agreement was reached between North Korea and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, whose members are the United States, South Korea and Japan.